Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Additional metaserver?

[Peter Dam Mains <lancelot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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.

Hmm, seems like I might have misunderstood recvfrom, better check my
manpages. :) 

> > 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.
> 

You've got a point there, I'll leave the webpages untouched. The reason why i
suggested an extra port was that I thought it would be a good idea to be able
to run the metaserver on a machine without relying on a webserver to host it,
just for the added flexibility, but I guess that's not necesary.

/Peter Dam Mains