COD4 Rcon tool udp packets issue

[rush001]

hi everybody

this is my first post in this forum although i have been using it for my knowledge for quite some time..

I know a similar thread has been opened in this forums a long time ago but is dead atm, and i cant seem to find it too.

Anyway, i have been trying to make an Rcon tool for my clan, and i know many people have done it so it shouldnt be very hard but i am DEAD STUCK in half way....more like 75% of the way

COD 4 accepts only UDP connections so i made a Visual Basic prog with UDPclient. It can send the commands ok and also receives response from the server but it seems to get only upto 1302 characters of the response.

I learnt that it was due to the response being fragmented into packets and i only got one of those packets. So, how do i get around it? is there a code or any way that would let me receive all the packets? maybe a code that lets me continue receiving packets from the point where the first one got fragmented??

PLZ HELP!!

[Shaggy Hiker]

With UDP, there is no guarantee that you even WILL get all the packets. The packet may have some kind of number in it that tells you that it is packet X, or packet X of N. Documentation may have something about that. Still, if you are getting one packet, then you are probably getting them all. You could show us how you do the receive, as that might tell us something.

Also, I had a couple threads on UDP over in the Networking section. One of them has 7 posts in it, the last couple of which include complete classes I am using for UDP communication. The title of the thread is not likely to be meaningful, but there aren't all that many UDP threads anyways. In that final UDP class, I had the listener running in a background thread. When a packet was received, the payload was removed, enqueued for other users (running on the UI thread), then the listener was re-started to await the next incoming message. That may be of interest to you.

[rush001]

ok i just found a thread in this forum that talks about similar problem..same, to be honest (soz for not searching properly :P) So, i will just use the same code as he seems to be doing the same way as i did:

orts System
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Text
Imports System.Net.Sockets
Imports System.Net
 
Namespace iarcon
    Friend Class RCON
 
        Public Function sendCommand(ByVal rconCommand As String, ByVal gameServerIP As String, ByVal password As String, ByVal gameServerPort As Integer) As String
            On Error Resume Next
            Dim client As New Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp)
            client.Connect(IPAddress.Parse(gameServerIP), gameServerPort)
 
            Dim command As String
            command = "rcon " & password & " " & rconCommand
            Dim bufferTemp() As Byte = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(command)
            Dim bufferSend(bufferTemp.Length + 5 - 1) As Byte
 
            'intial 5 characters as per standard
            bufferSend(0) = Byte.Parse("255")
            bufferSend(1) = Byte.Parse("255")
            bufferSend(2) = Byte.Parse("255")
            bufferSend(3) = Byte.Parse("255")
            bufferSend(4) = Byte.Parse("02")
            Dim j As Integer = 5
 
            For i As Integer = 0 To bufferTemp.Length - 1
                bufferSend(j) = bufferTemp(i)
                j += 1
            Next i
 
            'send rcon command and get response
            Dim RemoteIpEndPoint As New IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0)
            client.Send(bufferSend, SocketFlags.None)
 
            'big enough to receive response
            Dim bufferRec(64999) As Byte
            client.Receive(bufferRec)
            Return Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bufferRec)
        End Function
    End Class
End Namespace

if you could just add that cool :P feature (making the thread wait for second/more packets by reusing the connection) you talk about in those threads, in this code, thats good enough for me . so.. can you? plzzz??

[rush001]

Ok, i have found the solution and i am pretty sure it will be useful to anybody who's gonna try and make an RCON tool in the future so i will tell you how i solved this issue.

I learnt that its true that the message was being fragmented into different packets but i was using only one udpclient.RECEIVE which receives only one packet regardless of how many packets there are in the message queue i.e even if i did get all the packets properly, i am only retrieving one packet.

All i had to do was make more udpclient.receive for the remaining packets.

[Jeremin]

hi rush001

as you, i am working on a rcon tool for cod4 (written in c++, but this seems to be an UDP problem) and i have the same problem.
i also tried what you say, i am able to recieve different packets with different lengths, but i dont know, when i have to stop recieving.

hope you understand what i mean, my english is really not that good

jeremin

[rush001]

I have seen two ways to set a limit for receiving.

1) each slot occupies about 105 bytes. So you can stop receiving when the bytes received in one receiving is less than that.. meaning there was no data sent. If the server does send data other than the player stats like 'disconnect' or 'incorrect password', they will be less than 105 bytes too causing the receive function to stop.

2) create a loop around the receive part. Make the loop continue until the receiving process takes more than 0 seconds. This means that as long as you receive data, it will take more than 0 seconds hence continuing the loop. If you dont receive any data, the receive funtion completes at 0 seconds hence stopping the loop and completing the receive process.

