Configuring Regions

OpenSim 0.6.7 and later

By default, regions in OpenSim 0.6.7 and later are configured in a file named Regions.ini in the bin/Regions directory. If you started a completely fresh installation of OpenSim, it will ask you a series of questions to set up your first region.

Here's an example of a Regions.ini

[Big Fat Region]
RegionUUID = 5ce85740-6460-43d3-ba4c-29207b010072
Location = 1000,1000
InternalAddress = 0.0.0.0
InternalPort = 9000
AllowAlternatePorts = False
ExternalHostName = 192.168.1.2
MasterAvatarFirstName = Justin
MasterAvatarLastName = Clark-Casey
MasterAvatarSandboxPassword = yeahokay

Here's a line by line breakdown

[Big Fat Region] - The name of the region, in this case Big Fat Region.

RegionUUID - The unique ID of the region. It has to be in this UUID format and must be unique with respect to any other regions that you are running

Location - The location of the region on the grid.

InternalAddress - INSTRUCTIONS TODO. I recommend leaving this as 0.0.0.0

InternalPort - The port which viewers will use to log in to this region. It must be accessible from the machine on which the viewer is running. If you're running multiple regions, each must use a unique port number.

AllowAlternatePorts - TODO UNKNOWN. Leave as the default False.

ExternalHostName - This is the address which viewers will use to log in to this region. It must be accessible from the machine on which the viewer is running. In this case it's 192.168.1.2 because I'm running both viewer and simulator on a LAN. If you wanted people to be able to connect to this simulator over the Internet then you would need to provide an accessible web address (e.g. mylovelysim.com).

MasterAvatarFirstName - The master avatar name. TODO MORE INSTRUCTIONS. Otherwise don't worry about this.

MasterAvatarLastName - The master avatar last name. TODO MORE INSTRUCTIONS. Otherwise don't worry about this.

MasterAvatarSandboxPassword - TODO MORE INSTRUCTIONS. Otherwise don't worry about this.

If you want to add another region you can

• enter another section in Regions.ini
• create another separate .ini file in bin/Regions
• create an old format OpenSim xml file (these still work with OpenSim 0.6.7)
• or use the create region command on the region console (I don't recommend this since it seems to be a bit buggy in 0.6.7).

Here's an example where a second region has been added to Regions.ini

[Big Fat Region]
RegionUUID = 5ce85740-6460-43d3-ba4c-29207b010072
Location = 1000,1000
InternalAddress = 0.0.0.0
InternalPort = 9000
AllowAlternatePorts = False
ExternalHostName = 192.168.1.2
MasterAvatarFirstName = Justin
MasterAvatarLastName = Clark-Casey
MasterAvatarSandboxPassword = yeahokay
 
[Greek Wedding]
RegionUUID = 5c445740-6460-43d3-ba4c-444444445555
Location = 1000,1001
InternalAddress = 0.0.0.0
InternalPort = 9001
AllowAlternatePorts = False
ExternalHostName = 192.168.1.2
MasterAvatarFirstName = Justin
MasterAvatarLastName = Clark-Casey
MasterAvatarSandboxPassword = yeahokay

As you can see, the Second region is named Greek Wedding and has a different UUID. It has a different location (1000,1001) and a different InternalPort (9001). Other than that, the details are the same.

To create a new UUID you can either tweak an existing one by hand (e.g. by changing one character so that the new one is in the range [0-9][A-F] or a generator can be found at uuidgen webpage. On Unix, you can also use the uuidgen command.

OpenSim 0.6.6 and earlier

A powerful region generator is available at: RegionGenerator

For running multiple regions on the same box, you simply make multiple copies of the 'default.xml' file inside the bin/Regions/ directory. You can do this by typing create region at the OpenSim command prompt, using the script make.php in share/regions, or you can generate the files by hand.

If you want to create the files by hand:

first copy the default.xml file in the bin/Regions directory, and name them anything you want (I name mine region.x.y.xml, where region is the name of the region, and x and y are the grid coords.)

Open each xml file and edit the uuid (a generator can be found at uuidgen webpage or on unix, use the uuidgen command), region name, x & y positions, and internal IP port.

IMPORTANT! Regardless of the method you use to create your new region, the UUID, name, and grid coordinates must be unique for each region on a grid. The port assignment must be unique for each region that is running on a particular machine. The internal IP address and external host name must be the same for all regions.

Note that sim_location_x and sim_location_y should be adjacent integers if you want your regions to be adjacent, so you can run back and forth between them. IMPORTANT: THESE GRID COORDINATES ARE NOT IN METERS. THEY ARE SIM POSITIONS. (1000, 1000) is next to (1001,1000), (1000, 1001), and so forth. 1256, 2000, 2048 and similar values are not adjacent to 1000, they are very far away, so you would not see your sims from one another.

Once you have 2 or more xml files in the bin/Regions folder, running a single copy of OpenSim.exe will start up all of your sims! If you come across any errors, there is most likely an error in your xml files.