Internet and Sphere
When you run Sphere, in most cases you will get two different Monitoring IP and it will stay directly on the net. The only thing you need to do is go in to the sphere.ini and change the numbers:
[SERVERS] MyShard //This one is the name Your_IP //This one is the IP 2593 //This one is the port
So you will NOT need to add a SERV.SERVIP statement anywhere. But, where is the problem? If you don't have a static IP, you will need to change it every time, so: Get a noip.org account and its software, so you will get a free static ip. Easy, uh?
Instead, if you receive the Shard Selection Screen and then it stops there's something wrong. Of course this problem is not specific, it could be your (client) router, packet filtering, proxy software on server, something else at port 2593 or weird stuff with your server's network interface. (There are hundreds of ways to break). So, before reading all the text below, be sure that you have no internal problems. Now, let's go on!
If you have a router, Sphere is only able to determine your Local IP (and maybe your external IP changes all the time), then do the following:
- Register an account at NoIP.org, you will need it if you don't want to change the files all the time. Get a hostname.
- Install their software, and run it, of course.
- Properly configure you router so it forwards port 2593 (or your Sphere Port, alas, i recommend the default one) to your internal IP (in my case: 192.186.0.175, you can find yours if you check your network connection properties).
- Configure your Sphere.ini:
[SPHERE] // Name of your Sphere shard ServName=Three-Head Monkey // The IP of your server, this will be 127.0.0.1 almost always ServIP=127.0.0.1 // The port of your server, this is 2593 by default ServPort=2593
Go to the lower part of it, and comment every line under [SERVERS], for example:
[SERVERS] //Three-Head Monkey //127.0.0.1 //2593 // [EOF]
Now, go to your "scripts/sphere_serv_triggers.scp", and edit it like this:
[FUNCTION f_onaccount_login] SERV.SERVIP yourno-ip.homedns.org [FUNCTION f_onserver_start] SERV.SERVIP yourno-ip.homedns.org [FUNCTION f_onserver_save_ok] SERV.SERVIP yourno-ip.homedns.org [FUNCTION f_onserver_timer] F_DATE
Just change every "yourno-ip.homedns.org" with your registered hostname at NoIP.org (Self-Descriptive Name, uh).
Ok, why there's an F_DATE function in there? Well, it refreshes Sphere's external IP to "yourno-ip.homedns.org", in case it changes. That will keep your connection with the players safe. Just go to the ini and change the option "TimerCall" to 5 (instead of 0). Then in a script file, add this:
[FUNCTION f_date] SERV.SERVIP yourno-ip.homedns.org
That's it, at the Login.cfg you should put your hostname registered from NoIP.org and the port you used. And it should work, here an example:
LoginServer=yourno-ip.homedns.org,2593
