For Half-life and Half-life 2 servers, a simple search function would be awesome to be able to parse through all the logs so we can look for a specific event/comment/action easily by typing an inquiry into a window in the control panel.
So giving us the option to just search through our logs easily by typing something or even automatically parsing logs then caching them to allow for seamless and very fast searching.
I do not think this would be hard; you could probably even make the Operating system do the search but I think that search algorithm is horribly inefficient and bad particularly for hard drive efficiency .
But please implement it if/when you have some time. I am still advocating whenever I can for people to join the NFo bandwagon in some way or another .
An automatic parser that would automatically sense when the server is 'down' (say in both Half-life series), then check the most recent logs for things like:
L 11/03/2008 - 01:42:02: FATAL ERROR (shutting down): WARNING: couldn't open czcs_office.wad
If you sense a "FATAL ERROR," a script should kick in, restart the server immediately flagging it to not be restarted for at least a few minutes (in case default map is the problem) then log that error to events or somewhere else the server owner can find to fix it. In my case, I get these all the time because I uploaded many maps to my servers that are not necessarily including all files. I'm trying to weed out all the "bad" maps but it's a problem because there are MANY maps and some are just missing a few files. I wish there was a way for the server to cross-reference all .res files with all server files then notify the user of all missing files (sprites/models/wads/sounds/etc...).
If you sense a "FATAL ERROR," a script should kick in, restart the server immediately flagging it to not be restarted for at least a few minutes (in case default map is the problem) then log that error to events or somewhere else the server owner can find to fix it... I wish there was a way for the server to cross-reference all .res files with all server files then notify the user of all missing files (sprites/models/wads/sounds/etc...).
Need for a complicated system like this wouldn't really come up very often and I'm not sure if it's worth the time to develop it over some of the other tasks on my list. I think that a generalized system showing the last lines of the most recent log, or for some basic log searching, would be much more useful.
In your individual case, I'd highly recommend testing each map after you upload it. Schedule a "maintenance" time in an off hour and lock your server so that your players know what's going on, then upload each map and "changelevel" to it to make sure it loads.
If you sense a "FATAL ERROR," a script should kick in, restart the server immediately flagging it to not be restarted for at least a few minutes (in case default map is the problem) then log that error to events or somewhere else the server owner can find to fix it... I wish there was a way for the server to cross-reference all .res files with all server files then notify the user of all missing files (sprites/models/wads/sounds/etc...).
Need for a complicated system like this wouldn't really come up very often and I'm not sure if it's worth the time to develop it over some of the other tasks on my list. I think that a generalized system showing the last lines of the most recent log, or for some basic log searching, would be much more useful.
In your individual case, I'd highly recommend testing each map after you upload it. Schedule a "maintenance" time in an off hour and lock your server so that your players know what's going on, then upload each map and "changelevel" to it to make sure it loads.
I agree with both of your points. It would definitely be a big step to be able to read the logs and search them easily (maybe display them as text not through a separate image or something like AJAX otherwise my firefox cannot search through it ). I will make the server in maintenance mode right now.
Hopefully with the elections tomorrow, neither candidates damages your business model (with taxes and such).
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