Modify certain ConsoleLog entires to be more conclusive

[Vv00t-SN]

I) banned player attempting to join produces inconclusive log entry

consider the following scenario:
1) player gets banned (for example by using /banhw <hwid> or just by using "/ban <playernumber>")
2) banned player attempts to join at a later date
3) log merely states: <ip>:<port> requesting game...

this line in the log is inconclusive and not very helpful:
1) it does not state that the player attempting to join is banned --> no distinction possible between banned player attempting to join and non-banned player who joins the server but does not select a team
2) it does not show the player's hwid, although clearly a hwid check is carried out --> when wanting to unban that player, the admin has to "manually" figure out the player's hwid first!


Suggestion: modify the log line to provide more information. In fact, a lot more info could be helpful here, such as the ip of the original banner or the date of the ban:

<banned nick> <banned ip> <banned hwid> requesting game... (<banreason>; <banner ip>; <ban date>)

..or something like that.



II) normal chat cannot be formally distinguished from system messages, commands, etc.

Code: [Select]

(14:20:17) Time Left: 1 minutes
(14:20:19) NOP (176.11.101.26)
(14:21:17) Next map: ctf_Laos
(14:21:22) Laos
(14:22:26) NOP (176.11.101.26)
(14:22:45) 62.156.36.231:23073 requesting game...
(14:22:46) \\D// Zeager (SN) joining game (162.165.36.21:23073) HWID:79677976C09
(14:22:46) \\D// Zeager (SN) has joined alpha team.
(14:22:53) \\D// Zeager (SN) added to Game Admins
(14:22:58) /map ctf_Rotten(162.165.36.21[\\D// Zeager (SN)])
(14:23:03) ctf_Rotten by Biggles
(14:23:02) [\\D// Zeager (SN)] bla bla bla
(14:23:17) (TEAM)[\\D// Zeager (SN)] bla
(14:23:19) \\D// Zeager (SN) has left alpha team.
As you can see, commands and system messages are formally indistinguishable from non-team chat.

Suggestion: put (CHAT) or something in front of those lines.



These are just two things that bothered me for a while now. Im not sure how popular these suggestions are, since most people probably dont have to deal with these things often or at all. Nonetheless, I do think these modifications Ive suggested would be very helpful to some of us.

[Vos]

I am definitely in favour about putting hwids in addition to just ips on the consolelog when a player is requesting to join, would be much easier instead of ''manually'' getting their hwid by looking back into logs or whatsoever.

I however dont think that the banner's IP is a must to be shown nor the reason of his ban, it will definitely be helpfull in some situations though, but not neccesarily a must if you ask me.

as for your second suggestion, it's probably better to put something like [Lobby] or [Game] or whatsoever in front of the requestings messages etc, i'd like that more personally.

all but all, good suggestions in my oppinion

[Furai]

I fully back up Vv00t-SN's suggestion. These things will be really useful.

[SyavX]

http://bugs.soldat.pl/view.php?id=143

Date Submitted
2011-12-20 23:55

[Vos]

its not a bug though

[Bistoufly]

II) normal chat cannot be formally distinguished from system messages, commands, etc.

Code: [Select]

(14:20:17) Time Left: 1 minutes
(14:20:19) NOP (176.11.101.26)
(14:21:17) Next map: ctf_Laos
(14:21:22) Laos
(14:22:26) NOP (176.11.101.26)
(14:22:45) 62.156.36.231:23073 requesting game...
(14:22:46) \\D// Zeager (SN) joining game (162.165.36.21:23073) HWID:79677976C09
(14:22:46) \\D// Zeager (SN) has joined alpha team.
(14:22:53) \\D// Zeager (SN) added to Game Admins
(14:22:58) /map ctf_Rotten(162.165.36.21[\\D// Zeager (SN)])
(14:23:03) ctf_Rotten by Biggles
(14:23:02) [\\D// Zeager (SN)] bla bla bla
(14:23:17) (TEAM)[\\D// Zeager (SN)] bla
(14:23:19) \\D// Zeager (SN) has left alpha team.
As you can see, commands and system messages are formally indistinguishable from non-team chat.

