CivStats.com - View your Pitboss games on the web

many people setting up pitboss servers do not really understand the risks associated with setting up and maintaining web servers.

This caught my attention as I am considering setting up a Pitboss server.

Would it be possible for you to outline in brief what are the major risks associated with specifically Pitboss and what measures can be taken to minimise them.

Additionally I would be interested to know if anyone operating a Pitboss server has had any security issues.
 
It doesn't supply me with an error code, a box pops up telling me that there has been a program error, and I can either let the program skip the step and continue, or I can quit the program... I can give you a screenshot if you like.

I managed to replicate that on a different computer locally. It's either a problem that I didn't include the right files in the build (VBx2005 is pretty weird about its build code, and hard to figure what to package) or somehow I don't initialize something right that still works on a computer where the program's been previously installed but not on a new installation. I will try to figure that out today.
 
This caught my attention as I am considering setting up a Pitboss server.

Would it be possible for you to outline in brief what are the major risks associated with specifically Pitboss and what measures can be taken to minimise them.

Additionally I would be interested to know if anyone operating a Pitboss server has had any security issues.

No major risks in setting up Pitboss, only a relatively minor risk inherent in opening up a virtually unknown TCP port from your firewall to your pitboss server. The major risk is setting a webserver out on the public internet, as CB says not specifically a pitboss issue.

I'm unaware of anyone having any security issues - I've had three or four running constantly for months, and my most recent review of them has revealed no attempted or successful break-ins (and yes, someone could have coopted the box and erased their tracks, but the odds of that are very low indeed).

That said, I endeavor to apply M$ security patches fairly often, I use an administrator account with a very good password (numbers, letters, special characters), and the boxes run the bare minimum of services and no applications besides pitboss and civstats uploader. I also do not make the IP address of the pitboss server public (I PM it to game participants prior to the game start).
 
I love this idea. I am having a little trouble setting it up. The Pitboss gaming is running without trouble and everyone has logged in and taken at least one turn. The Civstats program seems to be running, but the website says "The Uploader is not Connected". The program itself is alternating between 'parsing' and 'monitoring'. It also reports the time that it last connected succesfully.

Any ideas on what I could be doing wrong?

Thanks for the great work. Even though I don't have it running yet, I see that it will be excellent.

edit...
I read which port to open somewhere for Civstats, but now can't find it. I currently have DMZ enabled until I get it working. Then I was going to change to opening the proper port/ports.

more info...
I see that the screen on the website IS updating the date in the game. It still says 'No' under 'Finished Setup'. It still says that it isn't connected when I click on 'Next' in the setup.
 
Thanks. I will check it again in a few days. Do you (or anyone) know which ports need to be open on the router for civstats? I was thinking it was 80, but can't find where I read that.
 
Any particular reason?
If you read the main page at the site... :)

IMPORTANT NOTICE!
The Civstats site is being transferred over to a completely new server today. All of the data transfer has already been done, and I am about to do the database transfer.

It will take a few days for the DNS change to propagate throughout the Internet. You will be unable to view game stats until you are viewing the new server, as they'd be out of date anyway.

I will configure the upload script to deny all uploads to the old server. Theoretically this will cause all the uploaders out there to keep retrying their uploads until it gets a successful response (which will happen when the DNS change is propagated to the DNS servers you use). What this means is that you should keep your uploaders running even though they will show that there was an error uploading.

You will know that you are viewing the new server because I will put a new news post on the new server and not this old one

Here goes nothing!
 
If you read the main page at the site... :)
I couldnt see any message at the time :(

Well I have the new site allready :) now wait only untill the hosts do to

Suggestion:
Could we have a small box on the "My Games" Page showing red when the uploader is not connected?
 
If you add the following two entries to your Windows 'hosts' file (either on the workstation you use to view CivStats, or on your pitboss server if you're running one) it'll resolve properly, just make sure to remove the entries in a few days when things are resolving normally again:

208.113.194.244 civstats.com
208.113.194.244 www.civstats.com
 
Once again I forget to check this thread for a couple weeks and there are tons of posts I would have replied to!

I'll try to cover the main things:

Re: A local civstats server type thing. I believe what's being proposed is that either the uploader has a built in HTTP server so that you can access the stats without civstats.com, or the uploader spits out static HTML pages every time something changes which can then be viewed directly. The latter is actually what I did in OLStats, an old very similar project of mine. I actually might do this. It's possible that I'll output a very simple display of who has completed their turn and how much time is left. It wouldn't have the graph or full game log or historical information or anything like that, but that basic info should be enough for most people. Yes... I will think on this some more. It certainly would be pretty simple.

Re: "Uploader not connected." I am getting to the bottom of this problem. I'm working with someone who is having this problem as I type this. The technical problem is that the uploader IS connecting and uploading data, but one of the fields in the database, "numplayers" is for some reason not getting set, and by chance that's the field I depend on to tell if data has been uploaded. I am trying to figure out if it's a server-side issue or an actual uploader issue. Regardless, it will be fixed!

Re: Wacky turn timer, oh my! This is a problem with Civ 4 and there's unfortunately no way to fix it. I have thought a lot about trying to predict its inaccuracy and such but the problem is it varies so much. It appears to be affected by how fast the host computer is and how much in-game stuff it has to process. That's why the timer slows down as you get later in the game. In the end, I think it's much simpler just to know and tell people "The timer is slow" than have to explain "The timer is sometimes slow, but the site tries to predict it which means sometimes it's actually fast but it might get more accurate over time unless too many people log in over and over because then it gets slow etc etc."

