uoamhub

$Id: README 127 2005-02-17 20:56:05Z max $

What is uoamhub?

uoamhub is a dedicated server for UOAutoMap. UOAutoMap is written by Steve Blanding, and is an explicitly non-free map tracking tool for Ultima Online, which has networking features with a proprietary, undocumented protocol.

"Distribution of UOAM.exe is strictly prohibited.", "Neither UOAM.exe nor its associated binary files may be modified in any way without the auto's permissions"

Unlike UOAutoMap itself, you are free to share uoamhub with your friends, even the source code is available. This means, you can improve uoamhub if you want to. All without asking for my permission. If you do, please send me your changes. Please read the file COPYING for details.

Compilation

You do not need this, if you downloaded a binary distribution of uoamhub.

uoamhub runs on Linux (should run on all distributions), FreeBSD, Solaris and similar operating systems; maybe MacOS X, OpenBSD, NetBSD, AIX, HP/UX, Windows/Cygwin and many others - but I havn't tested that. Please tell me whether it does.

You need gcc and GNU make. Go to the source directory and type:

make

(Or "gmake" if you are not on Linux). This will result in the binary named "uoamhub".

Running

Type

./uoamhub -D

The "-D" tells uoamhub not to daemonize, i.e. go into background. Now try to connect.

By default, uoamhub listens on all interfaces on port 2000. If you want it to use another port, use the "--port" parameter:

./uoamhub -D --port 2001

Another example, uoamhub as daemon (no "-D") on the default port (2000), running as user "uoam", logging to /var/log/uoamhub.log and chrooted to /var/lib/uoamhub:

./uoamhub --user uoam --chroot /var/lib/uoamhub \

     --pidfile /var/run/uoamhub.pid \
     --logger "exec /bin/cat >/var/log/uoamhub.log"

You should never run uoamhub as root, you should always use the parameter "--user" to change it to an unprivileged user. The chroot is another security feature for the paranoid: you may specify an empty, read-only directory here, and uoamhub chroots into it (see the man page of chroot for more information).

Password protection

By default, uoamhub acts as an open system, i.e. it accepts all passwords, and all users who chose the same password are in the same "domain", they can see each others. This allows you to set up a secure server which can be used by many user groups at the same time.

If you want to use the server only for yourself, you can set a password, and only this password will be accepted. To enable this, write the password to a file and tell uoamhub where the file is:

umask 077
echo topsecret >/tmp/uoampasswd
uoamhub --password /tmp/uoampasswd

Links

http://max.kellermann.name/projects/uoamhub/

http://uoam.net/
http://uo.com/

To Steve

I know you refused to disclose the UOAutoMap protocol for "security reasons". I really don't share your idea of "security" and I fail to understand how you are improving it by not disclosing the protocol. Anyway, I did find out without your help in less than 2 hours. That for the "security".

I am quite sure you are currently thinking about changing the protocol, so I can't break it again in 2 hours. Don't be silly.

If I really want to, I will reverse engineer it again and again. In the end, you are bringing a lot of pain to your users with daily incompatible upgrades, but uoamhub will remain. Don't. The UOAutoMap protocol is good enough, despite being a bit inefficient (both in bandwidth and in latency).

There is a huge demand for a headless dedicated UOAutoMap server on Linux and many other operating systems, so everybody can run a server on their cheap Linux root server or with a shell account. The uoamhub project delivers exactly this. That's a GoodThing(TM).

Legal

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.