If your looking on how to set up and use these scripts, see the INSTALL file.

This directory contains the code for the metaserver. Since the metaserver will almost certainly run on a system different from either the server or client, it makes sense for it to be its own directory in order to make updates easy.

The metaserver is a php + mysql set of scripts. Reasons for using php + mysql:

1) These are quite common utilities, and many ISPs or other hosting services will be able to run these (compared to say a standalone perl script)

2) By being run from a web server, this effectively gives us multithreading - the metaserver update script can now do operations that may take a while (dns lookups) which can not be done in a single threaded standalone script.

3) mysql takes care of file locking for us (basically don't need it). It also lets us do quick searches, dumps, etc, without needing to rely on other external programs (grep, sort, etc). While mysql is used in the initial version, the code is designed to make it easy to support other SQL compatible databases.

4) I'm quite familiar with php + mysql, so writing and testing it is much easier with those tools than some other combination.

Brief description of the files:

common.php: some common routines/values common to all the scripts. meta_client.php: Script that provides the data to the client in easy to parse form. meta_html.php: Script that produces HTML table for viewing in a browser. meta_update.php: Script that the server uses (via HTTP_POST) to update its information. mysql_db.php: File that provides wrapper functions around the mysql calls.

COPYRIGHT:

Copyright (C) 2007 Mark Wedel & Crossfire Development Team

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

The author can be reached via e-mail to crossfire-devel@real-time.com