Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[Kyle Sanderson]

>One of the major new features is the new Masters should return dedicated
servers ordered by their geographical distance from the player requesting
the server list, making for lower latency and better connections.

I've been totally incorrect for two years... >.< Thanks for the correction
John!

Sorry for the garbage,
Kyle.


On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 2:20 PM, John  wrote:

> On 12/5/2012 1:56 PM, Kyle Sanderson wrote:
>
>> Like I initially said, since 2010 GeoIP has been used to determine the
>> players Region and (semi-)correctly return results accordingly based on
>> location. This is instead of returning results by the closest network
>> (octet).
>>
>
> My understanding was that it estimated the distance from the client to
> each server IP, and used this to determine which servers to ping first.
> This works independent of regions.
>
>
>  The only thing I've been suggesting is kill off sv_region and move the
>> legacy system over to GeoIP. GeoIP is fairly accurate now, I don't think
>> anyone needs to be manually reporting their region in 2012 (nearing 2013).
>> Doing so would end this abuse, and would have *everyones* server being
>> correctly added to the proper region. I don't really see a down side,
>> besides slightly increased logic on the two masters, and cheaters not being
>> able to cheat ;)
>>
>
> This is a debate that has come up with other networks. A few downsides to
> a purely automated system include that GeoIP lookups are not always
> accurate when it comes to server IPs (the nature of the data sources mean
> it is much more accurate with client IPs), that they don't handle border
> cases well (should Chicago be considered east coast, or west coast? ... the
> server admin should be able to decide), and that sometimes further servers
> perform better and are justified in overriding the setting (many servers in
> NYC perform better for BR players than BR servers, for instance, and as a
> result some BR-based server admins buy servers in NYC and want them shown
> as S. America).
>
> I wasn't looking to start a debate about whether sv_region should be kept
> or its design fundamentally changed. I just meant to point out that the
> current system has clear bugs (however you look at it).
>
>
> -John
>
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Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[John]

On 12/5/2012 1:56 PM, Kyle Sanderson wrote:
Like I initially said, since 2010 GeoIP has been used to determine the 
players Region and (semi-)correctly return results accordingly based 
on location. This is instead of returning results by the closest 
network (octet). 


My understanding was that it estimated the distance from the client to 
each server IP, and used this to determine which servers to ping first. 
This works independent of regions.


The only thing I've been suggesting is kill off sv_region and move the 
legacy system over to GeoIP. GeoIP is fairly accurate now, I don't 
think anyone needs to be manually reporting their region in 2012 
(nearing 2013). Doing so would end this abuse, and would have 
*everyones* server being correctly added to the proper region. I don't 
really see a down side, besides slightly increased logic on the two 
masters, and cheaters not being able to cheat ;)


This is a debate that has come up with other networks. A few downsides 
to a purely automated system include that GeoIP lookups are not always 
accurate when it comes to server IPs (the nature of the data sources 
mean it is much more accurate with client IPs), that they don't handle 
border cases well (should Chicago be considered east coast, or west 
coast? ... the server admin should be able to decide), and that 
sometimes further servers perform better and are justified in overriding 
the setting (many servers in NYC perform better for BR players than BR 
servers, for instance, and as a result some BR-based server admins buy 
servers in NYC and want them shown as S. America).


I wasn't looking to start a debate about whether sv_region should be 
kept or its design fundamentally changed. I just meant to point out that 
the current system has clear bugs (however you look at it).


-John

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Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[Kyle Sanderson]

>If it's removed from servers, then it also needs to be removed from
clients -- there's no sense in having clients choosing an option that
doesn't actually do anything, or than does something very different than
they expect.

Why?! This sounds horrible. The feature is totally broken at the moment,
but it's great to have.

> In terms of bogus data, I imagine that you're talking about people
running multiple servers at the same physical location and claiming them to
be in different regions?

There was a 'magic' value that you could send to be listed in every region.
While I believe it was fixed recently, I'm not sure.

> If that's a serious problem, then it should be possible to limit that
abuse at the master server by preventing servers with similar IPs from
submitting different regions, and/or requiring that any selected region be
on the same continent as the internal GeoIP guess.

