Seq + Eqw + Eqw = Bad

[bmp]

So, running to Everquests on the same computer is REALLY not good for SEQ. Is there any way to just target one stream of data?

[Cryonic]

nope. If there was, then running two instances of EQ on the box wouldn't cause problems.

[bmp]

I phrased that incorrectly. Is there any way to code SEQ to just watch one stream? The connecting port for each EQ session should be unique on the client system, there should be a way to add one extra filter for the packet reader that tags the first client port and only reads data going there? I'm sorry, I know very little of c++ or network packets so I might be completely wrong. Plus that means I probably couldn't do this myself.

Just a request I suppose, because I'm sure there are other people running 2 EQ clients on the same system.

[fee]

I believe I have thought up a way to add the feature to allow showeq to single out a specific stream.

Just to give a quick summary of how it will go. I will add an option to the Network menu called "Session Tracking". Once this is enabled, ShowEQ will base its filtering completely on the begin and end of the zone session. This means it will ignore any existing sessions or new sessions that start once it has locked on. You should therefor be able to start 1 EQ session at a time per instance of ShowEQ and it will track it without any crosstalk between the sessions.

The only limitations I can see at this point will be two clients zoning simultaneously. ShowEQ will lock on to which ever EQ client initiates the new zone connection. Sorry, no real way to deal with this. So when you are running multiple EQ clients from the same computer, make sure you make a n effort to zone one character at a time.

I should have this in the CVS by Friday.

fee

[Mr Guy]

Maybe I should be looking into this myself instead of merely asking. I digress. How does EQ itself differentiate? Has to be port numbers or some part of the packet we don't understand. Finding how EQ locks itself is the key.

[fee]

mrguy, its actually rather like a tcp sockets, no mystery what so ever. The EQ client initiates the stream and initiates any state changes(connections and disconections). The reason it becomes difficult with showeq is because of showeq's passive packet capture. It has to be listening for the state of the server and the client to follow a stream. Its extra work for showeq to follow and track. Like i said, I thought up a way to handle it and will have a working version up by friday

[Mr Guy]

Is it the case that EQ initiates a new connection each time you zone? If so, I think what I was going to suggest is what you are doing.

[fee]

Please try the new code, enable session tracking and let me know how it turns out.

fee

[liffy]

One problem I've had is not 2 instances of eq on one system, but 2 instances of seq running. I have seq on our firewall monitoring and exporting seq's display to 2 different workstations next to our EQ machines.

If I am online by myself, everything works fine, but if the second person fires up their seq and logs in, once they find the key, my session quits decoding.

If I then zone, his quits decoding and mine works...

What I had done to get around this was not just seperate showeq.conf files pointing to different log files for both sessions, but I also had to edit main.cpp because it has several paths to log files coded in it. I actually have to compile seq twice to accomplish this. Oh yeah, I now notice that interface.cpp has a path hardcoded into it as well that I had to edit.

Would you be able to change those hard coded file paths and log files to be from from the showeq.conf allowing you to run 2 instances of seq on one system successfully?

[S_B_R]

That is very strange... I have used 12 SEQ sessions running on 3 different servers, one of which was the firewall/NAT box. Those 12 SEQ sessions were monitoring 8 different eq clients. all of that with no special installs or changes to the source.

we just specified the IP address for each session to listen to on the commandline and it work flawlessly...

The only thing I would suspect you might be doing wrong is you should be listening to the INTERNAL IP Addresses, i.e. 192.168.x.x, and not the external address.

[fryfrog]

yeah, i have to say thats a pretty gay ass problem. be sure you are using (for instance)...



./showeq -i eth1 10.0.0.10


when i used to run seq on my firewall server (i don't anymore, the stability of older showeqs was very low) it didn't work well monitoring the inside ip (i think this was an old, known issue that has long time been fixed). anyway, make sure you specify the internal interface AND the ip address.

i personally run 3-4 seq sessions on the same computer and it doesn't have ANY problems with it.