Tutorials..

iP - A Technical Overview...

Folders used by the ipserver:

smedia
The media folder for the ipserver. Room and spot images go here, as do scripts, blobs, sounds and videos. This folder is also a web site folder as far as the internal iP http/media server is concerned. Users can upload index.htm or other simple web site files and the server can be connected to using the address and media port.
ie: http://ipdir.dyndns.org:9997/index.htm
Which is the url to the "iP University" ipserver's media server at the time of this writting.

Baseurls and the smedia folder:
If the baseurl feature of the server is being used then the internal http/media server is dissabled. When using the baseurl, in order to allow for a seamless integration with the iP client's ability to upload to the smedia folder of the ipserver, it is a very good idea to point the baseurl to the customer's smedia folder in your web server and to make that pointed to folder the baseurl. So if the user's ipserver was using dansden.somehost.com as the address. And the user's ipserver folder was set up as /home/dansden/ipserver. You would want to point a web folder to /home/dansden/ipserver/smedia. Assuming that web alias was called "ipmedia", you would use http://dansden.somehost.com/ipmedia/ as the baseurl of the ipserver and set its media port to port 80. Alternatively if you simply pointed dansden.somehost.com to the smedia folder the baseurl could be http://dansden.somehost.com/

slogs
The folder where logs are written to.

sprops
Store props here if you want to be sure they will always be restored to the cache on server start up if they are used in rooms.

scache
The server's cache, where it stores temporary and not so temporary files such as props, blobs, and uploaded room definitions.

Files used by the ipserver:

ipserver.ini
The main configuration file used by the ipserver. Read at start up and written back at server shutdown. It is a plain text file, and can be edited with simple text editors. The server must be shutdown if you plan on editing it as it will overwrite any changes you have made otherwise when you shut down the server.

ip_rooms.dat
The data file that contains all room records in an ipserver. Room records are binary "typed" records of a fixed size. They are not editable by an external program.

users.dat
The data file for staff users. (users0.dat and usersbak.dat are backups of the users.dat file.)

modusers.dat
The data file for moderated users, who are/were banned, pinned etc... (modusers0.dat and modusersbak.dat are backups of the modusers.dat file.)

ipserverlog_######_at_####.txt
The main server log, each time the server starts a new log with the date and time as part of its filename will be created. The server logs are plain text files stored in the slogs folder.

ipservererrorlog_######_at_####.txt
The server error log, each time the server starts a new log with the date and time as part of its filename will be created. The error log is used to report primarily connection related errors. Other more usual errors are reported in the server log. The error logs are plain text files stored in the slogs folder.

ipdirserverlog_######_at_####.txt
The directory server log, each time the server starts a new log with the date and time as part of its filename will be created. This file is only generated if a server is also a directory server. The directory server logs are plain text files stored in the slogs folder.

shutdown.txt
The ipserver constantly checks for the presence of shutdown.txt in its folder. When it finds it there it attempts to delete it and attempts to shut down. If it finds the file on start up it attempts to delete it.

ipserver.pid
The file ipserver.pid (located in the ipserver's folder) holds the ipserver's master process id. If it's contents are a number less than 0 then the server startup failed. Otherwise the ipserver startup was successful and you can kill the ipserver by the contents of pid.txt.

*.prp
Prop files kept in the sprops folder are automatically copied over to the scache folder on ipserver startup if they are used in rooms and are not already there. Additionally, if they are in the scache folder but not sprops and are used in rooms the server copies them to sprops. This ensures that props in rooms are not "lost" whenever you purge the cache. User worn props are stored in scache so they can be sent to client's that request them. On server startup the ipserver checks for invalid filesizes for props as well as blobs(*.blb).

*.blb
Blob files, used by client effects, and room or client scripts, as sprites. They are stored in smedia if they are used in room scripts. THey are cached in scache much in the same way as props are.

*.ipr
Room files, single room definitions. They are uploaded to here from the client before they are placed into ip_rooms.dat.

0000000000000000.prp
The default iP yellow alien/smiley.