Dedicated Server with bash, PHP with help from the API

dwarfmaster1974 · May 15, 2022

How to create an event like the Horde Night?

to create an event you need something that takes the component time from you. So a process that makes sure that in certain intervals is queried how the state of the game is and executes commands based on this information.

Since my example is in the area of Linux, 'systemd' is a good choice. A construct, which makes it possible to start certain commands exactly to the second.

Such a service is divided into two parts. Once the start component (the service) and once the time component.

Here is link to a good description for systemd (german): https://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Systemd/Timers

But I am sure that there are also good tutorials in English. Just google a little bit.

Here is an example of both components:

SERVICE

Code:

[Unit]
Description=start event check
[Service]
ExecStart=/&lt;path_to_your_script&gt;/7d2d.sh events

TIMER

Code:

[Unit]
Description=7d2d event check every 10 seconds
[Timer]
OnBootSec=10
OnUnitActiveSec=10
AccuracySec=1
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

What does this do?

If activated, this service starts the bash file 7d2d.sh with the parameter events. This happens every 10 seconds.

Of course, you can make this period shorter, but for an event this is not necessary.

In this '.sh' file I can of course do everything that a bash can do. Among other things of course also PHP start.

Example:

#!/bin/bash
php /<path_to_php_script>/startup.php $@

This PHP script can query or trigger anything that the API can do and of course execute commands that get you the necessary information, and also start actions.

Here is an example of how a horde night can look like:

public function event()
{
if (EVENT_BLOODMOON) {
initEvent(get_class($this));
$locations = getPlayersLocation();
$maxZombies = ((BLOOD_MOON_ENEMY_COUNT * ePLAYERS) > MAX_SPAWNED_ZOMBIES) ? MAX_SPAWNED_ZOMBIES : BLOOD_MOON_ENEMY_COUNT * ePLAYERS;
$maxZombiesForPlayer = intval($maxZombies / ePLAYERS);
$allZombies = getEntities();
$zombiesInRadius = [];
if (count($allZombies) < MAX_SPAWNED_ZOMBIES) {
foreach ($locations as $player) {
$zombiesInPlayerRadius = getCustomEntities($player['position'], 'Zombie', LAND_CLAIM_SIZE * 3);
$playerAtPlayer = count(getCustomEntities($player['position'], 'Player', LAND_CLAIM_SIZE * 3));
$zombiesInRadius += $zombiesInPlayerRadius;
$zombiesAtPlayer = ($playerAtPlayer > 1) ? intval(count($zombiesInPlayerRadius) / $playerAtPlayer) : count($zombiesInPlayerRadius);
if (($maxZombiesForPlayer - $zombiesAtPlayer) > 0) {
targetedHorde($player[STEAM_ID], ($maxZombiesForPlayer - $zombiesAtPlayer));
}
}
}
cleanupEntities($allZombies, $zombiesInRadius);
} else {
endEvent(get_class($this));
}
}

Explanation lines by lines of what is happening there.

EVENT_BLOODMOON => true/false

Here, simply the time on the server is queried and checked whether it corresponds to the time in which the event should run.

The time query is very simple via the API:

curl http://<serverip>:<mapport>/api/getstats

The result is a JSON which can be queried in PHP without any problems:

{
gametime: {
days: 517,
hours: 23,
minutes: 3
},
players: 2,
hostiles: 10,
animals: 5
}

So in this case, you only need to determine if it is the 7/8 day and the time is between 10pm and 4am.

initEvent

Here, simply a BUFF is set, which indicates that the event is started. Setting a buff is quite simple. I used the command:

buffplayer Steam_12321313212131 eventBuffName

getPlayerLocations()

Very important to determine what is happening around the player's position during the event. This query also returns a JSON which can be saved for later use:

curl http://<serverip>:<mapport>/api/getplayerslocation

JSON:

[
{
steamid: "Steam_76561198075097605",
name: "dwarfmaster",
online: true,
position: {
x: 3073,
y: 37,
z: 818
}
}
]

The variable $locations now contains all positions of the players.

maxZombies

This is just simple math to calculate how many zombies should be spawned. You just have to play around a bit

getEntities()

This is a little more complex, because here the goal is to determine everything that is already spawned and what state it is in (dead/alive).