Like I initially said, since 2010 GeoIP has been used to determine the
players Region and (semi-)correctly return results accordingly based on
location. This is instead of returning results by the closest network
(octet). The only thing I've been suggesting is kill off sv_region and move
the legacy system over to GeoIP. GeoIP is fairly accurate now, I don't
think anyone needs to be manually reporting their region in 2012 (nearing
2013). Doing so would end this abuse, and would have *everyones* server
being correctly added to the proper region. I don't really see a down side,
besides slightly increased logic on the two masters, and cheaters not being
able to cheat ;)

Thanks,
Kyle.

On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 1:14 PM, John  wrote:

> On 12/5/2012 12:50 PM, Kyle Sanderson wrote:
>
>> I totally agree that the feature is useful, I use it often. What I
>> totally disagree with is relying on the end user to set the value properly
>> (on the server). The data is already available to the master of where the
>> server is geographically located in relation to the client. The only thing
>> I suggested was to deprecate the convar from servers and don't duplicate
>> already available data. It would solve a lot of problems, and would stop
>> cheaters from abusing this with bogus data (being listed in every region).
>>
>
> If it's removed from servers, then it also needs to be removed from
> clients -- there's no sense in having clients choosing an option that
> doesn't actually do anything, or than does something very different than
> they expect.
>
> In terms of bogus data, I imagine that you're talking about people running
> multiple servers at the same physical location and claiming them to be in
> different regions? If that's a serious problem, then it should be possible
> to limit that abuse at the master server by preventing servers with similar
> IPs from submitting different regions, and/or requiring that any selected
> region be on the same continent as the internal GeoIP guess.
>
>
> -John
>
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Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[John]

On 12/5/2012 12:50 PM, Kyle Sanderson wrote:
I totally agree that the feature is useful, I use it often. What I 
totally disagree with is relying on the end user to set the value 
properly (on the server). The data is already available to the master 
of where the server is geographically located in relation to the 
client. The only thing I suggested was to deprecate the convar from 
servers and don't duplicate already available data. It would solve a 
lot of problems, and would stop cheaters from abusing this with bogus 
data (being listed in every region).


If it's removed from servers, then it also needs to be removed from 
clients -- there's no sense in having clients choosing an option that 
doesn't actually do anything, or than does something very different than 
they expect.


In terms of bogus data, I imagine that you're talking about people 
running multiple servers at the same physical location and claiming them 
to be in different regions? If that's a serious problem, then it should 
be possible to limit that abuse at the master server by preventing 
servers with similar IPs from submitting different regions, and/or 
requiring that any selected region be on the same continent as the 
internal GeoIP guess.


-John

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Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[Kyle Sanderson]

Hi John,

I totally agree that the feature is useful, I use it often. What I totally
disagree with is relying on the end user to set the value properly (on the
server). The data is already available to the master of where the server is
geographically located in relation to the client. The only thing I
suggested was to deprecate the convar from servers and don't duplicate
already available data. It would solve a lot of problems, and would stop
cheaters from abusing this with bogus data (being listed in every region).

Thanks,
Kyle.


On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:27 PM, John wrote:

