Operation "Blue Flag" - 24/7 PvP Campaign - ROUND 9

Well if the BS team would actually pay for a server that most people don't have a 350 ping to things may be solved.

 

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Well its based in Europe, and latency wise they have a stellar connect. Less then 5ms to Cogent.

For me its 45ms to Cogent, 89ms to the last hop of cogent and 92 to the server itself.

Buddyspike is not to blame at all. They have a good connection and a server which can handle it.

Its Murrican pewpew yieeha cowboy ISP inbetween who is messing up all the things. :lol::lol:

The current state is un playable. We keep losing connection multiple times until our lives are gone. Can we at least pull the lives script until connection gets better? or have the mission hosted somewhere where the connection will be more stable?

Well if the BS team would actually pay for a server that most people don't have a 350 ping to things may be solved.

 

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until ED gets their collective shit together and get the code for Dedicated servers done, this is a moot point. And as previously stated by others, its not Blueflags server, its the route to BF's server. I'm in Alaska and have sub 200 pings to BF

^ This +1

 

Please remember - We do this for the good of the community based on good will.

 

Saying stuff like "They should buy a better server"... Isn't very helpful

 

The server isnt the issue as shown by the great detective work above.

 

We don't sit around going HA! We will run it on a terrible server! Screw the Community!

 

Instead - We work in our free time to try to deliver scripts, software and events for the good of the community to grow the community and, most importantly, for FUN!

 

So please, before you post. Think how it makes the people who actually develop and run this feel before posting. Comments like that make we want to throw in the towel with the whole thing. How does posting something like that help us?

 

If we could up and move servers, at the drop of a hat, don't you think we would?

 

If we could solve the crashing issues, don't you think we would?

 

If we could force the ISP to change routes, don't you think we would?

 

As a caveat - I'm running on about 6 hours sleep in two days due to work trips and meetings - So in the morning I'll delete this! :P

 

Our internal company motto is - Don't be a D*ck - Post by that motto :)

Then for posterities sake I better quote this ;)

Edit: BTW Ciribob, there is nothing rude in your post. I honestly get the feeling that BS gets the feelings you mention above when the community craps on your efforts. I was going to make a meme post on top of those posts about Entitlement! Entitlement Everywhere! .... but then I'm too lazy.

Everybody's talking about the balance. Compared to the last round it's a bit better. I'm more concerned about all the bugs we have! It's not fun any more. The game crashes all the time. If this is fixed on friday, any chance we could simply restart the round? I only managed to have a few sorties without my game crashing. Spending too much time on only trying to get started -___-

I don't know how much you've been on this round, but like I said before, I've been on everyday, all day and it's pretty much been at least 2-1 in Reds favor which is no fun for us Reds.

until ED gets their collective shit together and get the code for Dedicated servers done, this is a moot point. And as previously stated by others, its not Blueflags server, its the route to BF's server. I'm in Alaska and have sub 200 pings to BF

Yeah, that's why people have offered to place the server somewhere more stable if I'm not mistaken. Either way, it's pretty much empty now because no one can stay connected. I know the BS guys will do what they can but from what the guys who've looked into have said, they may have to move the server to some place more stable, unless I just misread everything.

Whatever the case may be with the server being unstable, I'm grateful for the work that's been put in and am hopeful things can be figured out.

Then for posterities sake I better quote this ;)

 

Edit: BTW Ciribob, there is nothing rude in your post. I honestly get the feeling that BS gets the feelings you mention above when the community craps on your efforts. I was going to make a meme post on top of those posts about Entitlement! Entitlement Everywhere! .... but then I'm too lazy.

Well its based in Europe, and latency wise they have a stellar connect. Less then 5ms to Cogent.

 

For me its 45ms to Cogent, 89ms to the last hop of cogent and 92 to the server itself.

Buddyspike is not to blame at all. They have a good connection and a server which can handle it.

 

Its Murrican pewpew yieeha cowboy ISP inbetween who is messing up all the things. :lol::lol:

Ah, I see. So you're thinking what I'm thinking...we need to move the server to the US!!!!

Running events since 2013 on the same server, plus 9 rounds of blue flag , including case blue, without connection issues and normal pings (please don't mess disconnects with lag issues) .

Having disconnects for many pilots for five days.

Conclusion : change the server machine and location :doh:

Greg

Running events since 2013 on the same server, plus 9 rounds of blue flag , including case blue, without connection issues and normal pings (please don't mess disconnects with lag issues) .

