January 2006

Living in Angers

I have arrived, and just got an internet connection, so I can probably start to brush up on whatever is happening online.

For starters, it would seem that inRO had the same packet changes as bRO, pRO, as well as idRO had. Maybe the server operators are taking advantage of the fact that a good public fakeServer hasn'tbeen written yet? Well, let them sit on their laurels. As long as the primary weakness of their approach isn't addressed, fakeServer will get written - somehow.

For the server operators who read this blog, welcome :)

My laptop

Just in case anyone's interested in how my laptop looks like.

It runs K/Ubuntu very well, with only a few minor glitches (like the screen going awry when something goes full screen, some sound multiplexing problems, etc) but I'm thoroughly satisfied with it.

Wireless mouse

I purchased a wireless mouse today and I'm so glad it works in Linux (despite the package claiming it only works with Windows). Standards are a great thing to have - if there wasn't a standard like USB I would have been stuck with peripherals that would only work with certain types of hardware (like mac only or pc only).

bRO packet problems

Looks like the server update that struck bRO last night is a tough nut to crack. Instead of the game guard sync packet coming in every five minutes, game guard now checks the packets during login, as well as character selection.

Previously, botters would simply ignore the game guard packet and would just allow themselves to be disconnected. This doesn't prevent novice harvesters and mules from botting, since the accounts are expendable anyway. At this point however, the bot can only logon using XKore 1 (which takes care of the gameguard syncs) and thus is not really suitable for harvesters or multiple players on a single PC.

I may need to stop work on the webMonitor plugin for the meantime in order to do some updates on the fakeServer. As was discussed before, I'm planing to change it into something that's less of a strain on the host system. Roger - admin of the Brasilian OpenKore forums - made a test using the current game guard and hosted the server publicly. ~200 users were able to connect, but the server gave in after a few hours of hammering.

VCL suggested that I use a pull protocol, and said that HTTP is a good transport protocol. I guess I can use Base::Webserver for this, since I already have experience in using that module form the webMonitor plugin.

What I'm afraid of is that this packet change would also come to pRO. Not that I won't be able to bot anymore, but I'm already expecting that botters from pRO would definitely flood the forums (yet again) asking how to solve the problem. Or even ask questions like they know everything but actually know nothing X_X

OpenKore webMonitor

Lately I've been very busy with the webMonitor that I haven't been able to update this blog. It's just that I enjoy coding more than I enjoy speaking my mind :)

ICEAuthority errors

Getting these errors in Ubuntu?

_IceTransTransNoListen: unable to find transport: tcp
_IceTransmkdir: ERROR: euid != 0,directory /dev/X will not be created.
_IceTransmkdir: ERROR: Cannot create /dev/X
_IceTransPTSOpenServer: mkdir(/dev/X) failed, errno = 13
_IceTransOpen: transport open failed for pts/viper:
_IceTransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners: failed to open listener for pts
_IceTransISCOpenServer: Protocol is not supported by a ISC connection
_IceTransOpen: transport open failed for isc/viper:
_IceTransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners: failed to open listener for isc
_IceTransSCOOpenServer: Protocol is not supported by a SCO connection
_IceTransOpen: transport open failed for sco/viper:
_IceTransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners: failed to open listener for sco

The simple solution is to restart the computer in recovery mode and either delete .ICEAuthority from the home directory of your user, or change its ownership into user:users. The reason is that you probably ran K3b as a user - K3b modified .ICEAuthority to be owned by root and thus denied you from logging in as a normal user account.

If you really want to run K3b, it is suggested that you run it as root (as it recommends). To do so, type sudo k3b instead of just k3b, or modify your menus accordingly.

New Blog Engine soon

I'll be shifting to a new blog format as soon as I have time to properly create the designs. Currently the blog runs on thingamablog; however I came upon a blog engine called blosxom that totally blew me away. Past content won't be lost however, as I will be migrating my past articles too.