For this I use the command: 'le' which returns a result that looks something like this:

Code:

1. id=415881, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSoldierFeral, id=415881], pos=(3063.3, 37.6, 819.7), rot=(0.0, 21.8, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=232
2. id=415880, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSkateboarder, id=415880], pos=(3054.8, 37.0, 817.5), rot=(0.0, 270.0, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=221
3. id=415879, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSteve, id=415879], pos=(3068.9, 37.1, 815.6), rot=(0.0, 113.1, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=100
4. id=415878, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSkateboarderRadiated, id=415878], pos=(3063.9, 37.1, 817.1), rot=(0.0, 117.8, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=785
5. id=415877, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieTomClark, id=415877], pos=(3070.2, 37.1, 816.5), rot=(0.0, 98.6, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=141
6. id=415876, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSteveCrawlerFeral, id=415876], pos=(3062.9, 37.0, 817.2), rot=(0.0, 266.0, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=144
7. id=415875, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSteveRadiated, id=415875], pos=(3062.8, 37.1, 821.6), rot=(0.0, 27.0, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=505
8. id=415874, [type=EntityZombie, name=zombieSteveCrawler, id=415874], pos=(3063.6, 37.0, 819.6), rot=(0.0, 93.1, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=False, dead=False, health=74
9. id=616, [type=EntityPlayer, name=dwarfmaster, id=616], pos=(3073.3, 37.2, 818.0), rot=(5.6, 289.7, 0.0), lifetime=float.Max, remote=True, dead=False, health=200
Total of 9 in the game

Of course, this has to be parsed first, so that you can use it well in PHP.

This can be done well with RegEx.

Example:

$parts = preg_split('/(.*\. id=|, \[type=|, name=|, id=.*pos=$|$.*dead=|, health=|, )/', $entityline);

The single parts can be put into an object or into an array. How you like it.

I think the next lines are almost self-explanatory, and it gets exciting again with the following command:

[I]getCustomEntities[/I]

What happens there in the background is that it determines what entities are in a radius around the player.

This happens with the command: 'listcustomentity'.

Example:

listcustomentity x z radius type

x, z stand for the position of the player and radius for the radius in which the player should look.

The parsing is almost the same as the 'le' command.

With this information, we can now determine exactly how many new zombies to give the player.

We pass this to the command: 'cpm-targetedhorde'.

Example:

cpm-targetedhorde Steam_31213132131 15

This command from the mod CPM spawns the zombies, and these are then also set directly on the player and want to eat him. Just as it should be.

We're pretty much done, just one more thing, and we'll have it.

cleanupEntities

This is really important, because every dead zombie that is lying around somewhere costs performance, and it quickly starts to lag if you don't remove these corpses.

So this command looks how many zombies have the status dead and then removes them.

This then with the command:

cpm-entityremove 123

Done. Now we have our own hordes night.

For questions, please always ask

dwarfmaster1974 · May 16, 2022

Monitor and query the log and also the chat

Why would I want to do that?

Monitoring the log and the chat are central elements to trigger certain events in the game, or to enable players to enter things in the chat and react to them.

The events that can be monitored in the log are, for example.

login / join
death of a player
kill (zombie, animal, player)
levelup

The chat can be read out and reacted to depending on how you want to read out commands. The best way to do this is with a prefix. Most often the '/' is used for this.

Example for teleporting to the home base:

PLAYERNAME: /home

How can I make this happen?

Here, too, the API helps us where we can quite easily get a number of log entries specified by us.

Example for getting the last 200 entries:

curl http://<serverip>:<mapport>/api/getlog?adminuser=myadmintoken&admintoken=verysecrettoken&count=-200

Of course, the response then just needs to be evaluated. This is also supplied with format JSON, which makes it a bit easy.

Example:

{
"firstLine": 10000,
"lastLine": 10200,
"entries": [
{
"date": "2022-05-16",
"time": "10:37:56",
"uptime": "0",
"msg": "Chat (from '-non-player-', entity id '-1', to 'Global'): 'SERVER': Test",
"trace": "",
"type": "Log"
},
{...},
{...},
{...}
]
}

Simply iterate through the 'entries' array and evaluate the 'msg' accordingly. It contains exactly what we need.

You just have to parse such a message and check if there is a message in it or not to trigger a command.

Example:

$parts = preg_split('/(Chat $from \'|\', entity id \'|\', to \'Global\'$: \'|\'

/', $entry);

To test PHP-RegEx I recommend this page here: https://www.phpliveregex.com/#tab-preg-split

This really helped me a lot, because there is a lot to parse.

These individual (chat) pieces then provide you with all the information you need to start further actions:

$steamid = $parts[1];
$entityid = $parts[2];
$playername = $parts[3];
$message = $parts[4];
if (isStartingWith($message, '/')) {
$command = substr($this->message, 1);
}

With the variable $command you can then trigger a teleport for example.

Here is an example for the input '/home' which triggers the command 'cpm-teleportplayerhome':

$url = 'http://<serverip>:<mapport>/api/executeconsolecommand?adminuser=myadmintoken&admintoken=verysecrettoken&raw=true&command=' . urlencode('cpm-teleportplayerhome '.$steamid);
$ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt_array($ch, [CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true, CURLOPT_URL => $url]); $result = curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch);

'cpm-teleportplayerhome' teleports the player to his active bedroll or bed.

