TinyMUX 2.4:  PATCHES
Last Update:  January 2005

A Word About Patches for TinyMUX 2.4:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Changes are distributed in the form of patches, and these occur
most-frequently during the Alpha and Beta periods of the server's
development.  These 'patch' files are applied to your server's
source code using the 'patch' utility.

Keep yourself informed about changes to the server and pay particular
attention to any serious bugs that may have been corrected by a patch.
It is in the best interests of your game to make sure that patches are
applied, as many patches contain fixes for crashing/corrupting bugs, as
well as correcting weird and dangerous behaviors in the MUX program
itself.

Let us state that while patching a vanilla server with a patch released
by the development team is generally considered to be pretty easy, that
unless you have done it before and/or taken time to familiarize yourself
with how the patch utility works (type 'man patch' inside your shell
account or read the documentation for dopatch.exe provided with Win32
versions), then we strongly advise having someone either walk you
through the process or do the work for you.  Improper use of patch can
cause all kinds of grief that you don't want to deal with.  

Applying a patch:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before doing anything else, you should assure yourself that have a
recent and usable backup of the database, all of your config, text,
mail, and comsystem.  Shutdown the game and use the provided Backup
script, or db_load by hand.  See BACKUP.  In most cases, this is
totally unneeded, but if something goes wrong and you didn't, you won't
be real happy.

 1. Download the patch file to your local shell account somewhere. The
    location is not critical.

    The patch file mux-2.4.1.25-2.4.1.26.unix.patch.gz will patch from
    version 2.4.1.25 to version 2.4.1.26. This patch file is compress
    using gzip.

 2. Optionally, you can decompress the patch files with 'gzip -d' like
    so:

    gzip -d mux-2.4.1.25-2.4.1.26.unix.patch.gz

    This will change the filename to mux-2.4.1.25-2.4.1.26.unix.patch.

 3. Change to your game's top-most directory.  For example,

    cd mux2.4

 4. Apply the patch as follows:

    zcat < ../mux-2.4.1.25-2.4.1.26.unix.patch.gz | patch -p0

    Or, if you optionally decompressed the patch as described in step
    2, apply the patch as follows:

    patch -p0 < ../mux-2.4.1.25-2.4.1.26.unix.patch

From here, you will usually get to watch a lot of spam fly by as the patch 
utility modifies the files to be updated.  You might occasionally get a 
prompt, asking you for either information, or confirmation that you want 
really do want something applied.  For the inexperienced, this is where 
having an experienced person at hand to help you is invaluable.  If, at any 
point in the process, you feel that you are in over your head, stop and get 
help before continuing!

After you have successfully patched the source code, then you recompile the 
server as usual.

If you have problems:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the patch fails and you were applying it to a standard beta or release
version of TinyMUX 2.4, then collect the error messages and report it to
brazilofmux@gmail.com following the bug reporting procedures in README.