Rcon working better when Reborn patch installed

[Medalist]

I run a MOHAA public server , installed on a Windows 2003 server.
Without the Reborn patch (1.12) , the server is running fine (for playing) but rcon is not .
To have rcon commands executed, I have to repeat same command several times . Sometimes commands are not executed at all. Not acceptable, not working as it should.

After installing Reborn Patch , rcon is 100% responsive and working fine again.

What is the reason for this? Which piece of the patch makes it work this way?

[Shadow]

Same problem with 4 different servers I tested.
Eventually rcon just doesn't work anymore untill Reborn patch is installed.
My thought went out to a rcon flood.. but the logs showed absolutely NOTHING (no flood, but no weird/foreign message or spam either).
I have no idea why this is happening...

[heatsinkbod]

Hi Medalist - the server you have on AAAA is on Windows 2008 - I have now built a test server on Windows 2003 - Ubersolider is going to help me test that to see if RCON works without the patch on that version of windows server - so that will help me rule out an operating system problem on Windows 2008 - We have not noticed this as it was only your server not running the Reborn patch

I have checked all rcon ports on the server firewall and all ok and as far as I know reborn does not change anything apart from being if anything more secure........

So the short term solution for me on AAAA was to get you to load the patch as you can turn off any settings you dont want or like - BUT I would say you are STILL better off running the patch with all settings off that you dont like or need for that particular server as the patch also has many many other fix's and anti Crash fix's.

Once I have ruled out an OS problem - I can move on and test firewall and Server build issues

[heatsinkbod]

Same problem with 4 different servers I tested.
Eventually rcon just doesn't work anymore untill Reborn patch is installed.
My thought went out to a rcon flood.. but the logs showed absolutely NOTHING (no flood, but no weird/foreign message or spam).
I have no idea why this is happening...

Only problem their Shadow is that I guess all the servers you tested were on AAAA Dedi2 109.70.148.92 ?

[Shadow]

3 of them, 1 is actually from Gamingdeluxe itself (not hosted with AAAA). Currently rcon is not available on that server now... checked rcon, restarted the server, checked the logs.. no issues, but rcon simply won't work, not ingame nor with any autokick program.

So either they are running the same OS or something else is wrong?

[heatsinkbod]

Ahh thanks that helps A lot as we all the AAAA servers are built from Server build supplied by GD and then we add the patch so if you have access to a none AAAA Server then they may be issuing bad server build - I guess could be bad EXE or DLL

[JoTo]

rcon commands are transmitted via use of UDP protocol which is connectionless and not reliable per default.
The reasons rcon "is not working" can be many.

It is in the nature of UDP that packets can get lost on the way, also duplicate packets are possible.

Or the rcon packet reaches the server (better say the router of the server) but is lost on the way to the server application itself, lets say blocked by a firewall, or the processing queue of the server software is full and the packet is dropped.

Or the servers UDP is flooded with packets and the server software isn't quick enough to query the network buffer - In difference to TCP UDP has no big buffer to store incoming packets, if the server software dosnt quick enough receive incoming packets the packets are dropped.

Also possible, the command reaches the server and is exectuted but a response to the issuer isn't received, which can also have cause by common network problems but also due to a specific faulty mohaa impletation which is the "don't fragment flag" bit in the protocol header set.
What it does ? Large packets, for example a rcon status response, are fragmented to fit into the underlying ethernet world (if they are in size above the MTU - Maximum Transmission Unit -size) .
On the receiving site the router re-assembles those fragmented packets into a single packet. A problem is when those packets are flagged with "don't fragment". Some routers are strict and drop those packets, others are smarter and re-assemble anyway.
In practice this means a rcon status with 10 players on the server will work, a rcon status with 20 players or more might not.

[Medalist]

rcon commands are transmitted via use of UDP protocol which is connectionless and not reliable per default.
The reasons rcon "is not working" can be many.
.
It is in the nature of UDP that packets can get lost on the way, also duplicate packets are possible.
.
.
.

In practice this means a rcon status with 10 players on the server will work, a rcon status with 20 players or more might not.

A lot of truth in this story, but in our case the gameplay is unaffected , it is normal , no lag, no hickups, nothing. And this (player in game) use UDP packets as well.
Also I do not think (in our case) the response is not receiving the sender, as a simple command like rcon restart server only executes an action on the server, not a reverse message to the sender. Without the patch I had to send this command 6 times to finally have it executed.
But I am not saying the problem is not network or NIC or NIC driver related.

[Shadow]

In the case of the 4 servers I've tested it on, rcon actually does not work for anyone (including empty servers). Weird enough as soon as you install the 1.12 patch, this issue is solved.
Currently I got access to a server with this problem without the 1.12 patch, they have this server for about a month now, and the first 3 weeks were fine, rcon stopped working (24/7) a week ago.
The AAAA servers I tried also had a non working rcon without the 1.12 patch, although I can't say if this was the case since the beginning as I was not present at the start of those servers.
(And yes, me and others have tried spamming it with rcon commands (status, path etc.) to see if it would work.. like 50 times in a row even.)

So what in the 1.12 patch could influence this and solve the problem?

[Medalist]

Same questions bothers me Shadow.

Strange thing is that without reborn, rcon is working like half of the time and sometimes not at all. with reborn it is functioning the way it should.