That's all you need to monitor the chat input.

For monitoring server events, a little more is needed, because there are a few more of them. Here are a few examples of what the messages in the logs can look like and how best to parse them.

// JOIN
// Message = Player connected with ID 'Steam_12345678912345678' 'EOS_00055455dg45h45hhdd54n5dh45dh412' and IP '192.168.178.123' named 'dwarfmaster'

$parts = preg_split('/(ID \'|\' \'|\')/', $message);

$steamid = trim($parts[1]);
$playername = trim($parts[6]);
$eosid = trim($parts[2]);
$ip = trim($parts[4]);

// KILL
// Message = entityKilled: dwarfmaster (Steam_12345678912345678) killed zombie zombieFatCopRadiated with dwarfmaster-Gun

$parts = preg_split('/(.*entityKilled: |\) killed |$| with )/', $message);
$typeParts = explode(' ', $parts[3]);

$animal = (trim($typeParts[0]) == 'animal'); // checks if entity is an animal > true/false
$entity = trim($typeParts[1]);
$with = trim($parts[4]);
$playername = trim($parts[1]);
$steamid = trim($parts[2]);

// DEATH
// Message = playerDied: dwarfmaster (Steam_12345678912345678) died @ 250 50 519

$parts = preg_split('/(playerDied: | \(|$ died @ )/', $message);
$deathLocationParts = explode(' ', $parts[3]);

$playername = trim($parts[1]);
$steamid = trim($parts[2]);
$deathLocation = ['x' => intval($deathLocationParts[0]), 'y' => intval($deathLocationParts[1]), 'z' => intval($deathLocationParts[2])];

// LEVELUP
// Message = playerLeveled: dwarfmaster (Steam_12345678912345678) made level 545 (was 544)

$parts = preg_split('/(playerLeveled: |\)| made level |\(|was )/', $this->entry['msg']);

$playername = trim($parts[1]);
$steamid = trim($parts[2]);
$newlevel = intval($parts[4]);
$oldlevel = intval($parts[6]);

// LEFT
// Message = Player disconnected: EntityID=616, PltfmId='Steam_12345678912345678', CrossId='EOS_00055455dg45h45hhdd54n5dh45dh412', OwnerID='Steam_12345678912345678', PlayerName='dwarfmaster'

$parts = preg_split('/(\')/', $message);

$steamid = trim($parts[1]);
$playername = trim($parts[7]);

With all this information, of course, you can do a lot. Whether that's saving for stats, or showing players in chat who just came onto the server, or even which player just died or killed which zombie.

Done. Now we have monitoring of the chat and server events.

pharrisee · May 16, 2022

On the topic of monitoring logs, allocs also has a log push interface at http://<serverip>:8082/sse/log which will push changes to you as it goes, rather than polling.

It puts lighter load on the server and you generally get the log pushed even quicker than polling.

This does need a ServerSentEvents (also known as EventSource) connection from the client (your PHP script).

dwarfmaster1974 · May 22, 2022

Thanks to @pharrisee for the tip with the SSE!

That has of course changed some procedure, how to monitor the log or the chat best.

Immediately implemented it, of course, which cost me a little time, but it was absolutely worth it.

The big advantage of SSE is the low load and the synchronous processing of the inputs or the reception of certain events.

This means that inputs in the chat take place without any delay and can be reacted to immediately. The same is true for events like a kill, which is registered immediately without taking a few seconds.

The implementation in PHP for this is in principle quite simple, if you have dealt with the topic a little bit.

I used an external library for this (again, thanks to @pharrisee for the recommendation)
https://github.com/eislambey/php-eventsource
After including the library, you have to start a process that does the monitoring. This can look like the following:

$es = new EventSource('http://<serverip>:<mapport>/sse/log?adminuser=myadmintoken&admintoken=verysecrettoken');
$es->onMessage(function (Event $event) {
new Logdispatch($event->data);
});
$es->connect();

Important!

For this, of course, the server must already be running, otherwise the connection will not work. So it may only be started when the live map is accessible.

Behind the class 'Logdispatch' the actual parsing of the log entries takes place, of which there are quite a lot. I decided to do a pre-sorting first, so that not every message is processed and if then also from the correct endpoint.

It then looks like this:

class Logdispatch
{
/**
* @throws Exception
*/
public function __construct($entry)
{
$entry = json_decode($entry, true);
if (isset($entry['type']) && $entry['type'] == 'Log') {
if (isChat($entry['msg'])) {
new Chat(new ChatEntry($entry));
} else if (isServerEvent($entry['msg'])) {
new Serverevents(new ServerEventEntry($entry));
}
}
}
}

What happens here is that only entries of the type 'Log' are processed, because only there is the information interesting for us.