> Thanks for your previous extra work in troubleshooting this, Mike. I hope
> that it is fixed soon.
>
> Kyle, specifying a region is still (at least theoretically) useful in
> paring down the server list in the browser, allowing it to load to
> completion faster. If it is an intentionally abandoned feature, the option
> should be removed from the client.
>
> -John
>
>
> On 12/5/2012 1:50 AM, BOOM! Gaming Support wrote:
>
>> John, I recently forwarded similar info to Eric Smith at Valve and hetold
>> me
>> he was forwarding the info to someone to resolve. Below is what I
>> disocvered
>> a while back about the sv_region setting and how it effects servers. I
>> wanted to post it but was hoping Valve would send out something about it
>> instead. Since that hasn't happened, I'll share my findings that were sent
>> to Valve a couple weeks ago:
>>
>> "I have discovered some strange behavior with the sv_region setting on my
>> TF2 servers that I felt you should know about immediately. I didn't want
>> to
>> post it on the email list until you reviewed it and was hoping you could
>> release a message via the hlds list about it today.
>>
>> I have always used sv_region 255 for my US West Coast TF2 servers because
>> I
>> wanted them to appear in the default "" list. A while ago I found
>> using
>> sv_region 1 caused the servers not to list in  list. My experience is
>> that most people use the default unfiltered "" servers setting so my
>> servers showing being in that list was very important to me. I was told
>> that
>> this issue was apparently resolved at some point but I didn't change my
>> servers back to 1 until this morning.
>>
>> What I discovered after resetting my servers to Region 1 and testing them
>> in
>> the server list was as follows.
>>
>> The first thing I found was that a bunch of servers from the west coast
>> were
>> showing up in the east coast filtered server list. After seeing this, I
>> started playing with one of my Windows TF2 servers and found the
>> following:
>>
>> When choosing sv_region 0 (US-East) - This Region simply doesn't work on
>> my
>> servers. If I enter 'sv_region 0' into the server console, the region will
>> not change from what it was previously set to. Even more interesting is
>> that
>> if the server is booted with sv_region set to 0, the sv_region value is
>> completely ignored and the server's region remains at the setting it was
>> at
>> prior to the restart. If I change the region from 0 to anything else after
>> booting it with 0, the setting will change in about 10 seconds and the
>> server will show the correct region in the Steam WEB API.
>>
>> Other things I discovered with regard to the region settings after some
>> testing:
>>
>> When choosing sv_region 1 (US-West) My server appears in , 
>> and also 
>> When choosing sv_region 2 (SOUTH AMERICA) My server appears in  and
>>  but NOT South America where it should
>> When choosing sv_region 255 (ALL) My server appears in ,  
>> not
>> US-WEST
>>
>> I found that the above issues are also occuring on an NFO Linux VPS server
>> my friend owns  as well, however the NFO folks are employing some sort of
>> workaround for their servers because no matter what region the NFO client
>> uses for US East Coast servers, the server only shows in the US East Coast
>> list and the WEB API reports a "-1" region code. Example here:
>> 70.42.74.155:27015 NFOservers.com
>>
>> Anyway, you get the idea. There's something wrong with the sv_region
>> variable that needs a second look and I just wanted you to be aware. For
>> now, I'm successfully using sv_region 1 for my west coast servers, but
>> people on the east coast of the US using sv_region 0 are probably hosed
>> and
>> don't even know it."
>>
>> Regards,
>> Mike Vail
>>
>> -Original Message-
>&g

Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[John]

Thanks for your previous extra work in troubleshooting this, Mike. I 
hope that it is fixed soon.


Kyle, specifying a region is still (at least theoretically) useful in 
paring down the server list in the browser, allowing it to load to 
completion faster. If it is an intentionally abandoned feature, the 
option should be removed from the client.


-John

On 12/5/2012 1:50 AM, BOOM! Gaming Support wrote:

John, I recently forwarded similar info to Eric Smith at Valve and hetold me
he was forwarding the info to someone to resolve. Below is what I disocvered
a while back about the sv_region setting and how it effects servers. I
wanted to post it but was hoping Valve would send out something about it
instead. Since that hasn't happened, I'll share my findings that were sent
to Valve a couple weeks ago:

"I have discovered some strange behavior with the sv_region setting on my
TF2 servers that I felt you should know about immediately. I didn't want to
post it on the email list until you reviewed it and was hoping you could
release a message via the hlds list about it today.

I have always used sv_region 255 for my US West Coast TF2 servers because I
wanted them to appear in the default "" list. A while ago I found using
sv_region 1 caused the servers not to list in  list. My experience is
that most people use the default unfiltered "" servers setting so my
servers showing being in that list was very important to me. I was told that
this issue was apparently resolved at some point but I didn't change my
servers back to 1 until this morning.

What I discovered after resetting my servers to Region 1 and testing them in
the server list was as follows.

The first thing I found was that a bunch of servers from the west coast were
showing up in the east coast filtered server list. After seeing this, I
started playing with one of my Windows TF2 servers and found the following:

When choosing sv_region 0 (US-East) - This Region simply doesn't work on my
servers. If I enter 'sv_region 0' into the server console, the region will
not change from what it was previously set to. Even more interesting is that
if the server is booted with sv_region set to 0, the sv_region value is
completely ignored and the server's region remains at the setting it was at
prior to the restart. If I change the region from 0 to anything else after
booting it with 0, the setting will change in about 10 seconds and the
server will show the correct region in the Steam WEB API.

