Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Additional metaserver?

[Trent Piepho <xyzzy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Peter Dam Mains wrote:
> I'll have it worked out in a couple of days, if no one else complains,
> we'll stick to the fixed 1024byte packets, only a small change to

Why must the packets have a fixed size?  Since the protocol uses UDP,
you don't have to worry about partial reads.  recvfrom() will return
the size of the packet.  No reason to pad the packet or limit its size.

> In one of the coming versions, we should change the way the freeciv-servers 
> contacts the metaserver, so it's done by contacting a port on the metaserver 
> instead of reading a www-page.

You mean the how the client contacts the metaserver, right?  I used to think
that having a special port for the client would be the way to go, but the
metaserver didn't have one so I implemented the metaserver dialog using http. 
This works fine, and I don't really see the advantage of having a special
port.  Apache is very efficient and it would be hard to do a better job than
they have.  It gives nice logging ability to the metaserver.  Port 80 traffic
is less likely to have problems with firewalls than some random port.  An
extra open port of the metaserver is another thing for admins and hackers to
worry about.