I have used the second method but the first one should do the work too. The first one is a bit easier to do i think but the second one is a fail-safe Do tell me if you dont understand any of my explanations... my english isnt that good either

[Jeremin]

i also used the second method, it was realy a fail of mine
i just didnt understand what my code is doing, but now i understand it and it works how it should.

first i tried to solve it with the first method, but because, at least for me, the sizes of packets are variable, just every second packet has the lenght of 1303 characters, it fails.
and i really didnt succeed to work out the right way to find the point to stop recieving.

now, for me everything works fine, thank you

[rush001]

glad to be of help. I still remember how hard it was to find any helpful source for this part...

Anyway,I have moved on upto the point where you tabulate the data. So, if you get stuck anywhere in between, maybe i can be of help..

Good Luck xD

Also wanted to add that 105 bytes is the size of ONE slot.. since you are getting datagrams for all the slots(obviously more than one), you get more than just 105 bytes but since the datagrams get fragmented every 1500 bytes(I dont know the details but thats the MTU(Maximum Transmission Unit) ), you only get about 1303 bytes at ONE time. Not too sure why its not exactly 1500 bytes that you receive at a time tho :P

[SLeePYG72786]

I know this is kind of a dead thread, but I'm trying to do the exact same thing. There just isn't much about this on the 'net at this point, even though the game has been out for over 3 years. :sigh:

If anyone has ANY additional information about this, please please post something.

[Jeremin]

perhaps you should say, where exactly is your problem.

in my opinion, the safest way to recieve everything, is recieving until you get a timeout by the socket. but i don't know how to solve that in VB.
(in c++, my code works fine for me, send me a message if you want to get it)

greetings

[rush001]

yes, pointing out where exactly your problem is will make it a lot easier for both you and the helpers

BTW, Jeremin, have you completed your rcon tool yet?

I haven't, cause i had to stop. I was taking too much time for this tool and the clan matters needed me more than this tool :P . Also , i just kept on adding new features to the tool without actually completing the code, which made it even longer to finish.

I HAVE completed the whole thing but only on my notebook. And then i just lost interest lol

[Jeremin]

@rush001
i released a kind of a beta, it worked quite fine and i got nice feedbacks.
i started to work on a better version with multiple servers, but now, my studies started 1,5 months ago and i had to make a break.
i hope, i will get time to work on this tool around cristmas, maybe i'm even able to include black ops

PS: if you want, i can send you my beta file, but it's in german.

[SLeePYG72786]

I downloaded the file from post #16 in this thread:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...ight=udpclient

My problem is trying to figure out how to close the UDPclient before I go to open another connection to a different server.

My clan has 7 CoD4 servers, with the ability to add 3 more. Right now we're using a VB6-based Rcon. It uses radio buttons to connect to each server. So we have 7 radio buttons, and when we click on one it's coded to close any open connections, then open the connection to that server, and automatically sends the "status" command as well, which then puts the output to a large multi-line text box.

EDIT > I have no idea about C++. I only have experience in VB6 and VB.Net 4 (Visual Studio 2010)

[Shaggy Hiker]

You never have to close UDPClients because there is no connection. If you want to start listening to a different port, you may just be able to change the port. Alternatively, you could destroy the UDPClient and create another one.

[SLeePYG72786]

My problem is getting it to even connect. I have no clue on how to get it to call the UdpClient.Connect command. If I type in:

UdpClient.

it only shows:

Equals
ReferenceEquals

Where is "connect"? How do I make it connect to a certain IP? On the MSDN site it shows it has a Connect, so why can't I use it?

I understand this isn't VB6, but dang. I've been looking everywhere, and everything either leads to a dead end or shows nothing to do with what I need. =X

[rush001]

@rush001

PS: if you want, i can send you my beta file, but it's in german.

Although i won't be able to understand any German, I think it would be helpful if i had a look at your beta file

[rush001]

My problem is getting it to even connect. I have no clue on how to get it to call the UdpClient.Connect command. If I type in:

UdpClient.

it only shows:

Equals
ReferenceEquals

Where is "connect"? How do I make it connect to a certain IP? On the MSDN site it shows it has a Connect, so why can't I use it?

I understand this isn't VB6, but dang. I've been looking everywhere, and everything either leads to a dead end or shows nothing to do with what I need. =X

If you have a look at the code on the 3rd post, on line 13:

client.Connect(IPAddress.Parse(gameServerIP), gameServerPort)

That is a typical way of creating a new (Socket) connection. You can use either UDPClient or Socket (both have slightly different syntaxes and usage methods).

As a fail safe ,use socket command. I forgot the syntax for UDPClient or maybe UDPClient doesn't allow you to specify the IP and port. (?) Once again, As a fail safe ,use socket command

If you follow the example above(which is similar to the file you downloaded),
Just copy paste the sendcommand function (line 10) into the class RCON. you can make 7 public functions and name them sendcommand1, sendcommand2 etc each with their own IP and passes. I think that would be the easiest and safest way.

good luck

[SLeePYG72786]

I've got it going now. Thanks for the help everyone.

