ET:Legacy Can't connect to silent servers

[Ag47]

Hello

 

I'm just trying ET:legacy, but when I try to connect to silent server I get the next message:

 

Disconnected from server.

Server file name " silent/~fearless_ssp_b1.pk3" is containing an invalid character for the ET:Legacy file structure

Downloading file denied.

 

I think it's because of this character: ~ 

What do you think? Has anyone successfully connected to silent servers using ET:Legacy? 

[kemon]

This is indeed related to the tilde [~] character. In the ET environment it places last in the alphabet, which means that pk3 starting with it get loaded last.

 

This has sparked an outright war between servers, about who can add more of these characters in their filenames. This by itself is already madness, but the main purpose of these pk3 is in most cases to alter the game for clients. Having the pk3 from server A load last means that the client/player loads whatever A put in their menu file. This can range from an additional menu button to connect to server A, to a complete removal of any functionality other than connecting to server A. The latter case being borderline mal-ware, since a player who is not familiar with the console has no chance whatsoever.

 

Since it would be too much work to check for altered menu files or othe content, we simply prevented pk3 with the tilde in the filename from being loaded. The only purpose of this is to protect the client from potentially malicious content. I hope you understand.

[captnconcrete]

i can connect to silent with etlegacy..

[daredevil]

On 5/3/2018 at 2:56 AM, kemon said:

This is indeed related to the tilde [~] character. In the ET environment it places last in the alphabet, which means that pk3 starting with it get loaded last.

 

This has sparked an outright war between servers, about who can add more of these characters in their filenames. This by itself is already madness, but the main purpose of these pk3 is in most cases to alter the game for clients. Having the pk3 from server A load last means that the client/player loads whatever A put in their menu file. This can range from an additional menu button to connect to server A, to a complete removal of any functionality other than connecting to server A. The latter case being borderline mal-ware, since a player who is not familiar with the console has no chance whatsoever.

 

Since it would be too much work to check for altered menu files or othe content, we simply prevented pk3 with the tilde in the filename from being loaded. The only purpose of this is to protect the client from potentially malicious content. I hope you understand.

I guess here, I am to blame for tilde and extended ASCII characters. Back in the days, few clans have massive broken pk3 menu with tons of error in console and they used to use bunch of zzzz... That messed up pk3's and shit load of errors, used to piss me of to no extend. So I started using ~ which started back in 2008. I started with one tild and eventually same clam owners copy pasted and went up back to 52. Same thing and history repeated itself with extended ASCII. I am glad you guys are blocking it. But I foresee clans will be back to old basics of zzz. 

 

We took similar approach in silEnT mod and restricted from starting server with those pk3. But eventually, some owners bypassed it and I had filed DMCA report against them with their hoster and was able to convince 2 clan owners. The one major issue I see is silEnT mod is not opensource so we where able to restrict it but with ETLegacy being open source due to GPL license, I believe matter of time someone bypasses it and starts distributing parallel download. So if their is any new approach to fix that, I would gladly appreciate it. This things need some elegant approach to fix it permanently so "all ET players" can benefit but before doing that please keep 2 spare master list in ETLegacy files so that if in future ETLegacy development slows down, rather then transferring domain it also queries another master list. This way we will not hit case where master list is down and no one gets to see any online server. If schnoo from SL is ok to maintain another domain, I would suggest giving him another master list domain. He is fair enough person. 

 

To the other part - admins can make players download malicious file even with z_name pk3 or just map name pk3. Their is no stopping it unless some crazy checks are added in code itself to control all pk3's to make sure no exe and servers running custom AC like us needs to get whitelisting done but then upon update of AC you need to add new checks without updating ETLegacy builds. That's why I have always suggested players to play on servers where they trust admin owners or else it would become nightmare for them. From trojans, virus, password stealing of their bank accounts, etc anything could happen and has happened in past to those cheat users when cheat coders kept loop hole in their code to get more benefit out of the clients. That's another discussion altogether though. 

 

The one thing ETLegacy needs by default is support of subnet bans with wildcard support and that would benefit all mods except silent as silent as inbuilt subnet ban support. Some nice perks/addons over custom ETDED.exe would entice server owners to switch to ETLegacy server builds faster. 

 

I am just glad you are keep up fixing issues in ET to keep it alive, so kudos for that. Thank you

 

 

[daredevil]

On 5/3/2018 at 12:07 AM, Ag47 said:

Hello

 

I'm just trying ET:legacy, but when I try to connect to silent server I get the next message:

 

Disconnected from server.

Server file name " silent/~fearless_ssp_b1.pk3" is containing an invalid character for the ET:Legacy file structure

Downloading file denied.

 

I think it's because of this character: ~ 

What do you think? Has anyone successfully connected to silent servers using ET:Legacy? 

 

I suggest manually copying our files for now. Will change that in future. Might update our pk3 cleaner soon so players who wish to play from ETLegacy can play without any issue. 

[kemon]

I completely agree with you. Preventing the tilde [~] character is not a permanent fix. However, for now it is a long overdue signal to server owners.

This madness has to stop.

In the long run, the only way to completely prevent malicious tampering with the client's main menu is, to somehow link those menu files to the client profile.

This way, the player could also create his very own custom main menu. In my eyes, this makes most sense, however, this is something that is part of the complete UI code rework.

Once we have a clean UI system in place, we should really create an intuitive way for the client to customize it. Only then, the client is finally save.

 

Since quite a few updates, the client is also pinging the ET:Legacy server master list, in case the one by id software fails. Starting with 2.75 this master list server is also active.

Or did you mean something else with master list?

 

[daredevil]

10 hours ago, kemon said:

This way, the player could also create his very own custom main menu. In my eyes, this makes most sense, however, this is something that is part of the complete UI code rework.

Once we have a clean UI system in place, we should really create an intuitive way for the client to customize it. Only then, the client is finally save.

That's the idea we tinkered around few years back but it required lot's of changes and doing that through mod was tough in silEnT mod so we leaved it as is. This is good news and I can't wait for that day. I see hope in ET now. I am going to keep my fingers crossed. 

 

Yup, u got it. As long as we have back up of ET Master list if id pulls the plug on ET.