User:Emperor Starfinder

About Emperor Starfinder

Emperor Starfinder is the head of the Second Galaxy Development Team and is a core developer of Second Galaxy! and Galaxy Futures! both of which are 3D virtual world grids which use opensimulator features in their base framework.

Projects I am working on
I have many projects I am working on for the two grids I am a core developer of. Some of these we might choose to give to opensim to help improve opensim. Here is the list of projects I am working on now.


 * Currency - I am working on implementation of a stable currency system for our our grids. If it works the way we want it to I might develop a version of it for use with opensim for those who want an easy to use currency module.


 * Infinite Regions - Ever get frustrated with the region borders in opensim? I know I do all the time. Aurora Sim has implemented this with success although there are still some bugs to fix.  I will be working on a version that does the same thing with the infinite region possibility that allows you to travel the grid without having to teleport everywhere while hopefully improving the region crossing issue if not making region boundaries a thing of the past.  Plus we kind of need this feature for Galaxy Futures which is going to be our grid where the regions are planets.


 * Various region sizes - I know some may be wondering well why not use mega regions? The truth is we could but in all honesty mega regions can also be a hastle especially if you want to load an OAR file. So I am working on a way that takes the approach to var regions that Aurora Sim did and working on making this work with opensim.  By doing this if works right it will allow you to choose a region size (i.e. 1024x1024) when configuring regions.  This will compliment the infinite regions we are needing on our grids as well.

These are just some of the projects that myself and members of my development team are working on. Our focus is to provide grids where the users are the main focus. Features that we think will improve opensim that we are using we will be more then happy to donate to opensim.

Have ideas of features we could add to our grids or perhaps code for features your using you think we might be able to use? Feel free to email me at emperor@secondgalaxy.com with details.

Tutorials
Below you will find some tutorials I have added to help others in hopes it will help make your experience with OpenSim even better. Let me know if there are items you cannot find howtos for and if I've done it I will add one.

How to install osmodules on Windows operating systems with IIS
Okay so after a lot of annoying bugs and frustration, I finally got search, profiles, and offline messaging working. Thanks to Guy for giving me that last push I needed to revisit it.

For those who are having trouble with the profiles, search, and offline messaging and are running on windows I recommend the following steps as it worked for me.

1. Install IIS (you can either install the IIS 7.5 express from Microsoft or activate IIS 6.0 through your control panel by going to the control panel and under programs turn on or off new features. In the features manager check the boxes for IIS and click ok.)

2. Through the web installer from Microsoft you'll want to install php 5.3.19 (sorry I am not to sure yet why profiles, search, and offline messaging hates php 5.4.x. I'll try and play around with this when I get some time and through the list of projects I have waiting for me to implement.)

3. Go to your IIS Manager by clicking on start and typing in IIS Manager to find the manager.

4. In the IIS manager you might need to scroll down to find the php manager. Open the manager.

5. In the php manager you might get an incompatibility highlighted in yellow. No need to panic this is normal. Click the recommended link next to this message and it will go away.

6. Click the php.ini link and edit the php.ini file and turn on asp_tags and short_open_tags. Then click save.

7. Click the phpinfo link to verify that you have configured everything correctly. No need to worry about the php_curl or php_xmlrpc as these are on by default. (they were for me).

8. Minimize your IIS manager now.

9. Copy the web root folders for search and profiles to your IIS wwwroot folder. You can find this directory in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\

10. In my case I named the search, profile, and offline messaging directory folders search, profiles, and messaging. I also changed the xmlrpc groups web root directory to groups.

11. Make sure to configure your database info and your ini files accordingly in your opensim server.

12. Restart or launch your opensim instance.

13. Log in using your viewer of choice and test. Everything should work quite well.

I am sorry to see these modules not working well with the current php versions in wamp and xampp servers. Someone will need to revisit that and figure out how to actually make these compatible with any php-xmlrpc version.

Many thanks to Chris of Fleepgrid for posting in his wiki that he was able to get osmodules working on IIS.

If you should have any trouble getting your osmodules working on IIS on Windows you can email me at emperor@secondgalaxy.com and I will be glad to help you.

