ac-server-wrapper

Small Node.JS script which wraps around Assetto Corsa server and then caches and extends responses.

TODO

• UI configuration thing;
• Remote management;
• CM remote management integration;
• Some Windows wrapper for easier management;
• Optional skins-from-clients upload (for servers working in booking mode)?
• Some configs management tool?
• Read chat messages?
• Some sort of Minorating integration?

Features

• Returns all available data in one HTTP-request;

  Without wrapper, client has to make two requests to find out current server state. With it, just one.

• Caches data from AC server;

  AC server will be re-quered and response will be rebuilt only if by logs it looks like something has changed. While it takes ≈20 ms for AC server to respond, wrapper builds a response in less than a millisecond. Or I might measure it wrong.

• Caches data on client-side using Last-Modified header and compressed it with gzip;

  Compressed, all data takes ≈1.2 KB. Original data from AC Server — 1.1 KB.

• Extends response with valuable information:

  • Conditions: current temperature, current weather, wind and grip information;
  • Allowed and blocked assists;
  • Extra params such as server frequency or maximum allowed contacts per kilometer;
  • Clients IDs generated from GUIDs (but not actual GUIDs);
  • Information Kunos servers provide, such as actual IP-address, country, active session or proper sessions’ durations;
  • Passwords’ checksums allowing to check if password is correct before connecting;
  • Additional information about server;

• Allows to download missing or obsolete content:

  • Supported types of missing content provided: cars, skins, tracks, weather;
  • Admin specifies if missing content should be downloaded from actual server or from some third-party source to decrease overhead;

  Might be a reasonable idea to share small skins from the actual server, but move big chunks to, for instance, Google Drive.

  • Optionally, admin can prevent downloading missing content without password;
  • Limit download speed while sharing content from the actual server;

• Runs a proper fully customizable (with both templates and static files) web-server as well, as a fancy landing page.

• Full Linux support;

Usage

Requirements

• Node.JS (≥6.9.1, since I use some relatively new JS things);
• NPM package manager.

For Windows, you can get both of them (they are shipped together) here.

Installation

npm install ac-server-wrapper -g

With flag -g, this command will make ac-server-wrapper available system-wide.

Update

npm update ac-server-wrapper -g

Since it’s still very much WIP, please, update it frequently.

Configuration

Open server preset’s directory (usually, it’s called something like “SERVER_00”) and add a file cm_wrapper_params.json, here is an example:

{
  /* Optional description for clients, */
  "description": "Server description.",

  /* Port, at which wrapping HTTP-server will be running. Don’t forget to open it. 
   * Also, it should be a unique port, not the one from AC server’s config! */
  "port": 8050,

  /* Print AC server output to the log. */
  "verboseLog": true,

  /* Limit download speed to keep online smooth. Set to 0 to avoid limiting. Just in case,
   * 1e6 is about 1 MB per second */
  "downloadSpeedLimit": 1e6,

  /* Do not allow to download content without a password (if set). */
  "downloadPasswordOnly": true,

  /* Publish password checksum so clients’ software would be able to check if password is valid 
   * or not without connecting. Checksum is generated using SHA-1 algorithm with a salt, so it should be safe. */
  "publishPasswordChecksum": true,
}

To allow clients download missing content, add next to it a directory called cm_content, and put inside file content.json:

{
  "cars": {
    "<CAR_1_ID>": {
      "version": "0.9.9",
      …
      "skins": {
        "<SKIN_1_ID>": { … }
      }
    },
    {
    "<CAR_2_ID>": { … }
  },
  "weather": {
    "<WEATHER_1_ID>": { … },
    "<WEATHER_2_ID>": { … }
  },
  "track": { … }
}

Instead of “…”, either put "url": "<URL_TO_DOWNLOAD>" if you want users to download content from somewhere else or "file": "<FILE_NAME>" if package with missing thing is located in cm_content directory. Property "version" is optional.

Here is a server preset example, if needed. Sorry about the inconvinience, some UI is in progress.

Running server with prepared preset

1. Go to server’s directory, the one in which acServer executable is located;

   For Windows, you could either use cd /D <DIRECTORY PATH> in any CMD window or open it with Windows Explorer, open context menu while holding Shift and select a specific menu item.

2. To start the server, use: ac-server-wrapper presets/<PRESET ID> (for example, ac-server-wrapper presets/SERVER_EXT);

3. That’s all! Now, server should be running.

If needed, you can run it from any other directory, just don’t forget to specify full path to the preset and acServer executable location with --executable=<PATH> argument. Also, if you’re running server in some VDS and want to keep it running in background, you could use forever. But I’m not really familiar with Linux, and with Node.JS, there might be better ways.

Running latest version from GitHub (git required)

git clone https://github.com/gro-ove/ac-server-wrapper.git
cd ac-server-wrapper
npm install
node ac-server-wrapper.js -e <AC SERVER DIR>/acServer <AC SERVER DIR>/presets/PRESET

In action

• Server in action (if it still runs);
• Provided information;
• Server preset example;

• How it looks like in Content Manager:

  

Notes

• Background video in example templates: Assetto Corsa — Digital Emotions made by Ph0b0s95.

• This project is only indirectly connected to CM. Please, feel free to make your own client (or server) implementations if needed.