With 'isChat()' and with 'isServerEvent()' we sort out if the arrived log entry is a chat or a server event.

Here is an example:

function isChat($message): bool
{
if (isStartingWith($message, 'Chat') && !isContaining($message, 'non-player')) {
$return = true;
}
return $return ?? false;
}

This identifies all chat entries and at the same time filters out messages from the server ('non-player').

With this information we can then trigger actions like in my previous POST, but much more synchronously.

What we don't get at this point, however, is the problem of having events that are repetitive and precise in time. Like for example every 10 seconds to check if there is a blood moon and possibly send new zombies. For this I have already described that you can create a systemd service, but there are other ways.

This one is a little bit like getting a text message directly from hell and actually hurts just looking at it, but it works stable and can be used in the user context:

user@ubuntu:~$ crontab -e

Code:

SDTD="/&lt;path_to_your_script&gt;/7d2d.sh"
* * * * * ${SDTD}
* * * * * ( sleep 10; ${SDTD})
* * * * * ( sleep 20; ${SDTD})
* * * * * ( sleep 30; ${SDTD})
* * * * * ( sleep 40; ${SDTD})
* * * * * ( sleep 50; ${SDTD})

But also a great solution is the Dispatcher from @pharrisee which he once quickly developed.

You can find it at: https://github.com/pharrisee/dispatcher

The big advantage here, of course, is that this runs on both Linux and Windows, since it's written in golang.

dwarfmaster1974 · May 22, 2022

As I wrote in the first post, you can really do quite a lot. But I also promised to explain everything once.

Let's take a look at the list and check it off:

spawn zombies or other entities (also in hordes)
teleport players
give items to players
apply buffs and also query them
show tooltips
play sounds
send messages to the chat
monitor and query the log and also the chat
determine player positions
open up windows
execute twitch commands
create own events
show infos in a ticker way with tooltips
give quests to the player
watch server events

So there are still a few things to check off about.

Give items to players, play sound, show tooltips in a ticker way, ...

There is always the need to simply execute commands on the console, and there are the commands that are available in the server managers (such as CPM or server tools) help. Of course, it is helpful to build a function that helps you.

Example:

function executeConsoleCommand($command)
{
$command = is_array($command) ? implode(' ', $command) : $command;
$url = 'http://<serverip>:<mapport>/api/executeconsolecommand?adminuser=myadmintoken&admintoken=verysecrettoken&raw=true&command=' . urlencode($command);
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($ch, [CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true, CURLOPT_URL => $url]);
$return = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $return ?? null;
}

With this, you can do the following nice things with the help of commands that are available in CPM or similar:

// give item to players
executeConsoleCommand(['cpm-giveplus', $steamid, $itemname, $amount, $quality, $usages]);

// play sounds
executeConsoleCommand(['playsound', $steamid, $soundname]);

// show tooltips to evry online player
executeConsoleCommand(['cpm-tooltip', 'all', $nameOfTheToolTipBuff]);

But sometimes it is necessary to run some things that do not work on the server, but even here there is a great solution.

Namely the execution on the client itself. For this in CPM there is the command 'eoc' (executeonclient) which helps you there.

The cool thing you can do is for example open a game window on the client to show it 'static' information there.

What does it take? A few things. First, of course, we need a window, we create that in windows.xml:

<window name="infoWindow" anchor="CenterCenter" pos="0,0" width="150" height="150">
<rect name="content" pos="0,0">
<label depth="4" name="name" width="50" height="50" color="255,255,255" pivot="center" justify="center" text="THE INFO" font_size="70"/>
</rect>
</window>

and a 'window_group in the 'xui.xml'.

<window_group name="INFOGROUP">
<window name="infoWindow"/>
</window_group>

then of course we need a function that facilitates the execution on the client:

function executeOnClient($steamid, $command): void
{
$command = is_array($command) ? implode(' ', $command) : $command;
executeConsoleCommand(['eoc', $steamid, '"' . $command . '"']);
}

then the rest is not bad at all:

// open a window
executeOnClient($steamid, ['xui', 'open', 'INFOGROUP', '1', '1']);

// close a window
executeOnClient($steamid, ['xui', 'close', 'INFOGROUP', '1']);

That was it already ... I think I have now written everything once in detail and am very happy about feedback.

If someone has still more ideas, what one can make in such a way, I am pleased about it also very much.

Best regards from the north of Germany

dwarfmaster

Dedicated Server with bash, PHP with help from the API

dwarfmaster1974

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pharrisee

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dwarfmaster1974

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dwarfmaster1974

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