Having disconnects for many pilots for five days.

Conclusion : change the server machine and location :doh:

 

Greg

I like seeing solutions. Cant wait for it to be fixed.

On the side balance, The first two days Red did have alot of numbers but the last couple days its been more balanced than I have ever seen it. Its been a mirage fest.

Ah, I see. So you're thinking what I'm thinking...we need to move the server to the US!!!!

Is this sarcasm? Cogent in America is the problem. Moving the server to America or any other country isn't going to help if our connections are routed through the same congested network. Eventually Cogent will add capacity, but until this happens we're stuck in a rut.

Greg, do think about removing the kill messages again in the future. They give way too much tactical information. It's really hard to stay hidden in a chopper when you destroy a target, and it broadcasts what was killed, and what killed it.

Or, even better, make it delayed, like 3 or 5 minutes later a message "5 minutes ago, this-and-this happened", so at least fighter pilots know after 5 minutes which pilot they shot down :)

I keep suggesting f5 v 21 but they don't seem interested.

 

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Well too many players don't own one of these two modules (including me) plus full clickable cockpits need lots of time to learn.

until ED gets their collective shit together and get the code for Dedicated servers done, this is a moot point. And as previously stated by others, its not Blueflags server, its the route to BF's server. I'm in Alaska and have sub 200 pings to BF

What dedicated servers? What will that improve?

Ah, I see. So you're thinking what I'm thinking...we need to move the server to the US!!!!

Nope, to Germany! :)

Running events since 2013 on the same server, plus 9 rounds of blue flag , including case blue, without connection issues and normal pings (please don't mess disconnects with lag issues) .

Having disconnects for many pilots for five days.

Conclusion : change the server machine and location

 

Greg

Well, as obviously some company that is owning the connection between BS server and several players has issues for 5 days and still can't fix them (who knows how many more days/weeks they need) it would be best to TEMPORARILY host the server in germany (or USA)... (for let's say max. 2 weeks) or until the evil "Joker" guy (from batman) who just trolls some of us by disconnecting just before reaching FARPs is fired from Cogent... :P ;)

So it's not only player from USA who currently have these disconnect problems, correct?

edited post

Well, as obviously some company that is owning the connection between BS server and several players has issues for 5 days and still can't fix them (who knows how many more days/weeks they need) it would be best to TEMPORARILY host the server in germany (or USA)... (for let's say max. 2 weeks) or until the evil "Joker" guy (from batman) who just trolls some of us by disconnecting just before reaching FARPs is fired from Cogent... :P ;)

 

 

So it's not only player from USA who currently have these disconnect problems, correct?

It is not _the_ Connection, in the Internet there is not _one_ connection. There is alternative routes. And its often not a question of can not fix as much as there is no need to fix.

A fix is usually piece of cake for big networks. Put in another interface or populate another one with additional capacity hooked up to target net, done.

Question I cant answer is if on the rounds before ISPs didnt route all over the place or the link simply worked better.

As said before, tracing grnet-gws-grnet-gw.mx2.ath.gr.geant.net, which is literally 3 hops totaling 3ms away from the Server, routes through way less hops only totalling to 31ms.

Its not that there is no alternative route. They are just not beeing used.

And yes that is how the internet does practically work.

Sometimes if you have destination C, which is in D, which is reachable via B, and you are coming from A, setting destination D might take you A, B, D, but if you set C as the target it might bounce around the whole alphabet until the packet finds a box which actually knows it can reach C.

It shouldn't but often is that way that routes are not optimal, point here is you usually do not notice if you load website xyz, because TCP really is designed to take more then 20%pl ! ;D.

tl;dr Its in a good location, IP is designed the way it is, changing server locations because some routes are broken ATM might be a viable option for a enterprise but not for a hobbyist community. Everyone just getting VPN connections to appropriate endpoints would be easier and more sensible then anything else.

Is this sarcasm? Cogent in America is the problem. Moving the server to America or any other country isn't going to help if our connections are routed through the same congested network. Eventually Cogent will add capacity, but until this happens we're stuck in a rut.

Is was sarcasm.

As far as the numbers, right now it's 6 blue and 18 red. It's been that way for a large part of the day.

I didn't mean "connection", I know what it is, just tried to make my post as short as possible.

So the question is should we recommend the players experiencing the connection issues to try a free VPN like https://hide.me/de/software/windows and see if issue persists?

I didn't mean "connection", I know what it is, just tried to make my post as short as possible.

