OverServer Files

OverServer - An Open-Source Metaserver for Games
Version 1.00
Greg Kennedy
http://nwserver.webhop.org

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Introduction

The OverServer is a "server for servers" - its purpose is to allow
for coordination of player-hosted servers in one central location
so that other players can easily locate games.  The OverServer is an
open-source tool for game developers who are working on network games
and do not require a massively scalable backend for their network services
but want a metaserver for their own games (although initial stress
testing shows it to be fairly robust...)

One particular strength of the player-hosted games setup is that it places
the burden of Internet traffic on the player base and not a central server.
OverServer tries not to violate this strength by keeping the query and
response length very low to cut down on overhead from running the metaserver.

I designed OverServer with a few lessons in mind from Valve and Won's
metaserver setup for Half-life.  It is at least somewhat resistant to
attack through a challenge-response system for incoming requests.  I also
wanted the tool to be very simple to "snap in" to an existing application.
I have provided a few examples showing the usage of the OverServer.

The OverServer is released under the new BSD license.  See LICENSE.txt.
This essentially grants you the ability to use, modify, copy, or sell this
software as you see fit.  However if you use any part of it and you do
distribute it (as binary or as source), you must include the accompanying
license and copyright.  This is as simple as placing the LICENSE.txt in
your distribution, or putting the text of it in your own documentation.

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Notes for This Release

Access control is finally here.  Check out overserver.ini for more information
on how to restrict the game types allowed and ban IP ranges from access.

OverServer is now 100% valid C89 code - it uses no GCC or C99 extensions, and
should compile cleanly on any compiler which guarantees C89 coverage.

Additional security auditing performed by a pair of tools - flawfinder and
splint.  The codebase should be highly secure now.

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Changelog

Version 1.00 - Current release
Version 0.92 - Servers can supply a port number now.  Timer callback so you
               no longer manage heartbeats yourself.
Version 0.91 - Improvements to client list queries and stability
Version 0.9  - client server-list queries
Version 0.5  - server reporting, PHP example script

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Contact Info

kennedy.greg@gmail.com - please email me with any bug reports, feature
 requests, stories, etc.  I'm particularly interested in anyone who
 uses the OverServer in their own games.