No servers require a challenge for A2S_INFO, some may require the extra
string in the query packet however (that isn't on by default, but
perhaps some server admins have chosen to enable it). You cannot use a
challenge number with a A2S_INFO request.

- Alfred 

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wojciech H
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 10:15 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [hlds_apps] Server query protocol

Will there be anything in the A2S_INFO that will tell us wether a
challenge value is required? I thought the version at the end of the
packet would tell me, but then I have found servers that are unable to
respond to a challenge request with the version "1.0.0.15". Also, it
would slow down queries greatly if we had to test to see if they do need
a challenge value or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Alfred Reynolds wrote:

>This change will be released tomorrow (so you can begin testing your 
>tool updates).
>
>The A2S_INFO query has been altered from the description below. Rather 
>than challenge response for each server ( making querying large numbers

>of servers much slower) the query will simply have a string appended to

>it ("Source Engine Query"). So to get server info you would send:
>0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF 'T' "Source Engine Query" '\0' 
>
>- Alfred
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alfred 
>Reynolds
>Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 11:48 PM
>To: [email protected]
>Cc: [email protected]
>Subject: RE: [hlds_apps] Server query protocol
>
>We will be releasing an update later this week or early next week with 
>an updated query protocol. To enable this change to be deployed quickly

>we will be minimising the changes this time around.
>
>I will be writing a more detailed document describing the various valid

>Source server queries as a part of the SDK documentation, but in the 
>mean time here is a brief description of the changes that will be made.
>
>A challenge value will now required for all query responses (A2S_INFO, 
>A2S_PLAYER, A2S_RULES) except for A2S_PING. The challenge value is a 4 
>byte value. You can either explicitly request a challenge value via a 
>new query A2S_SERVERQUERY_GETCHALLENGE (ascii "W") or implicitly get a 
>challenge value by sending a dummy challenge value of "-1" (0xFFFFFFFF)

>to any query (that requires a challenge). The response to 
>A2S_SERVERQUERY_GETCHALLENGE (and an implicit challenge) will be 
>S2C_CHALLENGE (ascii 'A' ) followed by a 4 byte value that is the 
>challenge value. The challenge value should be appended to the end of 
>the existing query request packets.
>
>Queries that use strings to specify the query type (i.e.
>0xFFFFFFFF"players") will NO LONGER be supported. You MUST update to 
>the new A2S_* style queries. The byte values for each request type is:
>#define A2S_INFO                                               'T' //
>server info request - this must match the Goldsrc engine
>#define A2S_PLAYER                                     'U'     //
>request player list
>#define A2S_RULES                                              'V'
>// request rules list from server
>#define A2S_SERVERQUERY_GETCHALLENGE           'W'     // Request
>challenge # from another machine
>
>These values are supported by the currently shipped Source engine if 
>you want to start on your changes now.
>
>
>A challenge value is valid for 60 minutes or until the server flushes 
>your challenge from its LRU cache (which can handle 16K elements), so 
>you should attempt to cache a challenge value rather than continually 
>requesting it.
>
>A challenge value is not required when querying servers within the same

>B class address range as the server (i.e LAN style requests), you 
>should specify a challenge value of "-1" (0xFFFFFFFF) in these cases. 
>Note that you can still use a valid challenge value in these cases, its

>value will be ignored however.
>
>The initial rollout will support both old and new style queries (i.e 
>with and without challenges). We expect to disable the old protocol 
>within a couple WEEKS of the initial rollout. The cvar 
>"sv_enableoldqueries" will control the servers ability to answer old 
>style requests (when it is set to "1" it will reply to old style 
>queries).
>
>To aid in development and testing you can disable ignoring challenges 
>from local B class clients by setting the cvar sv_allowlocalquery to 0 
>(i.e if sv_allowlocalquery is "0" then any query will follow the rules 
>set by the "sv_enableoldqueries" cvar).
>
>
>This change will also be applied to HL1 based game servers once the 
>Source rollout is complete.
>
>- Alfred
>
>
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Alfred Reynolds wrote:
>
>  
>
>>We will be revising the Source server query format in the near future 
>>to remove some architectural problems with it. All the existing 
>>queries apart from PING will be altered by this change (i.e will 
>>require your tools to be updated). There will be a period where both 
>>systems coincide but we want to be aggressive in removing support for
>>    
>>
>the old protocol.
>  
>
>>This change may be ported to the HL1 engine also.
>>
>>We have been assessing various protocols (both from other vendors and 
>>from the public), this is your chance to request features or suggest 
>>other standards to consider. The current plan is to make the minimal 
>>set of changes to remove the problems we found (making it easier for 
>>tools to update) but as we are breaking the protocol we are open to 
>>larger changes.
>>
>>You can make feature requests or suggestions to this list (hlds_apps) 
>>or to me directly.
>>    
>>
>
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>  
>


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