 

So the question is should we recommend the players experiencing the connection issues to try a free VPN like https://hide.me/de/software/windows and see if issue persists?

I played about an hour tonight using my VPN connected through Germany which reduced my ISP's 25 hops down to 7 hops, and avoided the Cogent hop. Even reduced my ping which was 300+ to around 190. Connection was stable.

It was a long fight, but we finally broke out (kinda?) tonight!

I had a great time working with everyone on Blue tonight. Looking forward to doing it again soon! (PS, thanks Buddyspike guys for making this possible)

What dedicated servers? What will that improve?

Server stability mainly. And a dedicated shouldnt need to be in the 3D world to operate, relieving some of the resources.

I played about an hour tonight using my VPN connected through Germany which reduced my ISP's 25 hops down to 7 hops, and avoided the Cogent hop. Even reduced my ping which was 300+ to around 190. Connection was stable.

AWESOME! Congratz! Using which VPN? :)

I keep suggesting f5 v 21 but they don't seem interested.

 

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A vietnam was scenario with F5 vs MIG21 would be awesome (dont forget the UH1 and the MI8).

I'm not saying there is nothing wrong because there clearly is but i've never had a single disconnect and lived through several mass purges, server works great for me.

I guess i've jinxed myself now. :doh:

A vietnam was scenario with F5 vs MIG21 would be awesome (dont forget the UH1 and the MI8).

Is there no other server providing this scenario currently? If not, okay, then it'd be cool to have this but only after or before Round 10 (not during Round 9).

I keep suggesting f5 v 21 but they don't seem interested.

 

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A vietnam was scenario with F5 vs MIG21 would be awesome (dont forget the UH1 and the MI8).

Yeah, I'm also still waiting for BlueFlag Vietnam (and Korea). :thumbup:

I'm also affected by the disconnects. This problem is new for me in round 9. Didn't had that in the previous rounds.

Thx DanielNLl, yeah your provider doesnt route via cogent, so you do not have the problem thats the final proof pretty much I guess.

Okay I did probably more research then necessary, but I have found out a few things.

 

Server is hosted in the National Technical University Of Athens network. So I checked their site for info about their link to the Internet.

 

http://www.noc.ntua.gr/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=14

Last update is a while back but probably not completely outdated.

 

"The INTERNET connection is made to 10 Gbps through GRNET - GRNET (GRNET has 2CH622 Mbps INTERNET connection - Pan-European Research Internet GEANT)."

 

Okay, GRNET is some kind of greek networking/VM hosting enterprise which is connected to GEANT, which is some kind of european research network.

 

​"​GÉANT interconnects research​​​, education an​​​​d innovati​on communities worldwide, with​ secure, high-capacity networks."

 

So lets have a quick look at the GEANT network maps.

http://www.geant.org/Resources/Documents/topology_map-16OCT15.PDF

http://www.geant.org/Resources/Documents/1142%20Global%20Connectivity_october-2016.pdf

Indeed, seems to be correct.

 

And indeed my trace goes through the GEANT network, hits GRNET, arrives at the NTUA network and there gets delivered to the buddyspike Server.

 

The interesting thing is, traffic gets routed through cogentco routers in the USA, which are a pretty big ISP as it seems and probably thats why they have a link to the GEANT network, then hits a node in the UK which seems to be part of the GEANT network but has a link to the GRNET network, even though that is not on the GEANT map. [judging by the reverse DNS "grnet-gws-grnet-gw.mx2.ath.gr.geant.net"]

 

 

So from the moment stuff gets routed to the GEANT network PL happens.

 

Why that is the case is some reaaaal hardcore speculation. The PL we get from the buddyspike server should be the accumulated PL from all the hops that happen before. Since I do not expect the link to the server to be too weak to take a 64byte ping echo per second.

The first address of the NTUA network suffers the same PL pretty much, screenshot is a bad example didnt run it for long enough to even the randomness out.

 

The GEANT box of cogentco has some pl so probably the link to that thing is operating close to maximum. Now the glorious pl mapping of NTR comes to the rescue to determine which PL really is the main cause for packets to the rescue. MTR fires each ping echo slightly delayed, so one can kinda tell the connection between dropped packets to different hops.

 

 

The link to the GEANT box in the USA and from that to the one in the UK seems to be pretty much fine, there is sporadic PL but in general they do not seem to be connected.

[discarding ping packets doesnt have to mean other "important" traffic gets discarded in the same way.]