[rush001]

NICE !

I love it when things work

If you get stuck further, don't forget to ask.

Good Luck with your adventure

[SLeePYG72786]

Ok, I have another issue now. When I get the response from the server in the multi-line textbox, it always shows:

????print

at the top. Is there a way to remove that?

Another question as well, which is very similar, and the solution will probably work for both questions. When I connect to a server with the "status" command, I can see the people in the server (their names, IP's, GUID, etc.), but if they're using color codes in their name (^1 , ^2 , etc.), it shows that in their name. How would I go about removing those 2 characters from the response? Like I said, I'm sure the solution will work for both of these questions.

Thanks again.

[rush001]

This problem is not a very big one.

1) All you have to do is remove the "????print" using the following code:

Replace(STRING, "???print", "")

where STRING is the output(response from the server)
"???print" is the string you are looking for
"" means you replace the found string with "" i.e nothing/blank


2) Similarly, place 10 replace functions for each colour.

Replace(STRING, "^0", "")
Replace(STRING, "^1", "")
Replace(STRING, "^2", "")
Replace(STRING, "^3", "")
Replace(STRING, "^4", "")
Replace(STRING, "^5", "")
Replace(STRING, "^6", "")
Replace(STRING, "^7", "")
Replace(STRING, "^8", "")
Replace(STRING, "^9", "")

Note: these functions will make any number of substitutions possible. You can limit the number of substitutions too.

Replace(STRING, "string to find", "replace with", "no. of replacements")

[SLeePYG72786]

It's still not working for me. *ugh*

Private Sub btnConnect_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnConnect.Click

        On Error Resume Next
        Dim rcon As New QuakeRcon.RCON
        Dim Response As String = rcon.sendCommand("status", "IP", "Password", "Port")
        'Replacing \n with \r\n so that it could be treated as Enter in text area
        Response = Response.Replace(Constants.vbLf, Constants.vbCrLf)
        txtResponse.Text = Response

        
        Replace(txtResponse.Text, "???print", "")
        Replace(Response, "^0", "")
        Replace(Response, "^1", "")
        Replace(Response, "^2", "")
        Replace(Response, "^3", "")
        Replace(Response, "^4", "")
        Replace(Response, "^5", "")
        Replace(Response, "^6", "")
        Replace(Response, "^7", "")
        Replace(Response, "^8", "")
        Replace(Response, "^9", "")

    End Sub

I don't understand....

I had tried using the replace command last night several different way, this way included, but to no avail.

=?

[SLeePYG72786]

Response.Replace("????print", "")

Doesn't work either.....

=X

[rush001]

I can't be too sure without seeing the whole code.

Also, what error or output do you get?

As far as i can see from your code, you haven't declared "Response"

Try that first and if that doesn't help, post the output too so that i can look at it further.

[Kennix]

herewith some code, maybe a long time ago for the last comment in this forum, but still may be usefull:

    Public Function RCON(ByVal strCommand As String)

        Dim udpClient As New Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp)
        Dim strSendData As String
        Dim bytSendData() As Byte
        Dim RemoteIpEndPoint As New IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0)
        Dim bytReturnData(intUDPClientRecievelength) As Byte
        Dim strReturnData As String

        strReturnData = ""
        strSendData = ""

        Try
            frmMain.lblStatus.Text = "Sending Data ..."
            udpClient.ReceiveTimeout = intUDPClientReceiveTimeout
            strSendData = Chr(255) & Chr(255) & Chr(255) & Chr(255) & "rcon " & strRconPass & " " & strCommand
            bytSendData = Encoding.GetEncoding("Windows-1252").GetBytes(strSendData)
            udpClient.Connect(strRconHostName, intRconPort)
            udpClient.Send(bytSendData, bytSendData.Length, SocketFlags.None)

            frmMain.lblStatus.Text = "Receiving Data ..."
            Do
                'Wait for new data to arrive, or on the timeout
                udpClient.Receive(bytReturnData, SocketFlags.None)
                'Convert bytes to a text string
                strReturnData = strReturnData & "*" & Replace(Encoding.GetEncoding("Windows-1252").GetString(bytReturnData), Chr(0), "")
                'Remove last empty line in strReturnData
                strReturnData = strReturnData.TrimEnd(vbNewLine.ToArray)

                'Clearing bytReturnData
                ReDim bytReturnData(intUDPClientRecievelength)
                'Wait a specific amount of time to allow new data being send and received
                Call Wait(intUDPClientSendDelay)
            Loop

        Catch Err As Net.Sockets.SocketException
            'timeout error
            If 10060 = Err.ErrorCode Then

                'Replacing LineFeeds with CarrierReturnLineFeeds
                strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, vbLf, vbCrLf)