How to get opensim to communicate with your MySQL Database Server on a separate machine
So I am sure many people wonder this and ask themselves "how do i put my mysql server on a different machine and have my opensim instances communicate with it?"

You might think it seems simple enough right? well in reality it is simple.

Do I have to open any ports in my network router? No you do not need to open any ports in your network router. In fact opening the port that mysql uses in your network router is usually a very bad idea and in some cases can lead to hours of headache and frustrtion from repairing what people have done by exploiting that port.

So what do I do? Here is a step by step guide on what to do.

1. Download the 5.5.29 version for your operating system. Be sure its downloaded on the machine you plan to install it on. You can get the latest MySQL MySQL Community Server.

2. Install MySQL on the machine you want to use as your server machine for your database server. I usually do the complete install myself but you can select from the other two options.

3. Configure MySQL. This is important for your database server.

4. To get rid of the max allowed packet error opensim will give if packet sizes being reported to your mysql server this piece is important: A. Click Start and in the search bar type Services. B. Click on Services C. In services select MySQL and click the stop link. Now leave the services window open for a moment. D. Run Notepad as Administrator. Start -> Accessories -> Notepad. Right click and click on Run as administrator. E. Click Yes on the little pop up message. F. Now in notepad Click File -> Open G. In the open window select Local Hard Drive (Usually C:) -> Program Files (both x86 and x64 on Windows) -> MySQL -> MySQL 5.5.29 -> my.ini (Make sure to select all files in the open window.  H. In the my.ini file scroll down till you see [MYISAM] just above this line we want to add this:      max_allowed_packet=100G   I. Click on File -> Save   J. Close the notepad   K. In your services window make sure you have MySQL highlighted and click start link.  This will bring the service pack online.

5. Download the MySQL Workbench for your operating system. Be sure its downloaded on the machine you installed the MySQL database server on. You can get the latest MySQL Workbench Version here: MySQL Workbench.

6. Install workbench.

7. It will launch at the end of install. When it asks for root user password add it and tick (check) the box to remember password.

8. When workbench opens you should see 3 localhost options to choose from. If you only see 1 in the middle no need to panic. Under server administration click the new server instance link. Go through the wizard that comes up. I usually just use the defaults for localhost here. After completing this wizard it will then give you the local host instance on all 3 categories.

9. Create your databases you use for opensim by double clicking on the local host option on the left hand side of workbench. On the screen that pops up copy and paste this little script in:

use mysql; create database opensim; create user opensim identified by 'your_password_goes_here'; create user 'opensim'@'localhost' identified by 'your_password_goes_here'; grant all on opensim.* to opensim; grant all on opensim.* to 'opensim'@'localhost'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

put your password where required here and then click the lightening bolt. Then right click on the test schema to the left and select refresh all. If successful youll see the schema for your new database called opensim.

10. In your machine's firewall go to advanced options and for incoming and outgoing ports add port 3306 and be sure to allow the connection. I usually do this for both TCP and UDP. Just saves me the trouble of hassling with it later.

11. In your Robust.ini, Standalone.ini, GridCommon.ini files or the other ini configuration files for your opensim grid under the database for mysql change local host to your machine.s internal ip address (i.e. 192.168.1.2)

12. Your probably thinking now wait ive a dynamic ip address. No worries the easy part here is this can be changed in your local network. Download this tool and install on the machine you installed MySQL on. You can get the latest Portforward static ip address tool here: Free Software to Configure A Static IP Address.

13. After installing the tool double click the PF icon on your desktop. It opens up (you may want to run as administrator) click the Make Static Button. Youll get a configuration wizard. Leave the default options in place and select Ok. In the window that comes up click apply and it is done. Make sure the static ip address of the machine is the one you put in your opensim ini files.

If you have done it right then your good to go and opensim should see your database server and communicate with it.

I have done these steps and it works for me. It will not compromise the security of your network or your computers.

If your running on linux I am unsure if Portforward has their software compatible with linux but I am sure they likely do. If you know of a linux tool that does this let me know.

If you need help getting it to work for you then you can email me at emperor@secondgalaxy.com and I will be happy to help you.