How do game server admin tools work?

T

tgabe213

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I think I may have posted this once before...

For example, I'm thinking of games such as Call of Duty 4 and 5. How do the admin tools like ModernRcon and such interact with the server? They only require a server IP, username, and password.

Does the game server have an API that's used to connect to? If so, why I have I not been able to find one that's been published?

Call of Duty Black Ops will be coming out shortly, and I'd like the develop a web based tool for admin purposes.

Thanks!
 
I am curious too as I used to run game servers in the past on Unix/Linux boxes, but that was before I became a programmer, so I did some digging around...

Valve games use their own protocol, the Source RCON protocol over a TCP/IP stream, and can issue commands to the server.
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_RCON_Protocol

You can query the server using UDP/IP packets
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Server_queries

An example UDP query to the master server
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Master_Server_Query_Protocol

While Valve games have a lot more documentation, encouraging the modding community, the Call of Duty games seems a bit more murky. Looks like it's harder to find the RCON commands and how to make proper UDP connections for various Call of Duty games.

This guy tried writing a vb.net app to connect to CoD
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=518401

This person list a bunch of rcon server commands for CoD IV
http://justhelp.niceboard.net/technical-information-help-f2/call-of-duty-4-server-commands-t9.htm

Should be an interesting project. I imagine you'll have to learn more about UDP as that Modern RCON game use UDP packets for remote access. UDP is a connectionless transport protocol, unlike TCP, so is definitely more challenging.

That first link I gave on Source RCON protocol also list various libraries that interact with RCON so that may help you out. There was a PHP library and a Python so either of those should work on a web server.
 
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