                'Check on if any data has arrived
                If strReturnData Is Nothing Then
                    strReturnData = "No data returned from server"

                Else
                    'Removing ÿÿÿÿprint
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "ÿÿÿÿprint" & vbCrLf, "")
                    'if not more than ÿÿÿÿprint is returned, but command is executed
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "ÿÿÿÿprint", "Command received by server")

                    'Removing color codes
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^0", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^1", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^2", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^3", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^4", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^5", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^6", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^7", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^8", "")
                    strReturnData = Replace(strReturnData, "^9", "")
                End If

            Else
                MsgBox("Error Code: " & Err.ErrorCode & " Error Description: " & Err.Message)
            End If
        End Try

        'Close Socket
        udpClient.Close()
        frmMain.lblStatus.Text = "Data transfer Finished"
        RCON = strCommand & vbCrLf & strReturnData
        Call TextOutputToLog(RCON)
    End Function

please note the & "*" & in the do loop above

at that location i am joining to udp sets of data together. However, i am losing 1 sign all the time. But cannot find the reason for that.

13-8-2011 14:18:13
status
*map: mp_toujane
num score ping guid   name            lastmsg address               qport rate
--- ----- ---- ------ --------------- ------- --------------------- ----- -----
  0     0   63      0 Gallier-Kennix        0 81.71.$$$.33:-1964     1500 25000
  4     0 CNCT      0 Rune              76750 81.71.$$$.33:-15867   27752  1500
  5     0 CNCT      0 Rune              73950 81.71.$$$.33:-15731   28520  1500
  7     0 CNCT      0 Rune              70550 81.71.$$$.33:-15780   29544  1500
  8     0 CNCT      0 Rune              67500 81.71.$$$.33:-15729   30056  1500
 10     0 CNCT      0 Senne             46400 81.71.$$$.33:-15741    6250  1500
 11     0 CNCT      0 Senne             45800 81.71.$$$.33:-15726    6506  1500
 12    43   53      0 G.I.O.                0 88.78.56.$$$:28962     2706 25000
 13    13  118      0 Mirotvorac            0 93.141.2.$$$:-13539    9477 25000
 14     0  999      0 Sibe                  0 89.204.83.$$$:28960    1866  5000
 16    55   75      0 Chapaev               0 94.228.$$$.140:28960   3419 25000
 17    40   73      0 Noob number: 455<DUPE>      0 89.$$$.91.21:28960     1492 25000
 18     0   32      0 ~~~~                  0 192.$$$.1.24:28960     2109  5000
 19     7   78      0 *1|Feca                 0 145.236.$$$.80:28960   3866 25000
 20    38   53      0 metaldemon            0 81.$$$.66.53:28960     3067 25000


13-8-2011 14:18:25
status
No data returned from server


13-8-2011 14:18:37
status
*map: mp_toujane
num score ping guid   name            lastmsg address               qport rate
--- ----- ---- ------ --------------- ------- --------------------- ----- -----
  0     0   53      0 Gallier-Kennix        0 81.71.109.33:-1964     1500 25000
  1     0 CNCT      0 Kobe              20450 81.71.$$$.33:-15782   28008  1500
  2     0 CNCT      0 Kobe              17700 81.71.$$$.33:-15719   28776  1500
  3     0 CNCT      0 Kobe               9800 81.71.$$$.33:-15744   29800  1500
  4     0 CNCT      0 Rune             100850 81.71.$$$.33:-15867   27752  1500
  5     0 CNCT      0 Rune              98050 81.71.$$$.33:-15731   28520  1500
  6     0 CNCT      0 Kobe               8050 81.71.$$$.33:-15717   30312  1500
  7     0 CNCT      0 Rune              94650 81.71.$$$.33:-15780   29544  1500
  8     0 CNCT      0 Rune              91600 81.71.$$$.33:-15729   30056  1500
 10     0 CNCT      0 Senne             70500 81.71.$$$.33:-15741    6250  1500
 11     0 CNCT      0 Senne             69900 81.71.$$$.33:-15726    6506  1500
 12    43   50      0 G.I.O.                0 88.78.56.$$$:28962     2706 25000
 13    13  120      0 Mirotvorac            0 93.141.2.$$$:-13539    9477 25000
 14     0  999      0 Sibe              *6350 89.204.83.$$$:28960    1866  5000
 16    56   70      0 Chapaev               0 94.228.201.$$$:28960   3419 25000
 17    40   74      0 Noob number: 455<DUPE>      0 89.$$$.91.21:28960     1492 25000
 18     0   32      0 ~~~~                  0 192.168.1.24:28960     2109  5000
 19     7   83      0 |Feca                 0 145.236.$$$.80:28960   3866 25000
 20    39   51      0 metaldemon            0 81.$$$.66.53:28960     3067 25000

maybe someone that knows the trick? i have noticed this also in an other vb6 program written by someone else