I and a few friends have been scouring the internet trying to figure out a workaround to this problem. If you're unfamiliar with the scenario it goes as follows:
I run a Linux server at home for assorted sundry tasks. One of which is the occasional hosting of a Q3 server as well as a couple other games based on the Q3 netcode. Most times this occurs when I have invited friends over and we set up a small little LAN party and frag to our hearts' content. However, there have come times where having everyone meet under the same roof is highly inconvenient, if not impossible.
Enter the VPN.
Our VPN flavor of choice is Hamachi (though this dillemma has cropped up on all other VPN services we've attempted to use through Linux) and while this nice little piece of software does us well for most purposes, it seems that Q3 and its derivatives have a hard time dealing with it.
Normally Q3 detects and utilizes the eth0 network interface. However as soon as a 2nd network interface (whether its merely an alias, virtual interface, or another physical card), it fails to recognize and/or bind to any of them. In other words, the server seems be running just fine, but regardless if you try to connect to it via game browser, or by manually putting in the address, the client will fail to connect to the server, nor does the server recognize any connection attempts.
The closest we have come to solving the problem involved installing a Linux kernel patch that had the end effect of broadcasting all traffic on all interfaces regardless if you have only bound one of them... but alas we have never been able to find a copy of said patch that would actually successfully compile into our Linux kernel (currently running on the 2.6 branch) without completely borking networking altogether.
This post represents a plea anyone who may have experienced a similar scenario for help, recommendations, links/articles, or even a "stop trying" if there is in fact no viable solution.
Quake 3 + *nix + Multiple NIC / Alias / VPN = CRITICAL FAIL
Not so much a security deal... it is possible to do some simple port forwarding and whatnot on the router, however the router I and one other are working with are quite antiquated (doesn't allow for ranges and only a maximum of 5 ports... which we already occupy for web/ftp/email etc...)
Having said that, it still doesn't resolve the problem of q3 becoming borked if you have 2 NICs in the machine, or have setup an alias (for multiple IPs).
Having said that, it still doesn't resolve the problem of q3 becoming borked if you have 2 NICs in the machine, or have setup an alias (for multiple IPs).
-
^misantropia^
- Posts: 4022
- Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:24 pm