JDDoesIT

When you use RCON the information is stored in the normal log. The problem is that when people have issues and transfer their logs to forums for help, and they do not know how to properly scrub protected data from them. One slip and your public IP, RCON password and port are exposed. Can we note in the server log that an RCON connection was made and what IP it came from, but have the contents of the command be sent to another log?

Before I saw who replied to this I planned out a thoughtful response because I thought that this was just another user that was asking a question because they did not understand what I wrote. Now that I see who it is I will say this. I have posted the algorithm overview so it is plain to to see that this is indeed not a lot of work at all. If I were given the load and save functions for PZ I could get this back to you in 24 hours. And I have answered why I want (not need) this. So that I can put in the INI file only what I want to change in an order that makes more sense. It does not make any sense why all the mod settings are not right next to each other. It also keeps me from accidentally fouling up another setting value.

Currently there are only 43 commands available to use in the remote console. While most of them are useful, there are two issues. Some of the items that are there are just not as good as they can be A great number of things that an admin can do in game are just not available to rcon Let's start with what is there that could use a boost... addvehicle - We can specify the vehicle and a player to spawn it near I would like to be able to spawn it to a location. Only specify the X and Y. Z is always assumed 0. The result of spawning in the vehicle should be the vehicle's ID Could we get an XML or json schema to allow us to specify the quality of the parts? Would like to be able to specify if there is a key for it in the glovebox or on the ground near it. Actually now that I think about it I would like to be able to spawn more than just keys in the glovebox alarm Should be able to specify any player to sound the alarm on Maybe also take coords as an argument and if those coords are in a house, turn the alarm on in that house. If players are in it, the alarm sounds If there are no players in it the alarm is only enabled. createhorde2 What is this for? There is no documentation. gunshot Specify a location or player Only specify the X and Y. Z is always assumed 0. help Should not just give the list of commands when there is no param given, rather ask for a command as a param Should give VERY detailed instructions, including an example, of how to use the command that is passed as a param players Just like the dir windows command this should have a "bare" option so that only the names come back so that this can be used as input for a loop in another script. Otherwise we have to get rid of the first line and trim the "-" off the player name Also allow a "count" param that only gives back the number of players Checkmodsneedupdate This should output results to normal output so I can use it as input for a potential reboot of the server I can use this output along with the number of players online If the number of players is 0 just reboot the service If there are players logged in give them 5 minutes and send a message every minute, kick them and then reboot the service Here are some of the things that I would like to see added... View/Edit sandbox settings Much like we can view the settings from the INI file we should be able to view and edit them from the remote console Maybe even have sandbox settings profiles that we can save If we want to introduce something like a "hell week" at the end of each month and swapping profiles is an easy way to do so. Database See the list of registered users See user log of anti-cheat disconnects Manage tickets Manage banned lists Manage whitelist Item Lists List all the item "tabs" List items in the item "tabs" Search items by name Control the climate Statistics snapshot Script [OBJECT] As Much like when you create database objects and you can see he script that was run to create them, it would be nice to get a mechanism to script objects into the game This could have several different times that this is done so there are different collections Script at initialization (things that are added to the world when it is first started Script at reboot (added after a reboot) Trigger (When a certain event happens)

Adding my bump to this. I like this a lot.

CUSTOM INI Most of the settings in the INI file will remain at defaults for most of my playthroughs, so why not enable us to remove the entries to make the file more compact? Settings like: PingLimit DropOffWhiteListAfterDeath AnnounceDeath KickFastPlayers SteamVAC could all be omitted from the file if they are going to be left at the default setting. Of course the list will vary from setup to setup, but the idea remains the same. I have tested this and the results are that the INI file can be missing any setting that you want to leave at default. I used PingLimit as my test setting by commenting out that line and it still was set to 400 when the game started. Another way that I would like to be able to customize the INI file is to move settings up or down in the list. Why not move the Mod, WorkshopID and Maps lines right next to each other so that you can troubleshoot them without having the scroll through the whole file. Again, I have tested this and you are able to move the lines wherever you want as long as they are formatted properly... But as soon as it is read the next thing that I see in the logs is the settings getting rewritten back to the INI file and your edits are gone. Every single line that you removed/commented has been added back. Every line that you moved is right back where it was. So here is my suggestion on how to address this: Simply stop the writing back to the file after it is read into memory. I do not see the reason why this has to be done unless there is some reason why the file has be be consumed and then replaced, but that does not make sense. If the file has to be read and written (or in the even an admin changes a setting while the server is running) you can try this It seems that the settings are parsed and stored in a key:value dictionary. If that is the case... Create a dictionary with all the default settings. Create another dictionary that parses the ini file These settings get copied over to the dictionary that is being used by the server So if you need to write back to the INI file you only write back the second dictionary In the event someone changes a value in the main settings dictionary you push that onto the end of the second one so that only the changed/non-default information gets written to the INI. COMMENTS I am fairly new to Project Zomboid, but not new to setting up systems. It has taken me days to get a dedicated server that I am hosting up and running due to information not being clear. Every setting in the INI file should have a set of comments that clearly expresses how to use them. Here is a good example: # The minimum tile distance over which VOIP sounds can be heard.\nMinimum=0.00 Maximum=100000.00 Default=10.00 VoiceMinDistance=10.0 This clearly states what it is used for and what it can be set to. Here is a bad example: ChatStreams=s,r,a,w,y,sh,f,all There is nothing that shows what each option is for. Another bad example is: # Enter the mod loading ID here. It can be found in \Steam\steamapps\workshop\modID\mods\modName\info.txt Mods= It does not state that there will be multiple IDs and that they should be separated with a semicolon. And finally... The one that caused me the most trouble... # Enter the foldername of the mod found in \Steam\steamapps\workshop\modID\mods\modName\media\maps\ Map= It does not mention the semicolon, nor does it mention that they need to be listed before Muldraugh, KY in the list. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Forgot to add that not pausing the backups when there are no players can potentially ruin a playthrough by overwriting all backups with the same information, and when you need to recover you are not able to.

When troubleshooting mods on a dedicated server it would be helpful if we could specify which INI file to load so that we are not editing one over and over and possibly introducing more errors. Say you have 100 mods that include 10 prereqs. You can have an ini that has no mods just to test your server installation. Then an ini with just the prereqs. Then two ini files with the prereqs and one half of the mods. This would greatly facilitate in zeroing in on the issues.

If we have the server set to pause when there are no players connected then the backups should pause as well.. Not doing so effectively makes the backups being captured not effective.

Here is the topic that I raised on the issue.

I would love to see a server parameter like cachedir but called backupdir that allows us to backup to a different folder than what the server runs on. In my setup I have the server files running on faster, smaller drives that are set up so that if I lose everything on those drives it is not a disaster as they are just executables that can be redownloaded. I have my data on larger and slower drives but ones that have parity drives. If we could save to another location we would not have to set up data maintenance schemes to move the data over. The game would just do it on its own. This is a huge win for everyone and would not be that hard to implement in the game. Just make sure we update the parameter wiki page...

I second this. It is also related to an ask that I want to bring to the table. It would be nice if they would allow us to specify a parameter like -backupdir to allow us to save directly to a backup location instead of having to do data maintenance.