Help me create a server setup tutorial please :)

spartikus
edited November 2010 in Photon Server
As is always the case, once I finally think I've exhausted all my patience and I put out a plea for help I find solutions :) In order to save future noobs like myself the same pain and suffering I will begin my tutorial:

How to get PhotonServer up and running in 5 minutes or less:

Download the ServerSDK that you will be developing on:
- http://shop.exitgames.com/

Launch the PhotonControl.exe file:
- C:\< install directory>\deploy\bin_Win32_xp\PhotonControl.exe

Check the logs to verify the server launched correctly:
- Right click the Photon icon in the botton right of your taskbar
- Left click on "Open Logs"
- Verify the last entry in the log is "Service is running..."
---- Just FYI, if your last entry is "Shutdown Complete..." read up in the log and look for an exception error. Resolve that issue before continuing.

Please note: By default, the config file for PhotonControl loads up the MMODemo from C:\<install directory>\deploy\mmo\Photon.MmoDemo.Server\bin. To change this setup edit the file PhotonSocketServer.xml in the same directory that you launched PhotonControl.exe. Once you have made your edit re-launch the PhotonControl tohave your change take place.




<To be continued>




Initial Post:
Or point me to a document somewhere that works... I've seen some very light haphazard documents that simply do not explain clearly what should be such a simple process. It should literally take 5-10 minutes to have the server up and running and I have spent hours fiddling around with this and that trying to figure it out.

I am a processional IT Process and documentation analyst and I would be happy to post the final tutorial here once completed if anyone can help me. It just shouldn't be this difficult.

I believe the Photon product is amazing and is still pushing towards it's potential but if people can't get it fired up easily due to lack of documentation I believe a lot of folks will end up trying easier solutions.

Anyone interested in setting me straight on this please drop me a PM, email or just post here if there is a doc or link I am utterly missing. And yes I have seen the video "tutorial" and I am sorry it is very difficult to read, not done on Windows XP so a little hard to follow and has no audio.. It also appears to be somewhat out of date.

Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

Many thanks,
Mark

Comments

  • Let me be more specific:

    - By using a photon server and the Island Tutorial assets from "Unity3D" I should be able to get an "ISland Tutorial" server up that will allow me to connect with multiple entities. I have been trying to do this for 2 days now and am simply getting frustrated :)

    All help appreciated.
  • Thanks Mark. There is also a video tutorial here: http://blog.exitgames.com/?p=839
  • Thanks for popping in Boris, if you do get some time I wouldn't mind a nudge in the right direction next...

    I have the server up and running in default mode with zero modifications.

    My next step would be to connect to it with a client..

    I have loaded up the unity/photon client and I have tried to run it but it just sits there blank...

    Have I done something wrong?

    Thanks,
    Mark
  • Did you check the firewall?
    There is also another video that might help: http://blog.exitgames.com/2010/07/video ... -unity-3d/
  • I am running the server and client on the same machine. I tried changing localhost to the dedicated IP of my development box but still no go. I am having a few rye and cokes to try and sharpen my thinking ;)

    I'll post more as I get it sorted out. It just seems like it should be so simple to connect a client as a test.. I must be missing something obvious.
  • which client do you use?
  • Hey Boris,

    I didn't get back at this last night but I will be tonight. I am using the Unity3D/Photon client. The test client connects just fine with the Photon test server but I am not able to get it to connect to the local photonconnect process.

    I adjusted the game.cs to point to my static internal IP: 192.168.1.xxx:5055
    I keep checking the logs on the Photonconnect process and it just says service is started...

    Maybe there is another process I am missing here?

    Thanks.
    Mark
  • there is another log folder a directory above the bin folder -you can check there as well.