Other things I discovered with regard to the region settings after some
testing:

When choosing sv_region 1 (US-West) My server appears in , 
and also 
When choosing sv_region 2 (SOUTH AMERICA) My server appears in  and
 but NOT South America where it should
When choosing sv_region 255 (ALL) My server appears in ,   not
US-WEST

I found that the above issues are also occuring on an NFO Linux VPS server
my friend owns  as well, however the NFO folks are employing some sort of
workaround for their servers because no matter what region the NFO client
uses for US East Coast servers, the server only shows in the US East Coast
list and the WEB API reports a "-1" region code. Example here:
70.42.74.155:27015 NFOservers.com

Anyway, you get the idea. There's something wrong with the sv_region
variable that needs a second look and I just wanted you to be aware. For
now, I'm successfully using sv_region 1 for my west coast servers, but
people on the east coast of the US using sv_region 0 are probably hosed and
don't even know it."

Regards,
Mike Vail

-Original Message-
From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com
[mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of John
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 1:34 AM
To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list
Subject: [hlds] sv_region ignored

I noticed today that setting sv_region 0 doesn't work to change the output
of the tool at
http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamApps/GetServersAtAddress/v0001?addr=x.x.x.
x
(it still shows a region value of whatever was previously specified, or -1).
Using another number does change that value. I delved deeper and found that
the location field in the Steam browser is also being ignored, as I see many
region 3 servers (for instance) when I try to filter for "US - East".

Is this intentional?

-John

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Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[Kyle Sanderson]

Didn't Valve copy Setti and start returning server results based on
geographical locations instead of by octet? I guess what I'm asking is why
does sv_region still exist when the change occurred two(?) years ago...

Thanks,
Kyle.
John, I recently forwarded similar info to Eric Smith at Valve and hetold me
he was forwarding the info to someone to resolve. Below is what I disocvered
a while back about the sv_region setting and how it effects servers. I
wanted to post it but was hoping Valve would send out something about it
instead. Since that hasn't happened, I'll share my findings that were sent
to Valve a couple weeks ago:

"I have discovered some strange behavior with the sv_region setting on my
TF2 servers that I felt you should know about immediately. I didn't want to
post it on the email list until you reviewed it and was hoping you could
release a message via the hlds list about it today.

I have always used sv_region 255 for my US West Coast TF2 servers because I
wanted them to appear in the default "" list. A while ago I found using
sv_region 1 caused the servers not to list in  list. My experience is
that most people use the default unfiltered "" servers setting so my
servers showing being in that list was very important to me. I was told that
this issue was apparently resolved at some point but I didn't change my
servers back to 1 until this morning.

What I discovered after resetting my servers to Region 1 and testing them in
the server list was as follows.

The first thing I found was that a bunch of servers from the west coast were
showing up in the east coast filtered server list. After seeing this, I
started playing with one of my Windows TF2 servers and found the following:

When choosing sv_region 0 (US-East) - This Region simply doesn't work on my
servers. If I enter 'sv_region 0' into the server console, the region will
not change from what it was previously set to. Even more interesting is that
if the server is booted with sv_region set to 0, the sv_region value is
completely ignored and the server's region remains at the setting it was at
prior to the restart. If I change the region from 0 to anything else after
booting it with 0, the setting will change in about 10 seconds and the
server will show the correct region in the Steam WEB API.

Other things I discovered with regard to the region settings after some
testing:

When choosing sv_region 1 (US-West) My server appears in , 
and also 
When choosing sv_region 2 (SOUTH AMERICA) My server appears in  and
 but NOT South America where it should
When choosing sv_region 255 (ALL) My server appears in ,   not
US-WEST

I found that the above issues are also occuring on an NFO Linux VPS server
my friend owns  as well, however the NFO folks are employing some sort of
workaround for their servers because no matter what region the NFO client
uses for US East Coast servers, the server only shows in the US East Coast
list and the WEB API reports a "-1" region code. Example here:
70.42.74.155:27015 NFOservers.com

Anyway, you get the idea. There's something wrong with the sv_region
variable that needs a second look and I just wanted you to be aware. For
now, I'm successfully using sv_region 1 for my west coast servers, but
people on the east coast of the US using sv_region 0 are probably hosed and
don't even know it."

