yquake2remaster/doc/07_multiplayer.md

# Multiplayer Servers

Generally running a Yamagi Quake II server is the same as running a
Vanilla Quake2 server, so the old guides should still apply.

One thing to keep in mind is that the server must be restarted at least
every 49 days, because the Quake II network protocol represents the
interal time as a 32 bit integer and after 49 days that integer
overflows, leading to all kinds of trouble.

This problem has always existed in Quake II and is not fixable (at least
not without breaking compatibility with the existing network protocol),
but back in Win9x days this was less of a problem because Windows
crashed frequently anyways and  Win9x had the same bug and crashed after
49 days or so...

Apart from this, we'll only document changes/additions here.


## HTTP Downloads

Like r1q2 and some other Quake II source ports, we allow downloading
game data for multiplayer via HTTP. This is a lot faster than the Quake
II internal protocol that was used in the original client and Yamagi
Quake II up to version 7.30.

As a **client** you don't have to do anything, just use a Yamagi Quake
II version newer than 7.30 and if you build it yourself don't disable
cURL support.

For **servers** the following must be done:


### Put the game data on a http server

The directory structure on the server must be the same as in the game,
so if you want to provide `maps/foo.bsp` and your server base path is
`http://example.com/q2data/`, then you must put that map into
`http://example.com/q2data/maps/foo.bsp`.

You can either just put the raw .bsp (and files the bsp needs, textures,
modes and so on) on your HTTP server, or you can upload a whole `.pak`
or `.pk3` that contains the needed data. If you're using a `.pak` or
`.pk3` you need a **file list** that's hosted on your http server.


#### Map specific file lists

One way is to have one file list for each map that's running on your
server.  If your server is rotating between `maps/foo.bsp` and
`maps/bar.bsp`, you'd have `http://example.com/q2data/maps/foo.filelist`
and `http://example.com/q2data/maps/foo.filelist`.

A file list is a plain text file that lists one file path per line
that's to be downloaded. Those paths are relative to the server base
path and **must not** begin with a slash!

So if `maps/bar.bsp` needs `bar.pak` and `textures.pak`, your
`http://example.com/q2data/maps/bar.filelist` would look like:

```
bar.pak
textures.pak
```


#### Global File List

Instead of map-specific file lists, you could have one global file list.
All those files are downloaded when someone connects to your server,
regardless of the currently running map.

This global file list must be at your server base path and must be
called `.filelist`.

So in our example `http://example.com/q2data/.filelist` could look like:

```
bar.pak
foo.pak
textures.pak
```
or

```
maps/bar.bsp
maps/foo.bsp
textures/my_tex.wal
```


### Configure the Quake II server to tell clients about the HTTP server

All you have to do is to set the `sv_downloadserver` CVar to your server
base path, so in our example you could start your dedicated server with
`q2ded +set sv_downloadserver http://example.com/q2data/` (+ your other
options).

This CVar will be set to connecting Multiplayer Clients and if they
support HTTP downloading they will try to load missing game data from
that server.