Re: Site suggestions. I got a new job a couple weeks ago. For this new job I've been writing a pretty hefty PHP app, and I've been having a ton of fun learning how to use stuff in php that I haven't used before. Mainly, php5 classes. It has really given me an itch to rewrite the civstats site backend using these new techniques, which would make the code much cleaner and easier to work with. Why am I telling you this? It means that I will actually be working on adding suggested features and maybe actually doing Civstats 2.0 which will be really cool. The reason I got discouraged and kind of abandoned 2.0 before was because I knew I was going to have to rewrite the Civstats site (it was originally written as a personal tool for one game of mine, so the core code was not designed to be what it is now!) and didn't really feel up to doing it. But now that I've seen how easy it would be to rewrite it cleanly, I really want to. I probably won't do it until I'm done with my work project which will be a week or two but then expect to see some changes. Notable features I will implement when this time comes:
  • Better notification of when an uploader has disconnected. I like the idea of having an icon on the "My Games" page.
  • A mobile friendly version of the site.
  • Double-move indicator.
  • Finally adding the Warlords stuff properly.
  • More?

Civstats 2.0. I would like to know how interested people would be in Civstats 2.0. Here's the idea: You will be able to access ALL of your Civ information on the website. Basically, anything you can view in the in-game advisers would be available on the website. You might even be able to see a (ugly :P) map of your land and can see where your units and enemy units are. You could even issue an "end turn" command to end your turn without needing to actually log in which would be useful for those early turns where you do nothing for many turns. Of course only the players who actually own the civs would be able to see the information for their civ, and any information related to other players would only be available as much as it is in the game. It would also allow the site to display "world events" like when someone builds a wonder, or when two nations go to war. Of course this information would only show if you have met the civs in question. My favorite part of the whole thing is that at the very end of the game, the site would have enough information to show post-game stats, much like you get in a single player game.

Sounds great, right? Here's the catch: You would need to run a mod that gives the uploader access to the information. You could run it as a "serverside" mod which means the players wouldn't have to download anything but they would be greeted with a "Files differ from host" message every login. Or you could run it as a bona fide mod, requiring all players to download and install the mod. Both aren't ideal, but there is no other way. So, knowing that you would have to do one of those two things to get all of the cool features above, would you do it?
 
The "uploader not connected" bug should be fixed now! It turns out that game titles with a single quote in them were causing the problem, but I fixed the code to properly handle this now. Sorry it took so long!
 
Civstats 2.0. I would like to know how interested people would be in Civstats 2.0. Here's the idea: You will be able to access ALL of your Civ information on the website.

Love it. Want it. Post if you want help coding it. I don't mind installing a mod at all.
 
Could the additional information-functionlity that you speak of in Civstats 2.0 be user-activated? What I mean is that, if you don't want to download all that extra information, you don't have to.

I don't know if this concept is applied in the rest of the world, but in my "3rd world" neck of the woods, we have something called a "cap" implemented by the telecoms company which is a monopoly here. Once you exceed your monthly "cap", (6Gigs/mnth in my case), you have to buy more or can't access overseas sites. I am therefore forced to be stingy with the amount of data I download.

Oh, and another suggestion that I have posted somewhere before. Looking at games listed by civstats, one often sees games with AI's. Now this could be intentional or it might be players that dropped out. In the latter case, those spots could be filled with players looking for a game. But there is no information on who is hosting the game or where a relevant thread concerning the game, is running. Such an indicator would be really helpful to those looking for games. And if it's not populated by the host, it would be clear that the game is not available to anyone else.
 
Could the additional information-functionlity that you speak of in Civstats 2.0 be user-activated? What I mean is that, if you don't want to download all that extra information, you don't have to.

I don't know if this concept is applied in the rest of the world, but in my "3rd world" neck of the woods, we have something called a "cap" implemented by the telecoms company which is a monopoly here. Once you exceed your monthly "cap", (6Gigs/mnth in my case), you have to buy more or can't access overseas sites. I am therefore forced to be stingy with the amount of data I download.

You wouldn't really have to worry about that. The game server itself wouldn't be sending any extra data to your client, so no worries there. You might have to download the mod to play, but that would only be a few kilobytes. As for the webpage, if you don't want to access the extra information, you don't have to click the links to go there. Even if you did, though, it should be very little data. Text is cheap. :)
 
But there is no information on who is hosting the game or where a relevant thread concerning the game, is running. Such an indicator would be really helpful to those looking for games. And if it's not populated by the host, it would be clear that the game is not available to anyone else.
Actually, that gave me a thought. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the host able to specify one "link" that will be displayed on their particular game's Civstats page, which may lead to a thread/forum (or somesuch) which is relevant to the game. In this way interested lurkers or potential replacements can easily get in touch with the members of the game. :)
 
  • Better notification of when an uploader has disconnected. I like the idea of having an icon on the "My Games" page.
  • A mobile friendly version of the site.
  • Double-move indicator.
  • Finally adding the Warlords stuff properly.
  • More?

Cool...
On double turning... Would it be possible to filter out an email, so if I am at war with someone I could filter the turn email to be send after he did his turn (or 12 hours have passed) or something like that??

Overload, if you need any help... I wouldnt mind investing some time learning PHP and stuff to help you out. I am a seasoned developer in VB(A), SQL and Oracle.

Edit:
Could you also sort the game list? Makes it easier to find games. Instead of a random order of creation time or something alike.

Edit2:
Email doesnt seem to be working
 
@OverloadUT: Tks for settling that one. I had visions of exceeding my cap halfway through the month.

@Lord Parkin: That's exactly what I mean. Thanks for stating it clearer.
 
Back
Top Bottom