XLink KAI working on a linux server! But it has trouble...

Kai Beginner Joined: 17 Nov 2008 Posts: 2

Hi,

Some guys in my group finally got it to work. Here's how they did it. I run a linux server as the gateway to my home network. This server runs headless, and I'd like to run xlink kai on it, to connect my 5 xboxen to the outside world.

If you developer types want to address some of these issues, especially the requirement to run X, that would be great! I run no X on my server.

--- Eric

-----------------------

So, Jonathan and I were able to get the latest version of xlink KAI
running on a linux server over the weekend. It even looks like voice
chatting will work while in-game.

There are a couple of gotchas though

1. the latest version of KAI requires X to be running. I have mine
setup to use VNC. I configured VNC to only listen to localhost so I do
not have to worry about remote access attempts. I also use a very
lightweight desktop called icewm (its ugly, but very light). Then you
can access vnc over a encrypted SSH session with "vnc via
user@hostname localhost:1"

2. The latest version of KAI requires root access Sad

I have found that
SUDO does work though Smile

.

3. KAI has some issues with the XBMC config of the kai client. So, you
have to completely disable KAI in the xbox. (Settings, programs, kai,
uncheck "enabled")

4. KAI is now completely configured via a web browser on a very random
port.... 34522... so no more thick client

5. By default when you start the kaiengine it will open the default
browser and auto-open to the web UI of managing KAI so that you can
find the arena that you want.... LAME So I disable that. Here is my
"kaiUserConfig.txt" file which needs to be in the same directory as
the kaiengine directory

[KaiUserConfig]
kaiUsername=********* #Username for automatic login to xlink
kaiPassword=********* #Password for automatic login xlink
kaiAutoLogin=1 #Enable automatic login (true)
kaiWebUI=1 #Enable the web UI (true)
kaiLaunchUI=0 #Auto launch the web UI (false)
kaiUI=! #User interface program name (blank)
kaiHTTPPassword=! #Password to access user interface (blank)
kaiSkin=!
kaiAutoOpenChat=0 #(false)
kaiCodepage=0 # MBCS code page for asian character sets
kaiLanguage=en
kaiPAT=0 # Enable port address translation
kaiPort=30000 # Set UDP port for peer-to-peer
connections (0=random) (default)
kaiDeepPort=0
kaiWebUIPort=34522 #the port that the KAI UI runs on (34522
is default)
kaiProxyServer=! #upstream proxy server
kaiProxyPort=0 #upstream proxy server port
kaiAdapter=! #if you have multiple interfaces
you can specify one.... (!=autodetect)
kaiTimeout=0 #auto shutdown kai engine after x minutes
kaiUIClose=0 #auto shutdown the engine when the UI closes
kaiAcceptRemote=1 #accept UI connections from hosts other
than localhost

6. We noticed that after you play a game, if you leave the game on the
xbox the kaiengine will crash with a "segment fault" so this script
will relaunch kai if it crashes.
I called mine run_kai.sh. This creates an endless loop and if kai
every crashes it will start a new one. This is not smart enough to
know if kai is already running... so if you launch multiple copies of
this script you will end up launching multiple instances of kai.

#/bin/bash
while [ a ]
do
./kaiengine
done

7. Due to kai requiring root to be able to mess around with the
network cards... you will need to run the above script with sudo
./run_kai.sh

But other than that things ran pretty smooth. We played halo2 for a
bit and it ran great. We even had multiple xbox'en on the same network
playing in an online game.

Team XLink Developer Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 2338

Once the engine is out of beta a GUI-less version will be produced, which should solve a few of your problems.

About the kai restart script, have it check if there is a pid file for kai. If there is, don't restart, the engine is still running.

Alternatively you could use kaid 7.0.0.7 until the new engine is out of beta.

Kai Beginner Joined: 17 Nov 2008 Posts: 2

Hey, you guys are awesome! Keep up the good work. I guess I'll wait to set this up on my own server when it's out of beta, and doesn't require X.

Thanks again!