Linux Dedicated Server - arma2profile default location

[Mr.Peanut]

I am having some problems on a linux dedicated server with the *.arma2profile. If I do not use the -profiles option, what is the default location of the profile file the server will use? If I use -name=poohatch, will the location be poohatch/poohatch.arma2profile or simply poohatch.arma2profile?

Must the Difficulties classes be named "Recruit/Regular/Veteran/Expert" or are the names customisable? Must there be four Difficulties classes? Is it possible to have only one difficulty?

[alef]

I've run

$ strace ./server

from /home/arma and it shows

open("/home/arma/player/player.arma2profile", O_RDONLY

[Killswitch]

I am having some problems on a linux dedicated server with the *.arma2profile. If I do not use the -profiles option, what is the default location of the profile file the server will use?

Here's a crazy idea - try launching the server and see if there are any interesting files created. (Answer: player/player.arma2profile)

If I use -name=poohatch, will the location be poohatch/poohatch.arma2profile or simply poohatch.arma2profile?

Using -name=poohatch will create a new file in poohatch/poohatch.arma2profile.

Must the Difficulties classes be named "Recruit/Regular/Veteran/Expert" or are the names customisable?

The names are not customizable. The correct names for the Difficulties classes can be seen in the BIKI: server.armaprofile

Must there be four Difficulties classes? Is it possible to have only one difficulty?

I suspect it's possible to have only one of them there, whereby the settings for the other three would be the game's defaults.

[Mr.Peanut]

Here's a crazy idea - try launching the server and see where it ends up. (Answer: player/player.arma2profile)
By trying it just once, you could have answered that question yourself. (<name>/<name>.arma2profile)

Thanks for answers. I did not know that the linux ded server would create the profile on the fly. Had I known, I obviously wouldn't have asked my question. Plus, given that the linux ded takes 15-20 minutes to spin up, I did not want to prevent people from playing on the server for any longer than I had to. Each experiment takes away a little game time.

The BIKI link says types are Recruit/Regular/Veteran/Mercenary. The Kelley's Heroes example gives Recruit/Regular/Veteran/Expert.

[Killswitch]

Thanks for answers. I did not know that the linux ded server would create the profile on the fly. Had I known, I obviously wouldn't have asked my question.

Aye - I realised that this little nugget of info isn't stated anywhere, so perhaps I was a bit too curt there. My apologies.

Plus, given that the linux ded takes 15-20 minutes to spin up, I did not want to prevent people from playing on the server for any longer than I had to. Each experiment takes away a little game time.

Ouch...if it really takes that long to get ready, something's not right. (I can launch an ArmA II dedi server on my very old 2001-era Athlon XP 1700+ server and it will be ready in under a minute. Of course, it can't run missions very well, but it starts relatively quickly )

Could you tell us a few details about the setup? (What distribution, server specs, if there's any oddities in the log.2302.txt file that gets printed out when you launch the ArmA II server)

The BIKI link says types are Recruit/Regular/Veteran/Mercenary. The Kelley's Heroes example gives Recruit/Regular/Veteran/Expert.

The BIKI is the correct one. The class names you use in the profile should correspond to the game's own class CfgDifficulties, which you can see here: ArmA II 1.05 CfgDifficulties

[Mr.Peanut]

Any help with the slow spinup would be appreciated.
Here is all the info I can get my hands on. The server script(arma2.sh) is launched as a thread from perl monitor script. Not familiar with the log.2302. Is that the equivalent of the old net.log or is it stderr or stdout(or none of the above)?

$uname -a
Linux www 2.6.18-xen #1 SMP Fri May 18 16:11:33 BST 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

$free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       2097344    2084584      12760          0      30184    1106816
-/+ buffers/cache:     947584    1149760
Swap:      1048568          4    1048564

$df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1              5160576   2897764   2000668  60% /
tmpfs                  1048672         0   1048672   0% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs                  1048672         4   1048668   1% /dev/shm
/dev/hda3             10321208   6789368   3007552  70% /arma2_data
/dev/hda4              5160576   2380416   2518016  49% /ofp
/dev/hda5             12385456   8917876   2838436  76% /arma2

$cat arma2.cfg
language="English";
adapter=-1;
3D_Performance=1;
Resolution_Bpp=32;
MaxCustomFileSize=350000;
MaxSizeNonguaranteed=192;
MaxSizeGuaranteed=512;
MaxMsgSend=192;
MinBandwidth=16384000;
MaxBandwidth=32768000;
MinErrorToSend=0.0080000004;
Windowed=0;

$cat arma2.sh
#!/bin/bash
# ulimit -c unlimited
/arma2/arma2-server/arma2-server -port=2330 -config=server.cfg -cfg=arma2.cfg -name=lolserver -mod=lol_addons/@cba\;lol_addons/@ace\;lol_addons/@acex\;lol_addons/acex_pla\;lol_addons/@a2lol\;lol_addons/@isla_duala\;lol_addons/@fdf_podagorsk\;lol_addons/@fran_quesh_kibrul\;lol_addons/@panthera\;lol_addons/@sap_everon\;lol_addons/@namalsk

$top
top - 17:53:17 up 96 days, 12:38,  2 users,  load average: 1.62, 1.16, 1.16
Tasks:  77 total,   4 running,  73 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 51.1%us,  5.6%sy,  0.0%ni, 43.3%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.1%st
Mem:   2097344k total,  2081068k used,    16276k free,    30208k buffers
Swap:  1048568k total,        4k used,  1048564k free,  1106768k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
16679 root      25   0  276m 261m 5584 R   96 12.8 412:50.81 server
22946 root      16   0  393m 360m  12m R   72 17.6  40:31.23 arma2-server
16682 root      15   0  276m 261m 5584 S    2 12.8   2:20.89 server

The process server is our OFP server.

[Killswitch]

Any help with the slow spinup would be appreciated.
Here is all the info I can get my hands on. The server script(arma2.sh) is launched as a thread from perl monitor script. Not familiar with the log.2302. Is that the equivalent of the old net.log or is it stderr or stdout(or none of the above)?

When one uses the BIS-provided start script "arma2server", a log file named "log.2302.txt" will be created and stdout and stderr is redirected there. Re-formulating that for your setup, I'd ask "are there any errors or warnings in the output from the arma2.sh script?"

I see you're running a Xen kernel. This begs the question if you're running in a Linux virtual machine (VM), ie if you're renting a slice of a bigger server? ( A common term for that seems to be "VPS", virtual private server). Another possibility is that you are in full control of the machine and use Xen to host VM:s for other purposes.

If it's a VPS, there's a slight possibility that what you're seeing is a result of the host having put CPU and/or I/O limits on your VM, causing the slow startups. OTOH, if the OFP server doesn't exhibit this problem, that's not the reason for the slowness. It could be the many addons and mod you're loading - perhaps the ArmA 2 server log ("output from arma2.sh") may hint at a problem.

[Mr.Peanut]

stderr and stdout do not indicate anything out of the ordinary on ArmA2 startup. Our OFP server does not take more than a second or two to start. The machine probably has some VM limitations; it is also our web server. I don't know the finer setup details. The machine is donated/maintained by a clan member and I am not a linux sysop, but a linux user with a little peripheral knowledge. Thanks for your answers.

[djczing]

I just found answers to my linux dedi server profile questions here. Thanks guys.

I still have a bit of confusion though - I would think that the profile that the server loads would trump the client profile - in other words, if, say the precision of a veteran friendly AI was set to .90 in the client profile, but set to .60 in the server profile, I would think that the server setting would take precedence, in order to make the multiplayer experience equal to all players.