The one machine which really drops a metric ton of packets is the GRNET box which operates the link to NTUA. So it seems to be the GEANT link between GRNET and the box in the UK, which probably causes most trouble. The box in the UK and or US might play a role, but the peaks seem to be very short, since they do not get carried through to the next hop consistantly and also I dunno how they discard ICMP traffic or not. But its pretty much consistant that the NTUA hop and the Server itself only do not respond IF the GRNET inbetween drops ICMP, so probably that link is saturated.

 

What does this all mean ?

Well. Since the link between GRNET and NTUA seems to be sufficient, I would blame GRNET for either A not having enough link capacity to the GEANT or B for routing the entire freaggin traffic through GEANT. I mean I cant imagine they only connect to one network. I checked their own webservers, like traffic which 100% isnt for the NTUA also comes through the GEANT.

[Tested from a few web traceroute machines, 4 out of 5 did go through GEANT.]

 

What also could be the case is that in the GEANT network, none of the routers do reply to ICMP requests, so there is no link from GB GEANT box to GRNET, as one would expect by the link map of GEANT.

In that case, the high PL to the GRNET box could be caused by saturated links INSIDE the GEANT.

 

So yee, it doesnt get clearer then some internal GEANT stuff or not enough link capacity between GRNET and GEANT.

 

 

Main question from me would be why GRNET would be routing all the traffic through GEANT if that is troubled like that.

 

But again further then this I really cant go with my limited knowledge and no knowledge about the topography of the networks. :D

 

Later today I can run the trace from uni, which is connected to the DFN, which is direct member of GEANT. That _should_ take the UK and US geant boxes out of the equation and might give an insight if it is something inside GEANT or just the last link between GEANT and GRNET.

Hey there, i work for an ISP that delivers Dedicated server, Network infrastructure and Colocation. Let me explain to you why your traceroute appears to be dropping packets.

In networking the boxes that does the routing are divided into 2 main parts, the linecards and the supervisor. These are physical cards that slot into a big box called a chassis, examples of boxes that does this is Cisco 7600 series "7k's" (7609, 7613, 7604) and Cisco Catalyst "switch" 6500 series (6509, 6513, 6504) where the last number of the series means the chassis size. The chassis of this appliances take max 2, minimum 1 supervisor cards. The supervisor is the brains of the router, it saves the config to flash disks, and runs the services that cannot be accelerated in hardware, like telnet and ssh access. The supervisor also does the job of pushing the routing table out to the linecards, and im pretty sure it runs the daemons for all routing protocols like BGP and OSPF (there are more, protocols but the ones i mentioned are standardized and most common). The supervisor also contains a super low performance RISC or MIPS cpu that does all this, and its very VERY slow.

The second part, linecards are the ones who do the heavy lifting, they are the ones that takes traffic on on the 10 gig ports and sends it out on the correct ports so that the traffic gets there. The way the linecards does this so quick is because it uses a very special chip called an ASIC, which stands for Application specific integrated circuit. This chips are the ones who does all the routing and switching, and its all done in hardware, for example, older routers do not support IPv6 because its not supported by the chip. So, why does all of this matter? Well, in your traceroute you send an ICMP packet, a traceroute is just a ping where the hop counter is set very low and the gradually increased. Therefor you are sending a ping where the hop count reaches 0 and the current hop will send the ICMP ping packet back. The thing to note here is that ICMP IS NOT ACCELERATED IN HARDWARE. The ping you send to the router is slow because it has to send your ping to a piece of shit CPU over the backplane, sometimes it just drops it because the CPU has enogh things to do. The reason you have bad latency to the hop is not because the links are congested or because the routing is bad, it just because the boxes that run the ICMP deamon on the routers are from the 1990's. When running MTR you have to make sure that all the hops AFTER where you suspect a loss also increase in latency and loss.

Well I've just offered money to help move the server. Maybe if everybody else did that too, we could be playing Blue Flag with zero disconnects

 

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I talked to my boss, shoved him this thread and he was totally up for giving buddyspike a server for free for some advertising space on the websites, forums threads and in the server name. I see your name is Buddyspike but im not sure if you are the big boss to talk to?

The locations offered are Oslo, Norway (very good latency for being in northern Europe and the best hardware) or Amsterdam, Netherlands (Best latency but not as good hardware as in Oslo, also, if hardware fails it will be slower to repair because we noone down there 24/7)

The person in charge of buddy spike can talk to me in TS, my name is Cisco or just send me a PM on the forums. I have never hosted a DCS server before so i would like to talk about hardware and OS requirements.