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Hosting Custom Maps & Mods: Faster Downloads via http Redirect

If your server is running custom campaigns, custom maps or modifications then players will need to have these files in order to play there. If player's have not already obtained and installed the necessary files, they can autodownload them directly from the game server if the server has set sv_allowdownload to 1 (which is default, and you will almost certainly want it so).

Supposably, the setting "sv_dl_maxrate" can be put as high as 42000, giving player's up to approximately 42KB/s of bandwidth to download files from the server. However, it seems this is broken in ET (compared to RTCW 1.4x, a patch made by Splashdamage) and there is an absolute cap of 25000 (25KB/s). The actual speed player's can download from the server at is hence capped by the lower of sv_maxrate, sv_dl_maxrate, the overall cap of 25kps, and of course by their own 'rate' setting.

25KB/s (that's bytes, not bits) is adequate for small files, but far too slow for large files such as big custom maps or mods. Of course, it also takes bandwidth (and some cpu) from the gameserver, maybe none of which you have going spare - or perhaps you have faster and cheaper from a filehost. If you have a busy server running brand new custom maps, file downloads can be a LOT of bandwidth!

This is where the web-download feature comes in. If you have a web server that can host files for download, you can set the game server to redirect the autodownload files to be sent from the web/file server instead, at the max rate the web server allows! This feature is highly recommended for servers running custom files of several megabytes.


set sv_wwwDownload "1"
set sv_wwwBaseURL "http://www.yoursite.com/files"
set sv_wwwCheckPath ""
set sv_wwwDLDisconnected "0"
set sv_wwwFallbackURL ""



In the example above the .pk3 files should be at the following address: "http://www.yoursite.com/files/etmain/file.pk3"
These must be the exact same .pk3 files as in use on the server, do not zip them or anything. Note also the BaseURL does not finish with a backslash!

Note the "etmain" subfolder that is in the URL for where the actual file is found, but is NOT specified in wwwBaseURL; ET will automatically add this folder to the seek path, but if you are running a modification, it is not always going to be etmain! Consider where the files are kept on the server - they will either be somewhere within "etmain" subfolder or within the subfolder of a mod like ETPro. If the files are kept in etmain, then the url would be:
http://www.yoursite.com/files/etmain/file.pk3
However, if they are kept somewhere within the mod's folder, for example etpro, then the url would be:
http://www.yoursite.com/files/etpro/file.pk3

If, on the game server, files are kept within subfolders of the etmain or etpro folder, ignore this and just put them straight into the "etmain" or "etpro" folder on the filehost. By the way, I beleive it will sometimes work ok even if you put files that are supposed to go into etpro folder into the etmain one instead (but not vice-versa), but this would not be good practice and is definately not recomended.

Another caveat is that on the server, folders like etmain and etpro should really all be kept in lowercase, as should be the respective folders on the http fileserver. If the server does not use folder names that are all lowercase, you may need to have the folder names on the file server be in exactly the same case.


There are also three further settings related to download redirect:

set sv_wwwCheckPath ""
I beleive when left blank this will make the server look in the default folder for the .pk3 files to send to clients when downloading with the www method. The default folder is "etmain". When there is e.g. "serverfiles" here, the server will look for them in "serverfiles" subfolder, instead of "etmain". I suggest leaving this blank.

set sv_wwwDlDisconnected "0"
When set to 1 player's will download the necessary files before being fully connected to the server - the benefits is that they do not take up a player slot on the server while downloading (which also means it's easier to maintain team number balance), and it appears downloading player's dont have problems when the map changes on the server. The downside for the player is they might spend ages downloading files, only to complete them and end up facing "server full" and having to queue! This might be even more annoying if the player had to queue even before starting the downloads. Because of this I suggest enabling disconnected downloads when there are large files, and disabling it when it's just a few smallish files that won't take long to download.

set sv_wwwFallbackURL ""
You can put in the URL to a webpage here, and if the download redirect fails then it will exit ET and open the webpage. The idea is you can have a simple page giving alternative locations to download the files from the web in the usual way. If you leave FallbackURL blank it will default back to downloading from the server instead (thanks Sphere).
Example: set sv_wwwFallbackURL "http://www.rtcw.jolt.co.uk/server"
Which opens this.


As a final note, bear in mind that using urls for http redirect without permission makes you a bandwidth-theiving scumbag, and puts you at the mercy of the filehost owner finding out and doing nastly things for payback.




