Need to limit clients to only ONE paintball server

[deliot]

Hello,  I need to set up a private paintball server on a LAN where the clients can't access the internet or the other Paintball servers.  So I need my server (which I've set up and which already works) to be the ***ONLY*** paintball server that the players can see.

My Question:  How can I make it so the clients only see my server and no other servers.

Thanks in advance,
Dan

[SuperMAn]

If you have a router or firewall you could block access to the server list URL, which I don't know off hand.  I will get it when I get home.

I think you might even be able to do it through the player configs.  I will look into it when I get home.

[T3RR0R15T]

I don't think thats possible atm.

You can block the serverlist (dplogin.com:27900 - udp), but there are two other things. At first, each client can connect manually to a server. Secondly, each client can start an own server (which will be in the local serverlist).

There is a server blacklist url in the code, but i don't know if it supports wildcards and if jitspoe has implemented some parts of it already.

[deliot]

I was wondering if I messed with the HOSTS file on Windows if I could block the other servers?  Maybe redirect the global server to localhost or something?

[SuperMAn]

I suppose you could redirect dplogin.com to localhost with the host file.  You would have to do it on each users machine though.   Try it out

[deliot]

This is a lab situation, and I have the ability to image the entire lab, so I can edit the HOSTS file and make the change stick.  It's an XP lab with Steadystate, so changes will be permanent.  I'll give that a go and report back on how it went.

[ViciouZ]

Redirecting dplogin.com to localhost will also prevent global login from working, just to clarify things.

[deliot]

Hey everyone, 

I got this to work like a charm.  Thanks for the help and advice.

QUICK REVIEW: 
I want to set up the game behind a firewall on a private LAN.  I don't want players to see other paintball servers, just my server.  Also, I don't want them to do a global login.  This is both for "rules" reasons where I work, and to make it easy for players to hit the correct server right away.  Also, I can image the lab full of computers the same, so the settings will be consistent.

DIRECTIONS:
(1)  edit serverlist.dat found in the Paintball2 --> pball folder in Windows, and delete all server entries in the file.
(2)  on individual computers, edit the hosts file.  Add the following "mapping" at the end of the hosts file:

Code: [Select]

127.0.0.1       dplogin.com
127.0.0.1       www.dplogin.com

Blocking www.dplogin.com is probably not necessary, since blocking the first entry did the job, but I did it anyway just to make sure.  NOTE:  this will totally block the domain, including access to these forums, etc.  So the players can't visit this website for tips, etc...

That's all it took.  Once I "flushed" serverlist.dat, the only server that showed up was mine :-)

My private server is now ready to go for up to 34 players.

[SuperMAn]

Hey deliot,

If you want you can edit it to  dplogin.com/serverlist.php instead.  Then you should have access to global login and the forums, but the server list would still be blocked.

[T3RR0R15T]

Works only for the serverbrowser. The game doesn't use that serverlist.