Running Altitude Server as a Service?

[XFSBrett]

I have looked into offering Altitude servers at our company a few times in the past, but I have setup almost every popular server type known to man, and this one by far seems the least friendly.

1) Does Altitude Dedicated Server support running it with command line parameters? I have not seen any on the wiki/forums, which is semi shocking considering how simplistic it is to add. At the very least, having -ip, -port, and -maxplayers is almost a requirement these days.

2) Is Server_Launcher.exe the only way to run the server? This does not seem as though it would be work well with our game panel (TCAdmin).

We run Windows based machines all over the US/Europe, and would really like to make Altitude rentals available, especially with it being free this weekend. The only company I found offering servers has completely stopped taking any new server orders.

[Pieface]

I don't believe Altitude currently has the capability you're looking for - AFAIK server_launcher is the only way to start servers at the moment. I'll move this to the Suggestions forum so it gets a bit more notice.

[Karl]

There are microsoft tools to convert any exe to a service. I used to have instructions somewhere but I cannot find them anymore.

[XFSBrett]

That is not really the issue. Our game panel starts any .exe as a service, but the problem I am having is that Altitude server does not support any command line options, nor does it automatically start the server when the application is launched from what I can tell.

These are 2 huge inconveniences (and pretty much prevent any company) from hosting this efficiently.

*Edit*

I take that back, it does look like the server_launcher.exe starts the server right up. Would you guys be able to add the option to specify the Bind IP, Bind Port and Maxplayers as command line parameters though? Without the user being able to access the launcher_config.xml, they are missing out on important settings they will need to edit, but we cannot allow them access unless we can lock those 3 settings.

Also, you might want to consider releasing a standalone server package. I personally don't know exactly what files are required for the server, and don't feel safe stripping out files to decrease the bloat.

[lamster]

Originally Posted by XFSBrett

Would you guys be able to add the option to specify the Bind IP, Bind Port and Maxplayers as command line parameters though?

Sure, we'll try to include that in the next patch, though it's slightly funky because the launcher config actually supports multiple servers (e.g. a 14 man ball server, a 20 man tbd, and 10 man ffa) in a single config / managed by a single server_launcher process. As a result the command line options will probably look like
-ip X.X.X.X
-updatePort XXX
-gamePorts XXX,YYY,ZZZ
-maxPlayers XXX,YYY,ZZZ
where a terminating exception will be thrown if the comma-delimited length of gamePorts/maxPlayers does not match the number of game servers specified in the launcher config.

[XFSBrett]

That would be excellent, thank you. As it stands, trying to configure Altitude to work with our game panel (which is the most used one on the market) is a major headache, and the result is mediocre at best.

[Karl]

Command line parameters have been added, check out http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7049