The SlakPak is back, and it's the mac, jack"

Introduction

Custom maps for halflife games have always sucked to install.

1/2 of them are just plain archive
- plain archives dont help you install in the right place
- the archives vary in where they need to be inpacked (some in game/, some in just games/maps/)
1/2 of them have executable installers
- they cant be read by a computer and so you cant automate it
- many of them dont work out where they need to install, so you have to do it manually which is no better than a plain archive
- some of them actually get it wrong (dod maps installing in cs directory)

If you want to install 40 maps, then you have to fight and deal with 40 different ways of installing, 1/2 of which are no help in telling to where and a small percentage that actually get it wrong.

What a mess. What a nightmare. Lets automate it.

Yay for Lecutus, one of our cool regulars built a tool that allowed for a simple map installer which pulled the custom maps off a server and did all the installing in one go. Beautiful! But maintaining the server's list of maps tended to fall behind the installed custom maps on the server. I got dobbed into updating it and I figured that if I made it easy for other people I wouldnt have to do it. :)

Thinking about easy custom map packing...

Lets break the custom map process into a number of 'people':

packer (small number of trusted users)
Has a script which creates a list of installed files for each map and submits them to the server.
server (unique)
Takes the submitted files (from packers) and makes an slakmappak for each one. Creates a metalist of maps, some marked as offical.
installer (many! 1 per player/user) Reads the metalist of maps and deletes any that are no longer supported and installs any new offical (or selected unoffical) maps.

Packer

Packers are the poor suckers who actually have to deal with all the different map installers. We cant avoid some need for humans, but packers can save everyone else headaches but doing some grunt work.

This is the process behind the packer's script:

packer selects game type (dod, cs, ns, tf2)
script 'touches' modification time on every game file
script gathers file info for every game file
packer manually installs the custom map
script gathers file info for every game file
difference between the two lots of file info are the new files
if any file contents have change: abort
if any file has been deleted: abort
pack up new files into archive
work out map name from .bsp file
sync to personal directory on the server

Note that the script can potentially delete any incorrectly installed files to help the packer deal with annoying installers etc. (Although it wont help if dod maps are installed in the cs directory as only the dod directory will have been scanned).

Status

Mostly written (syncing not yet done, waiting on server design and availablility of rsync).

packer: file layout

    ....slakpak/pak.py                                   # script file
               /lib/...                                  # script code & config
generates
               /map/gametype/mapname/...   # holds files

Server

From the previous packer's step, packers sync their ...slakpak/map/ directory to individual directory on the server (using rsync or maybe some file submitting cgi). Using rsync+ssh+authorized keys would allow packers to submit to their personal directories without needing actual accounts (just different keys and restricted authorized_keys commands).

Given the files are synced, the server then:

walks every packers submitted maps and create new slakmappaks for each unique (by mapname) one.
error if different packers versions of the same map disagree
make a config for each map containing a list of files + size + md5
make a metalist of maps, containing a list of each map config name + size + md5 plus an optional 'offical' tick

Status

Not yet done, but should be pretty easy.

server: file layout

packers each sync to create
    ....slakpak/packers/packername/gametype/mapname/...
generates
    ....slakpak/offical/gametype/mapname/...      # files
    ....slakpak/offical/gametype/mapname.info     # config
    ....slakpak/offical/gametype.info                    # metaconfig

Installer

The installer talks to the server:

grabs the meta list of maps
verifies none of the installed maps configs have changed (uninstall + reinstall if it has)
uninstall any installed map configs not in the meta list any more (deleted from server?)
install any offical maps in meta list not already locally installed
possibly repair any installed maps (check local config and actual files)

Status

Not yet done. Dont know if I should hack up a proof of concept python one (final one would need to be easier, maybe look at py2exe?) or if I should chat with Lecutus about hacking his installer.

installer: file layout

    ....slakpak/program.???                                # installer program
generates
    ....slakpak/maps/gametype/mapname.info   # config for each installed map