.SH Installation And Operation .br .LP The AberMUD5 system is distributed in source form. The normal distribution is a distribution of source code, documentation and initial game universe. To install AberMUD you should unpack the distribution archive with tar. Having unpacked the system you will have three subdirectories called:- .SP 1 .IP 'DOC' 25 Documentation .IP 'SOURCE' 25 System source code .IP 'UNIVERSE' 25 Supplied game universe .SP 1 .LP Go into the SOURCE directory and edit the file 'System.h'. This contains the configuration parameters that are hard coded into the game .LP .B Options .LP .IP ANSI_C 25 You can set this if you are using an ANSI compiler. .IP NO_VOID 25 Your compiler doesn't know what 'void' means. .IP LOG_FILE 25 This defines the name of the file used by both the system and database logging functions .IP SECURE 25 This option restricts some database actions like writing to arbitary filenames. It's for the really paranoid. .IP UNIX 25 Indicate you are compiling for Unix .IP MAXUSER 25 Maximum number of simultaneous players to allow. This value is limited by the number of file descriptors available. On a SUN for example this can be about 250. .IP MAXNAME 25 The longest length of a name a player is allowed. .IP MAXUSERID 25 The maximum length of a userid. Note the comments here - unless you are porting to a system with usernames longer than 32 letters don't alter this. .IP PANSY_MODE 25 The game doesn't delete people when they die off. Instead it halves their score and sets their strength quite low. Some people, especially in the US, prefer this option. .IP REGISTER 25 Ask and log users email addresses. You can alter the database to force registration should you desire that degree of security. .IP TCP_PORT 25 The default port used for connections. The next two ports after this are also used for client and BSX links respectively. .IP USERFILE 25 The file where users are recorded. .I IMPORTANT: The passwords used by AberMUD are not crypted. This file should be protected. .IP BOSS1..BOSS5 25 Set these to the names of characters you wish to be able to use the system as a game controller. You should be very careful with this. The first letter must be capital and the rest lower case. .SP 1 .LP Next check the Makefile is OK for your system. You may have to change the definition of CC in paticular. On SYS5 machines you will probably need to add networking libraries. The distributed Makefile is correct for Linux. .LP Check the ValidLogin.c code. This is a module designed to be user customised to suit your own preferences on login control and maximum user limits. As supplied it permits 20 users between 11pm and 7am, 12 users between 7am and 9pm, 12 from 9pm to 10pm and 16 from 10pm to 11pm. .LP When you have got all this right, you can just type 'make' and eventually you should end up with a set of compiled programs as follows:- .SP 1 .IP server 25 The game driver. This runs games .IP Run_Aber 25 A boot strap program. It disconnects from the terminal when run, and reboots AberMUD whenever it finishes. .IP FindPW 25 This program can be used to obtain a players password. .IP Reg 25 Reg <name> registers a person. .SP 1 .LP AberMUD5 is normally run using the Run_Aber program. This starts up the server in the background, and should it crash or reset will restart a new server to replace it. The standard AberMUD reset mechanism is implemented in this manner by resetting the server itself every game reset. The Run_Aber program runs the server with the arguments it is supplied with. Thus the arguments to Run_Aber are the same as the arguments to the server itself. .LP The server is a single large program which implements the communications, interpretation and editing of the game world. It is started with a command line of the form ' server <databasename> '. It begins by loading the supplied universe file into memory then creates its network connections and commences execution. You can select the range of ports used by the program by doing 'server -p <portnum> <databasename>'. This is commonly used when you want a seperate game copy for editing and testing. The game operates on three ports. The first services normal telnet connections, as well as links to the standard mud clients. The second port uses a special protocol used by AberMUD5, and also now DickMUD, to permit lines to be uploaded and downloaded for local editting. An example client for this protocol is available. The third port runs Bram Stolk's BSX protocol, a crude but workable graphics protocol based on polygon downloads. To use the BSX facilities you will want the BSXmud client from lysator.liu.se. You may also want Muddraw should you wish to do graphical game editing. .LP The other programs FindPW and Reg are small utilities that allow you to manage the user file. They provide the ability to query a users password, and to mark a user as registered, if the .I REGISTRATION option has been defined. This option is still under test and may or may not work correctly.