Starting a Simutrans server

I love Simutrans. It's a great game.

Simutrans has a multiplayer version, if somebody hosts a server. I want to host a server version compatible with an Ubuntu release.

• Will it overload my server's CPU and memory?
• Is my network connection adequate?

Let's find out.
These instructions are for my Debian 6 server:

The server version has no graphics - that saves a lot of CPU overhead! But it must be compiled from source. Instructions are on the Simutrans Wiki, and even better instructions are on Timothy's blog post.

The basic theory is that we:

a) Determine the version of Simutrans to install. 

b) Do a complete client-install of the correct version, including base, binary, config, and pakset. 

c) Download the source code. 

d) Compile a server-only binary. 

e) Replace the original client binary with the compiled server binary. 

f) Edit the config file.

A Simutrans install consists of four items.

1. The executable/binary.
2. Simutrans-base, all those supporting languages and config files that the binary needs to work.
3. The config file, simutrans/simuconf.tab, included with simutrans-base.
4. The pakset, containing all the factories, vehicles, and other themes.

Simutrans has two paksets in Ubuntu: pak64 (the default) and pak128.britain. These instructions assume only pak64.




1) Create the build environment (as root):

# apt-get install build-essential subversion libbz2-dev zlib1g-dev unzip
# exit      # Drop root privileges - do the actual build as a user, not root

The build-essential package includes the rmadison command, used in the next step.

2) Pick the version to install. Client and server should be the same release. See the Simutrans Forum release announcements to match up releases with SVN revisions. I want this server to work with Ubuntu 11.10.

• Check the Ubuntu 11.10 version of the Simutrans binary and the pak64 theme:
  

  $ rmadison simutrans | grep oneiric
   simutrans |  110.0.1-3 | oneiric/universe | source, amd64, armel, i386, powerpc
  $ rmadison simutrans-pak64 | grep oneiric
   simutrans-pak64 |  110.0.1-1 | oneiric/universe | source, all

  (Or check packages.ubuntu.com)
  The version numbers are before the dash, so both are Version 110.0.1

• Check the corresponding Debian version on my server, to see if Simutrans must be installed manually or by package:

  rmadison -u debian simutrans | grep squeeze
   simutrans | 102.2.2~ds1-1 | squeeze | source, amd64, armel, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, sparc

  Since we want to install Version 110.0.1, we cannot use the Debian package (102.2.2) - we must install manually.

• Match the version number (110.0.1) in the Simutrans Forum release announcements:
  Version 110.0.1 executable download URL.
  Version 110.0.1 pak64 download URL.
  Farther down in the same release announcement, you see the SVN revision number: r4359
  

  Release of 110.0.1 (r4359 on 12-Mar-2011):

3) Create the simutrans folder, complete with locations for the downloads, and a working file for compiling the new binary.

$ cd ~
$ mkdir simutrans
$ mkdir simutrans/110.0.1
$ mkdir simutrans/110.0.1/downloads
$ mkdir simutrans/110.0.1/svn

4) Download and unpack simutrans, including the base, binary, config file, and theme pak.

$ cd ~/simutrans/110.0.1/downloads
$ wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/simutrans/110-0-1/simulinux-110-0-1.zip
$ unzip simulinux-110-0-1.zip -d ~
$ wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/pak64/110-0-1/simupak64-110-0-1.zip
$ unzip simupak64-110-0-1.zip -d ~
$ cd ~

NOTE: The pakset location is ~/simutrans/pak. Addons to the paksets in version 111.0 (r4911) is ~/simutrans/pak. Addons to the pakset in version 111.1 (r5115) and later is ~/simutrans/addons/pak.

We now have a functioning simutrans install...if there's an X server and other supporting software. On a server, there probably isn't. You can launch Simutrans using the binary simutrans/simutrans for a great client experience.

Next, we will create the compiled server-optimized binary.

5) Download the Simutrans source:

$ cd simutrans/110.0.1/svn

-r is the revision number from Step 1.
username is anon, password is blank (hit Return).

$ svn co --username anon -r 4359 svn://tron.homeunix.org/simutrans/simutrans/trunk

6) Apply the Debian patch:
In this post, I discovered and triaged Launchpad Bug #931181, which makes non-Debian versions of Simutrans incompatible with Debian versions due to a differing sha-1 implementation.

We need to download and apply the Debian patch to make our server compatible with Debian/Ubuntu clients.

$ cd ~/simutrans/110.0.1/svn/trunk
$ wget http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-games/simutrans.git;a=blob_plain;f=debian/patches/sha1-replacement.diff
$ rm utils/sha1.*
$ patch Makefile debian_patches_sha1-replacement.diff 
$ patch utils/checksum.h debian_patches_sha1-replacement.diff
$ nano utils/sha1.cc   # Create new file from the patch
$ nano utils/sha1.h    # Create new file from the patch

7) Edit the makefile configuration:

$ cp config.template config.default
$ nano config.default    # Use any editor, it needn't be nano

# Uncomment the following lines (and ONLY these lines):
BACKEND = posix
COLOUR_DEPTH = 0
OSTYPE = linux
DEBUG = 3
OPTIMISE = 1
WITH_REVISION = 1

8) Compile the binary:

$ make
$ strip sim   #Reduce binary size from 17.3 MB to 2.5 MB

9) Add the compiled binary to the simutrans install. We'll call this new binary 'simd110'. Note that the original (client) binary can be left in place if you wish, since it's called 'simutrans' but it won't be very useful.

$ cd ~
$ ln simutrans/110.0.1/svn/simutrans/simutrans/trunk/sim simutrans/simd110

If you want to save space, you can copy the binary instead of linking it, and delete the old client binary and the entire svn directory. I recommend testing before deleting all your work!

10) Edit the config file

$nano simutrans/config/simuconf.tab

#################################program stuff##################################
singleuser_install = 1
pak_file_path = pak/

###################################network stuff##############################
server_frames_ahead = 4
server_frames_per_step = 4
server_frames_between_checks = 256   #Smaller!
server_announce_interval = 900
server_dns = myserver.domain.net
server_name = Ubuntu 11.10 Compatible
server_comments = If you use Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric), this is compatible with the Simutrans version in the Software Center
server_email = me@myemail.domain.net
server_pakurl = http://sourceforge.net/projects/simutrans/files/pak64/110-0-1/simupak64-110-0-1.zip
server_infurl = http://myserver.domain.net/server-info.html
pause_server_no_clients = 1

11) Use the old client (non-server) binary to create the initial map. The headless server version has no way to choose a map pattern or create a new map, and you have no way to look at it to see if you like it! Save the map as "servergame.sve" inside the simutrans directory.

12) Test the server binary. To do this, you need a client install *and* a server install with identical paksets but preferably different config files. The best test is, of course, from a working stock Ubuntu 11.10 install.

Start the server on port 13353 with

$ simutrans/simd110 -server 13353 -lang en -nosound -nomidi -noaddons -log 1 -debug 3 -load servergame.sve

Try connecting from the client to the server a few times.
Check the server's simutrans directory to ensure the game is saved upon each connect/disconnect.

Try killing the server and restarting it:

$ pkill simd110
$ simutrans/simd110 -server 13353 -lang en -nosound -nomidi -noaddons -log 1 -debug 3

You now have a fully-operational simutrans server, compatible with the desired Ubuntu version of Simutrans. This is not a complete setup - it's best to configure the server with a special non-shell-access user so neither root nor a real user are running the server. I'll talk about that in a different post.