Suggestion: put (CHAT) or something in front of those lines.

Thank you. Added in mantis. See: http://bugs.soldat.pl/view.php?id=368

[Shoozza]

I dont see the issue.
Normal chat looks like this:
[playername] chattext

[DorkeyDear]

I'm not certain if this is the issue at hand, but related at least. When somebody named "MyNick" says "has left alpha team.", I suspect it would appear like this in the logs: "(00:00:00) [MyNick] has left alpha team.". This message is ambiguous between the person named "MyNick" saying "has left alpha team." and a person named "[MyNick]" actually leaving alpha team, which would result in the same line in the log ("(00:00:00) [MyNick] has left alpha team."), making it indistinguishable except by someone who backtracks/forwardtracks and checks if the person actually left; if they did not actually leave, the message has to have been a spoken one.

[Vv00t-SN]

I'm not certain if this is the issue at hand, but related at least. When somebody named "MyNick" says "has left alpha team.", I suspect it would appear like this in the logs: "(00:00:00) [MyNick] has left alpha team.". This message is ambiguous between the person named "MyNick" saying "has left alpha team." and a person named "[MyNick]" actually leaving alpha team.

no - one does have brackets [] around the nick, like Shoozza just mentioned, so it is technically possible to tell those two apart if you concentrate

@Shoozza: Youre technically right, there are brackets around the nicks. However, the fact that I'm only just noticing this now (and others haven't noticed at all) should tell you that a more prominent "tag" could be useful - and if it's just to hide / skip past those lines when logviewing etc.

At any rate, part I) is the real issue here.

[Falcon`]

I think we can all agree on fact that current "protocol" cannot be even called a protocol, because it's just a randomly split out bundle of strings that you're struggling to parse. It can't be removed either though for backward compatibility reasons, but there can be added something new next to it.
I'm not going to write new admin protocol from scratch, I'm done with huge modifications after implementing SC3, at least for some time. But, it doesn't mean this won't be done, but that requires your help.
You have scripting, you have dll/so support. You have everything required to write a new admin protocol that'd be easy to parse, verbose and secure enough for you to use it. If somebody writes such a script (or library, preferbly pascal one ), then i might find a motivation to add it to soldatserver (if Shoozza approves it as well). Until then, that script will have a chance to get popular

[14th_account]

The first suggestion seems like it'd be a relatively quick fix.

As for having more distinguishable log lines, it doesn't seem like it'd be a too huge effort for us to add details and do some cleanup. What about a format like the following?

Code: [Select]

14:20:17 Message : Time Left: 1 minutes
14:20:19 Command : NOP (176.11.101.26)
14:21:17 Message : Next map: ctf_Laos
14:21:22 Message : Laos
14:22:26 Command : NOP (176.11.101.26)
14:22:45 Event   : 62.156.36.231:23073 requesting game...
14:22:46 Event   : \\D// Zeager (SN) joining game (162.165.36.21:23073) HWID:79677976C09
14:22:46 Event   : \\D// Zeager (SN) has joined alpha team.
14:22:53 Event   : \\D// Zeager (SN) added to Game Admins
14:22:58 Command : /map ctf_Rotten(162.165.36.21[\\D// Zeager (SN)])
14:23:03 Message : ctf_Rotten by Biggles
14:23:02 Chat    : [\\D// Zeager (SN)] bla bla bla
14:23:17 ChatTeam: [\\D// Zeager (SN)] bla
14:23:19 Event   : \\D// Zeager (SN) has left alpha team.
Or do a lot of server owners run some important log parsing tools that would break from this?

[zakath]

it will break stuff. so if its changed we might want to change a bit more then that.

[Fryer]

I think one of the most annoying things to parse when reading the lines into a bot are the ambiguous chat lines that sometimes occur:

[weird nick] !cmd [] ] stuff

In the above there are three different possibilities for which nick to use. OFC there are tricks to figuring it out, but anything making stuff like this easier would be nice.