SFS License on a Dynamic IP with DYNDNS

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Ross Przybylski
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SFS License on a Dynamic IP with DYNDNS

Postby Ross Przybylski » 17 Jul 2009, 22:04

I am looking to purchase a SFS Pro License but I am uncertain if the license will work with my IP setup because my internet IP address is dynamic. Currently, I use dyndns and use my dyndns.org address as my fixed IP in SmartFoxServer Pro. I haven't had any problems with connections using this method, but will this be compatible with the license?
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Lapo
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Postby Lapo » 18 Jul 2009, 18:29

Hi,
a SmartFoxServer license requires a fixed IP address, a physical IP address and not a domain name.

In order to be able to use dynamic addresses (such as those provided in cloud-based hosting, EC2 etc...) you can use our LicenseServer: http://www.smartfoxserver.com/labs/licenseServer/
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Ross Przybylski
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Postby Ross Przybylski » 18 Jul 2009, 18:37

Lapo, thanks for responding. I am still a little confused as to what I actually need to do here. I want to get my license up and running as soon as possible as we are preparing to launch Beta release. When I go to make the purchase, it asks for an IP address and I am not sure what to put in here.

The DynDNS software detects my current ISP IP address and assigns a pointer to that address at the dynDNS.org site (which is what my smartfox client application uses in the ip field).

It seems like this Server License is designed to do a similar function, only with regards to the SFS license. How do I make the SFS Pro License purchase on your Buy SFS page without a static IP?
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Postby Ross Przybylski » 18 Jul 2009, 19:53

Ok, I installed the license server and managed to get it assigning one of the free 20 user licenses to my SFS Pro Trial Server, so that's a good sign so far.

Some other questions:
NOTE 1:
The License Server itself needs to be bound to the physical (internal) IP address of the machine on which it is installed. As this IP needs not to change in time (or the LS would stop working), you will have to install the LS on a machine with a fixed IP address (so usually outside the EC2-like environments, where internal IPs can change in case of server instance shut-down and restart).


When you say internal IP address here, I assume you are speaking about the router IP address? So I have my ISP address (which is dynamic) go to the router, which thens assigns a static internal address.

Again, let me try to clarify my situation. The computer that both my SFS Pro server and SF License Server are are running on is connected to a router which assigns the computer a fixed internal IP address. My ISP IP address, which the router connects to, is dynamic, not static. I use DynDNS software to send my current ISP IP address to DynDNS account, which allows me to use my DynDNS.org address as a static IP. Again, this is currently what I put in my game server client configuration as the IP to have the game connect to and that works fine.

How will all this work with the license server?
Which IP should I put in the IP Address field when ordering my SFS License?

Thanks again for the help.
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Postby Lapo » 20 Jul 2009, 06:21

When you say internal IP address here, I assume you are speaking about the router IP address?

Nope, I mean the physical Ié address of the machine running the LicenseServer.
In other words the LicenseServer will need to run on another machine that it's not subject to continuos changes in the IP address (static IP)

Which IP should I put in the IP Address field when ordering my SFS License?

You can use 0.0.0.0
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Postby Ross Przybylski » 20 Jul 2009, 13:57

I received the following response from the email question I had sent regarding this issue:

The SmartFoxServer licenses needs to be bound to the internal (physical) IP address of the server on which it is installed.
If you are unsure about the physical IP address(es) of your server please try one of these commands:


Windows -> Open a prompt/command window and type: ipconfig
Linux/Unix -> Open a terminal window and type: ifconfig


When I use ipconfig to get the IP address of my machine, it has a fixed address of 192.168.1.103 (which is assigned through the router). Though my broadband internet IP address may change, the computer's IP address is always 192.168.1.103. Is this the address I should use when purchasing my license? If this is the case, then it shouldn't matter whether my broadband IP is dynamic or not, so long as the actual computer's IP remains consistent.
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Lapo
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Postby Lapo » 20 Jul 2009, 14:08

I see, then it's easier :)
You'll get all the details from my colleagues in a moment, via email
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Is there an alternative?

Postby flarb » 30 Sep 2009, 08:55

So I plan on buying an unlimited license this month, but I'm running my game on EC2 and this License Server has really thrown a monkey wrench into my plans.

I don't have a fixed IP at the office to run a license server on. And even if I did, this whole license server adds another point of failure to the game. If I have a power outage or hardware failure or something, within 24 hours my entire game will go down even though I've paid for a license.

So for maximum reliability, I'd have to throw a box in a locker at a co-lo facility, which basically elimiantes half the reason why I use EC2 in the first place.

I think that the license server should be run by SmartFox as some kind of web service, and the SFS server instance should retrieve the license from it. After all, to the external world, my EC2 instance has a fixed IP. So it can ping the server and verify it from time to time. There has to be a secure way to make that work.

Either that or perhaps SFS should be modified to use the EC2 API to figure out the external IP (I believe there's an API call somewhere to get the elastic IP--in my Flash game I actually use PHP to determine what the IP is of the server)

A huge part of the reason why I'm using EC2 is to totally eliminate the need to administrate physical hardware boxes. Introducing a box to my ecosystem adds a brand new failure point to my entire system.
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Postby Lapo » 30 Sep 2009, 09:24

So for maximum reliability, I'd have to throw a box in a locker at a co-lo facility, which basically elimiantes half the reason why I use EC2 in the first place.

The License Server needs very little resources and it doesn't affect your scalability at all. You will be able to grow your traffic on EC2 regardless of the License Server.

I think that the license server should be run by SmartFox as some kind of web service, and the SFS server instance should retrieve the license from it. After all, to the external world, my EC2 instance has a fixed IP. So it can ping the server and verify it from time to time. There has to be a secure way to make that work.

Yes this is essentially what we have in mind for the next major release of SFS and it's related licensing system.
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Hmm.

Postby flarb » 30 Sep 2009, 09:36

Any idea of when you might be releasing this next major release?

I suppose I could find some friend of mine's office with a fixed IP to stick a box in until you do the new version.
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Postby flarb » 30 Sep 2009, 20:39

Man this is really becoming a problem for my whole deployment--does anyone know of a cheap web host that would let me run this process with the port open? The host I use for my corporate page won't do it.

You guys really need to come up with a new licensing scheme ASAP.
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Postby flarb » 30 Sep 2009, 21:17

http://vpslink.com/vps-hosting/

Which one of these VPS packages do you think I could get away with running the license server on? If it's truly lightweight, could I perhaps even get by with a link-1 or link-2 service? I think using a cheap VPS is my only option at this point.
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Postby Rutter » 01 Oct 2009, 04:23

I used them last year but had numerous random disconnect issues. If you'd like to try a cloud server try rackspacecloud. Their minimum cloud server package will work nicely and you can scale up easily. I'm using them right now for some dev and testing work. Use the CentOS dist as the Ubuntu won't extract the jre package.
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Postby flarb » 01 Oct 2009, 18:35

Oh wow, shockingly rackspace has some cheap cloud packages--what do you think his the bare minimum spec I'd need to run just the license server?

http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hos ... rs/pricing

Think I can get away with 256 megs / 10 gig of disk space for the LS?
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Postby Rutter » 02 Oct 2009, 03:02

flarb wrote:Oh wow, shockingly rackspace has some cheap cloud packages--what do you think his the bare minimum spec I'd need to run just the license server?

http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hos ... rs/pricing

Think I can get away with 256 megs / 10 gig of disk space for the LS?
Yes

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