Re-Direct Settings Reccomendations
Let's assume you have a http or ftp filehost. That does not mean that it is definately better to use the download redirect however. This is something open to opinion - here's a few examples to illustrate mine:

Server running a stock campaign of stock maps, no mods, no custom files at all
No need for any download system, though might aswell leave sv_allowdownloads at 1.
Server running a custom campaign of stock maps, no mods
Here the only file clients should need to download is going to be a couple of KB, there is no point with a redirect, it is only going to leave open more possibilities for problems.
Server running a custom campaign of stock maps, latest official ETPro mod
Here you're clients are highly likely to already have the sizeable files, since ETPro is very popular. They wont have the custom campaign, but it's a trivial download anyway. I suggest either sticking with just the server download system, or use the http redirect but leave sv_wwwFallbackURL empty so players can default back to downloading from the server.
Server running a custom campaign of stock maps, a brand-new or beta ETPro - version (or some relatively unpopular client-side mod of ~2-5mb)
Several players are likely to need to download a couple of megs, so the redirect download is worth it, but the download isnt really huge so leave sv_wwwFallbackURL empty so players can default back to downloading from the server, espeically so if you change the campaign file.
Server running custom maps, or some large modification
Several players are very likely to need to download quite large files. Go with the redirected downloads, and set up a html page for the sv_wwwFallbackURL.


Problems with Download Re-Direct
Problem with the HTTP download: it's buggy. Clients will sometimes crash if the game cant find the files where it thinks they should be, and it's a pain for players even if it doesnt crash if their web browser suddenly pops up and gives some 404 "cannot be found" message. Also, if the files get corrupted on the filehost or during download, the client is very likely to crash - or continuously redownload the files. Make sure the file host is set to send the pk3 files as application, binary or octet-stream, and NOT as text or plain, which will corrupt the file and end up with the continuously re-downloading issue. Sometimes the clients continuously download the same files over and over for no apparent reason.

In short, ET's redirect system isn't very stable for clients, and it seems worst if the redirect points to an FTP server (especially for Linux users). I would still reccomend use of redirected downloads for any reasonably large file however: it is at least a practical method to get larger files (and the slow server download really isn't), it works most of the time and any crashing is of ET itself - I've not heard of any sort of damage to anything.

(Extra thanks Moron + others for assistance here.)

There is also an issue that affects any method of autodownload. Copy & paste of the explanation given by Rippin Kitten in the Splashdamage forums details the issue well:

" Under a pure server, all game elements in use on the server need to be on the client as well. Since most custom maps bundle a campaign file in with the map pk3 the server loads this campaign file (and all campaign files while under campaign mode) on startup. So even though a small 2kb campaign script is being used by the server, it will require that all clients have the big massive pk3 its located in.

Two things you can do.

One, deal with it. Hopefully all of your clients are willing to sit through the painfully slow download process and get every missing pk3. You can set up the http redirect which is a much faster transfer system, and if you can host it on a seperate connection you don't tank the server with file requests. You can also post them on your website so your players can get them that way. Finally, pulling pk3s out of the etmain directory when you don't plan on using them will help as well.

Second, you can run the server as unpure. This does introduce the possibility of clients running models, sounds, or voice mods that not everyone is running, potentially "unbalancing" the game. When the custom map gets called clients will download it then. So deciding to lose all your players from the get-go or weeding them out when the custom map finally comes up is a decision you need to make. "

However, please note that the quote comes from early days in ET, where mappers were including campaign files inside the map's .pk3 - a practice since stopped, by 99% of mappers anyway (and if the other 1% pay so little attention to this major problem, their maps are probably not worth playing anyway). It is still good practice to remove any maps not being used on the server though. If you wish to run multiple servers, then run any server that uses the problem maps from their own ET install.

Another possibility might be to open up the .pk3 and remove any campaign files, but this would mean all players (wether they have the original or not) would have to download your modified version of the .pk3, and conflicts with the "official" version are likely. Further this would probably fall foul of the author's terms of use.

When using custom maps/campaigns please have consideration of the .PK3 Count Bug.

@ pippy
.PK3 Count Bug

There is a bug in the engine which results in problems if you have too many .pk3 files inside etmain folder. The .pk3 files can accrue quite rapidly if you play on servers running custom maps, since you will need to download the custom map file.

Worse, when you join a server running a customised campaign, ET requires the client aswell as the server to have the campaign file. Although the campaign file itself is small, ET will make the client download the entire .PK3 file it is kept in. This can result in players having to download large .pk3 files just for the campaign script, and even if the file is kept small, this adds to the .PK3 count problem. It even appears (!) that when ET loads, it loads all campaign scripts wether they are going to be used or not, so any campaign script kept in the server's etmain folder will result in downloads for players.

The only solution seems to be for mappers to refrain from putting campaign scripts in with their custom maps, servers to remove any custom maps and campaign scripts not actually in use, and for players to remove any unnecessary .PK3 files should the PK3 count bug appear to be causing problems (usually being that ET crashes upon loading). To reduce the issue it would appear wise for server admins to share campaign scripts with each other, so for example frequently used campaign scripts (e.g. 6 map campaign) would not require players to download more files which have essentially the same function.

Maybe more detail on the issue in this Splashdamage thread.
http://www.splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&t=4917

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perhaps can one build into our forum??? (for our server)???

Wunderbra!

I think it works...

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