Install a panel - Round 2

    A few months ago, a suggestion was made to replace the hackish method of running the server we are using (which is utilizing VMs and a Discord bot) with a proper panel. Unfortunately the suggestion was declined but Ryan did mention that he would revisit it in the future.

    As downtimes have continued to be a problem and considering the security concerns of using a Discord bot to control the entire Minecraft server, I believe the time is right for us to finally revisit this suggestion. This suggestion calls for the implementation of a panel so that we don't have to rely on a notoriously unstable Discord bot to run the server.

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    @videogamesm12#11061 security concerns of using a Discord bot to control the entire Minecraft server

    Can you elaborate on this? If anything i’d argue the bot is more secure than giving everyone panel access (not that i’m against it)

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    @elmon#11062 Can you elaborate on this? If anything i’d argue the bot is more secure than giving everyone panel access (not that i’m against it)

    The bot is extremely broken and it takes about four tries to get anything done with it. Your bot is the bane of my existence. It causes me immense amounts of pain and discomfort.

    Vouch

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    @videogamesm12#11061 we don't have to rely on a notoriously unstable Discord bot to run the server.

    @redeastwood#11064 The bot is extremely broken and it takes about four tries to get anything done with it. Your bot is the bane of my existence. It causes me immense amounts of pain and discomfort.

    Why not report them then so the developers can fix them?

    @Fleek#11065 To be completely fair to both parties, i'm unsure as to whether elmon has actually been privately messaged regarding this issue. However I do know that he's been pinged on multiple occasions and told the bot needed to be fixed/was broken.

    For future reference, if you guys are having a problem with TotalFreedom Bot - it is ideal that you make a report either on the forum or on discord (Tag developers if urgent). We can create tickets on Jira and depending on the developers' experience with Python, we can investigate and fix them if needed.

    If there's an issue with the bot then that needs to be flagged. Ultimately a panel is going to run exactly the same commands under the hood as the bot does.

    This thread won't be approved because a panel isn't on the road map at the moment. Other things are a higher priority.

    Also for the record. The server down time is because admins keep deciding to ignore the fact the server is down. If they can't be bothered to type a couple of commands into discord, I'm not convinced they are going to login to a panel. The server will auto restart on full crash or if it's stopped, other than that we just need admins to give a shit and restart the server when it's hanging...

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    how the turntables

    i vouch mainly bc you can have one central panel to manage all the servers you have now (freedom, hub, smp, blah blah blah). eventually, it's going to become impractical to have to ssh into a bunch of different servers, make separate discord channels for separate bots, and you get the whole idea

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    @wild1145#11072 If there's an issue with the bot then that needs to be flagged.

    A bot coded by a dutch guy in a few days vs a panel by a team of developers who have been working on it for years

    There are an awful lot of issues with the bot because the bot isn't hosting the server. It's running off of a quickly written script on a whole other server that was made to be temporary.

    Imo a panel should be a higher priority than you're making it because the benefits of it are clear

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    @wild1145#11072 If they can't be bothered to type a couple of commands into discord, I'm not convinced they are going to login to a panel.

    Maybe there's a reason that the admins are hesitant to restart the server? It barely works lol you gotta run the stop command like four times. The whole point of a panel is that it restarts the server automatically even when it's hanging because as I've told you before Minecraft panels have been specifically designed to improve the user experience of hosting a Minecraft server. I really don't understand you when it comes to this topic, it'll make a lot of things so much easier & takes less than 10 minutes to install yet you just flat out refuse for no real valid reason?

    @redeastwood#11066 You seem to be misunderstanding. Video stated the bot was a security issue, and I was asking how a panel is more secure. I never stated the bot was perfectly functioning (most of which is out of my control). I was merely asking video to expand on his point about it being a security threat.

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    @fionn#11082 A bot coded by a dutch guy in a few days vs a panel by a team of developers who have been working on it for years

    There are an awful lot of issues with the bot because the bot isn't hosting the server. It's running off of a quickly written script on a whole other server that was made to be temporary.

    Imo a panel should be a higher priority than you're making it because the benefits of it are clear

    These issues are nothing to do with the bot or the scripts hanging... It's because CoreProtect being the piece of shit it is prevents a graceful shut down until all roll backs are completed, and then all data is pushed to MySQL... I've said this time and time again. That's why you have to run stop multiple times, because what ultimately happens is no different to if you ran tf!kill

    All a panel actually is going to do as I've said time and time again is show you that it's tried to stop, and failed to stop...

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    @fionn#11082 Maybe there's a reason that the admins are hesitant to restart the server? It barely works lol you gotta run the stop command like four times. The whole point of a panel is that it restarts the server automatically even when it's hanging because as I've told you before Minecraft panels have been specifically designed to improve the user experience of hosting a Minecraft server. I really don't understand you when it comes to this topic, it'll make a lot of things so much easier & takes less than 10 minutes to install yet you just flat out refuse for no real valid reason

    See my previous comment and comments on this...

    I've said time and time again, I agree a panel is important, and it's something that I'm looking into, but I've been exceptionally busy with non TF stuff recently, and the little time I've had to actually do things for TF have been taken up by other more critical activities than this.

    A panel isn't going to fix these problems, this is what you get when you use shit like CoreProtect which doesn't handle itself at all well combined with multi-hundred GB databases and worlds and expect things to run well.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

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    bc you can have one central panel to manage all the servers you have now (freedom, hub, smp, blah blah blah). eventually, it's going to become impractical to have to ssh into a bunch of different servers, make separate discord channels for separate bots, and you get the whole idea

    For the record, this is in reality the reason I haven't installed something. I've made clear I want something that will be fit for purpose as the server grows, and right now I've not had time to go off, do my research and find a suitable panel that I feel will fit with the current plans and what I have in mind for the future.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

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    @wild1145#11085 These issues are nothing to do with the bot or the scripts hanging... It's because CoreProtect being the piece of shit it is prevents a graceful shut down until all roll backs are completed, and then all data is pushed to MySQL... I've said this time and time again. That's why you have to run stop multiple times, because what ultimately happens is no different to if you ran tf!kill

    to be fair, 19.4 and 19.5 have improved performance with this significantly, and TF is still on 19.3 (I believe). you should try updating coreprotect fwiw

    @Telesphoreo#11097 I'll take a look. I knew we were a minor version behind last I checked but that was a little while back so possible they've pushed more releases out. Hopefully that does improve things as it'll significantly help the bot and the panel when we get one.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    Here are the concerns about the Discord bot that make it a dealbreaker to me:

    Security-wise:

    • The bot checks for ranks via a role check. It doesn't verify if the person with the role has a rank in-game. In other words, it asks "do they have it?" but not "are they supposed to have it?". If something were to happen where another bot (one which is backdoored) gave everyone the Senior role, uh oh. Now everyone has console-level access to the server.

    Reliability-wise:

    • It's a really bad idea to rely on only a Discord bot to be able to control the server. What if Discord goes down and the server crashes? What if the bot itself crashes or can't connect to Discord? Everything about starting and killing the server hinges on that Discord bot, and that's a huge problem.

    A panel should be used to control the server instead of a Discord bot because unlike the bot, it would not depend on another platform to work. This means that we can still restart the server even if Discord goes offline.

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