    To make sure everything works I did the following:
    1) Downloaded ExitGames-Photon-Server-SDK_v2-2-2.zip and the Photon-Unity3D_v6-0-0_SDK.zip.
    2) Extracted both
    3) started photon as described above
    4) opened the demo_realtime_cs.unity
    5) started the unity demo

    and everything worked fine.
    I checked the Game.cs ipPort and it is already set to "localhost:5055" - what version do you have there if it was set to a "Photon test server" ?
  • Hey Boris,

    I'll double check the logs again in that alternate folder you specified. Yes my test client was set to localhost. It may have been a different SDK that connected to the Photon server the night before.

    I just want to say how awesome it is to have such a responsive support group. Considering how much work exitgames must do and the fact that questions that appear on these forums are generally not revenue generating... Thank you for being so interactive.

    Mark
  • Thanks for being so patient, too.
    Just hope that you get it running now.
  • Did some further digging...

    Ok my clients were connected to my Photon Server because when I stopped the PhotonConnect service both clients DCd...

    New question... Where do you go to see stats on the server for current client connections etc... Are these things I need to program into a console of some kind perhaps? If so I am surprised no one else has written one yet :)

    Again Boris, thanks for your patience and efforts.

    FYI: I will be completing my noob tutorial and posting it here for those coming after me who can learn from my mishaps.
  • there are two ways for reading two different kind of counters..
    1) read the windows counters for photon with perfmon (install counters with the photon control)
    2) use the dashboard (installation and start with the photon control)

    The dashboard will use more your resources since it is updating pictures with the counter graphs all the times, but it can run on a different host other than the game server. the counter publisher started in lite sends the counter data to the dashboard service.
  • I will continue to read up but I installed the counters using the photoncontrol and the dashboard but the dashboard just keeps refreshing saying "No Counter Data yet".. I connected 5 clients to the server but no activity showing in the dashboard.
  • did you restart photon after installing?
  • Thanks for the reminder but yes I did. Still no connection info showing in Dashboard. I'll keep slugging away.
  • mh.. i tried it on my computer and it worked immediately...
    maybe a firewall issue? make sure port 40001 is open.
    you could also try to change the counterpublisher target ip to 127.0.0.1 - see config files Lite.dll.config in folder deploy\Lite\Lite\bin and CounterPublisher.dll.config in folder deploy\CounterPublisher\bin
    The lite and counterpublisher log file should contain a line like this:
    2010-11-24 11:41:44,680 [1] INFO Photon.SocketServer.Diagnostics.CounterPublisher [(null)] - CounterPublisher started on: 255.255.255.255:40001
  • interesting.. do you think this is part of the problem.. from the photon log file:

    1848: 22:06:52.218 - Adding TCP listener on :0.0.0.0: 4530 with a listen backlog of: 150
  • Got it....

    You have to install the perfMon listeners everytime you restart the PhotonControl App.... I thought "installed" meant "hey dude we installed we're good now..." :)

    I install the listener when I restart the control and it's all groovy.

    Thanks Boris. :)
  • spartikus wrote:
    interesting.. do you think this is part of the problem.. from the photon log file:

    1848: 22:06:52.218 - Adding TCP listener on :0.0.0.0: 4530 with a listen backlog of: 150
    no. this is the photon-instance1-... log file I assume.
    This just means that photon is listening on all devices on port 4530 for tcp connections
  • spartikus wrote:
    Got it....

    You have to install the perfMon listeners everytime you restart the PhotonControl App.... I thought "installed" meant "hey dude we installed we're good now..." :)

    I install the listener when I restart the control and it's all groovy.

    ??

    these are two different things.

    1) perfmon counters --> install counters: installs the windows counters.. and yes: installing them once should be enough
    2) dashboard --> install service --> start service: again, once is enough.

    what i forgot to say explicitly: there are 2 photon apps sending data to the dashboard
    1) lite: sends own custom counters to the dashboard
    2) counterpublisher: reads windows performance counters and sends them to the dashboard

    if you have not installed perfmon counters but installed the dashboard the counterpublisher won't have any data to send, so maybe this was the problem...