Regards,
Mike Vail

-Original Message-
From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com
[mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of John
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 1:34 AM
To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list
Subject: [hlds] sv_region ignored

I noticed today that setting sv_region 0 doesn't work to change the output
of the tool at
http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamApps/GetServersAtAddress/v0001?addr=x.x.x.
x
(it still shows a region value of whatever was previously specified, or -1).
Using another number does change that value. I delved deeper and found that
the location field in the Steam browser is also being ignored, as I see many
region 3 servers (for instance) when I try to filter for "US - East".

Is this intentional?

-John

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Re: [hlds] sv_region ignored

[BOOM! Gaming Support]

John, I recently forwarded similar info to Eric Smith at Valve and hetold me
he was forwarding the info to someone to resolve. Below is what I disocvered
a while back about the sv_region setting and how it effects servers. I
wanted to post it but was hoping Valve would send out something about it
instead. Since that hasn't happened, I'll share my findings that were sent
to Valve a couple weeks ago:

"I have discovered some strange behavior with the sv_region setting on my
TF2 servers that I felt you should know about immediately. I didn't want to
post it on the email list until you reviewed it and was hoping you could
release a message via the hlds list about it today. 

I have always used sv_region 255 for my US West Coast TF2 servers because I
wanted them to appear in the default "" list. A while ago I found using
sv_region 1 caused the servers not to list in  list. My experience is
that most people use the default unfiltered "" servers setting so my
servers showing being in that list was very important to me. I was told that
this issue was apparently resolved at some point but I didn't change my
servers back to 1 until this morning.

What I discovered after resetting my servers to Region 1 and testing them in
the server list was as follows. 

The first thing I found was that a bunch of servers from the west coast were
showing up in the east coast filtered server list. After seeing this, I
started playing with one of my Windows TF2 servers and found the following:

When choosing sv_region 0 (US-East) - This Region simply doesn't work on my
servers. If I enter 'sv_region 0' into the server console, the region will
not change from what it was previously set to. Even more interesting is that
if the server is booted with sv_region set to 0, the sv_region value is
completely ignored and the server's region remains at the setting it was at
prior to the restart. If I change the region from 0 to anything else after
booting it with 0, the setting will change in about 10 seconds and the
server will show the correct region in the Steam WEB API.

Other things I discovered with regard to the region settings after some
testing:

When choosing sv_region 1 (US-West) My server appears in , 
and also  
When choosing sv_region 2 (SOUTH AMERICA) My server appears in  and
 but NOT South America where it should
When choosing sv_region 255 (ALL) My server appears in ,   not
US-WEST

I found that the above issues are also occuring on an NFO Linux VPS server
my friend owns  as well, however the NFO folks are employing some sort of
workaround for their servers because no matter what region the NFO client
uses for US East Coast servers, the server only shows in the US East Coast
list and the WEB API reports a "-1" region code. Example here:
70.42.74.155:27015 NFOservers.com

Anyway, you get the idea. There's something wrong with the sv_region
variable that needs a second look and I just wanted you to be aware. For
now, I'm successfully using sv_region 1 for my west coast servers, but
people on the east coast of the US using sv_region 0 are probably hosed and
don't even know it."

Regards,
Mike Vail

-Original Message-
From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com
[mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of John
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 1:34 AM
To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list
Subject: [hlds] sv_region ignored

I noticed today that setting sv_region 0 doesn't work to change the output
of the tool at
http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamApps/GetServersAtAddress/v0001?addr=x.x.x.
x
(it still shows a region value of whatever was previously specified, or -1).
Using another number does change that value. I delved deeper and found that
the location field in the Steam browser is also being ignored, as I see many
region 3 servers (for instance) when I try to filter for "US - East".

Is this intentional?

-John

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[hlds] sv_region ignored

[John]

I noticed today that setting sv_region 0 doesn't work to change the 
output of the tool at 
http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamApps/GetServersAtAddress/v0001?addr=x.x.x.x 
(it still shows a region value of whatever was previously specified, or 
-1). Using another number does change that value. I delved deeper and 
found that the location field in the Steam browser is also being 
ignored, as I see many region 3 servers (for instance) when I try to 
filter for "US - East".


Is this intentional?

-John

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