NWNIAB ?

[Legacy_azaz1234]

               

hi there,


i've just started using an app called 'nwn in a box' [from here], it looks like a pretty nifty gizmo. it's a complete nwn environment based on oracle's virtualbox technology. so far, it seems that everything runs just fine within the box, even to the point of loading a small test module i set up, but for some reason i can't connect to the server from outside it using my normal nwn pc client, running on the same machine. i was hoping someone on this board might be able to give me suggestions on how to troubleshoot this.

 

more info :

when i fire up the virtual box, i get a window that's automatically logged me in as the user 'nwn'. i then run a script that's supplied w/nwniab called [iirc] 'nwnstart'. there are no errors in any of the log files, and everything on the nwn server seems to be running fine, at least from within the vb. i then launch nwmain.exe from my windows start menu, on the same machine. it's at this point that i can't connect.


ifconfig within the virtual box shows me the address of eth1 is 192.168.56.101.


netstat -ap within the virtual box shows me that nwserver is listening on udp port 5121.


from windows, if i do ipconfig/all, i see an entry for the virtual box as 'Ethernet adapter VirtualBox', w/an address of 192.168.56.1 [NOTE : 56.1, not  56.101...]


when i try to direct connect with nwmain.exe +connect 192.168.56.101:5121 i get errors saying either the address can't be mapped or the server has timed out. the same thing happens when i try 192.168.56.1:5121.


when i use the network browser window from my nwn client [i.e., nwmain.exe, multiplayer => join lan game], i do see the module up on the selection screen, but bizarrely, everything in the module info is wrong. the connect address is 192.168.1.2:3099, the level range is 255->255, allow local chars = checked, etc. -- even though i've set all of these differently on the command line for nwserver within nwniab. and when i do try to connect to it this way, i get a 'server not responding' error.


i've added both program and address+port exceptions to my windows firewall for each of these sets of ip+port, no joy.

 

i'm running the virtualbox on windows xp professional sp3, 32-bit.


does anyone have any suggestions on how i could troubleshoot this ?  i'm fresh out of ideas.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

I don't have much help for you beyond that I tried this out not too too long after it came out and I recall being able to connect up to it just fine.  That system was running XP SP3 as well.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_azaz1234]

               

thanks much for the reply, OTR.

 

do you remember if you needed to do anything special to your windows firewall ?

 

do you still have your startup script, w/the parameters you used to launch nwserver ?

 

lastly, i don't suppose you have an idea as to why the ip addresses i'm seeing are different everywhere ?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

do you remember if you needed to do anything special to your windows firewall ?

 

I don't, sorry.  It was a long time ago.

 

do you still have your startup script, w/the parameters you used to launch nwserver ?

 

Unfortunately not.

 

lastly, i don't suppose you have an idea as to why the ip addresses i'm seeing are different everywhere ?

 

Not sure.  I mean, I'd try connecting from another computer if you have one.  If you get the same "no response" thing, then I'd start looking in the settings for that virtual machine to see if there's anything in networking that stands out as being odd.  I'm sure when I set mine up I had to do some fiddling but I don't recall it being that difficult to get sorted.  I enjoyed running some test modules under NWNIAB, especially because that gave me access to the full linux NWNX stuff, but I found it easier to just install Lubuntu (there's even a more slimmed-down one but I can't recall the name) on an old beater machine.  I haven't set up NWN on a *nix machine in years but it's worth it- especially on the client where everything is ultra-smooth.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_azaz1234]

               

thanks much for your help on this. i've poked around w/it a bit more, making a bit of headway. i can log in to the vm using putty, i can even put up a web page using the built-in apache server. i tried having apache listen to 5121 and 5122 along w/80, and had no problems, so those ports are fully accessible from my windows host.

 

i also found a script written by papillon on the net that gets an nwserver's status, and put it up on the vm's web site. the script seems to connect to the running nwserver ok but then never succeeds in getting any information from it, says the server is down. and the script is not only running on the same machine, it's running inside the virtual box right alongside nwserver... this seems to imply that the basic network connectivity between the vm and my windows host is fully functional and there's a problem w/the nwserver itself.

 

this is turning into quite the adventure. not exactly the kind i prefer playing, but who knows, maybe i'll find a princess in there yet. i'll keep poking around and report what i find.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

I'm not all that sure it'll do anything, but have you tried changing your client's port just for good measure?  Just a random thought.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_azaz1234]

               

thanks for the tip. tried that, no luck.

i think i'm getting close to tracking this down, though. i recently played on a completely functional pw, and sometimes when i tried to connect to it i got the same error [and sometimes not] : Connection error: Could not translate address. [i wonder what that error means, anyway?]  so i thought these problems might somehow be module-related, rather than related to the virtual box. i put together a plain vanilla module of just 1 area, no nwnx, no cep -- as simple as possible. it loaded right up, and i was able to log on w/o problems. '>  i then went back to using the other module [the one that's giving me problems] using the exact same cmd line parms for the server startup, and got all those whack-o parameters on the gamespy window again [levels 255-255, max players 0, funky connect address, etc.]. so as strange as it seems, i think this might have something to do with using nwnx or cep or a hak on my haklist -- or all of these together. i'll play around w/it some more tonight when i have time.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_azaz1234]

               

you aren't going to believe what the cause was...

 

but before i spoil the ending, here's how i conducted my tests. note that in all cases, nwserver reported the module was loaded correctly. where i've noted 'ok' as the outcome, i was able to find the server successfully and log in to it and fiddle around.

 

1-area plain vanilla module started w/nwserver directly : ok

cep 2.6 starter module started w/nwserver directly : ok

plain vanilla module + nwnx : ok

cep 2.6 starter module + nwnx : ok

my test module (named 'x9.mod') + nwnx : server not found

my test module alone : server not found

renaming plain vanilla module to 'x9.mod' and retrying w/nwnx : server not found

renaming my test module to 'vanilla.mod' and retrying w/o nwnx : ok

renaming my test module to 'vanilla.mod' and retrying w/nwnx: ok

renaming vanilla module to 'a.mod' and retrying : server not found

renaming vanilla module to '123.mod' and retrying : ok

 

so it appears that nwserver will simply not publish a module whose name is shorter than 3 characters !

could i get a reality check here ?  this seems bizarre, but that's the only conclusion i can come to given the results.

 

this appears to be endemic to nwserver itself and seems to have nothing to do w/nwnx. i can't say if it's some sort of side-effect between nwserver and the nwniab virtual box, because i don't have a genuine unix box to play around with.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

That is...crazy!  I'm glad you finally got it working.  Good sleuthing!     I don't have a linux server set up or I'd give that a test to confirm for ya.