.TH DGAMELAUNCH 8 "17 March 2004" "joshk et al" "System Manager's Manual"
.SH NAME
dgamelaunch \- Network console game launcher
.SH SYNOPSIS
.na
.hy 0
.B dgamelaunch
[
.B \-h
.I hostname
]
[
.B \-f
.I config
]
[
.B \-q
]
[
.B \-p
]
[
.B \-a
]
[
.B \-e
]
.ad
.hy 14
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
.I dgamelaunch
is a network-based game shell where anyone can sign up for an
account and start playing any game which suits your fancy - currently
it supports NetHack and Slash'Em.

The user is presented with a curses-based menu to watch other games, edit the
options or play the game.

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B
-f config
Specify the location of the configuration file.
.TP
.B
-q
Don't print errors pertaining to the server configuration.
.TP
.B
-a
Enter user authentication mode.
.I
dgamelaunch
will read user name and password from stdin, check them, check whether the
user doesn't have a game in progress already, then write the inprogress lock.
Returns 0 if everything was successful.
.TP
.B
-e
Start game server to handle incoming NhExt connection.
.I
dgamelaunch
will execute /bin/nethack --proxy after chroot and shedding privs.
.TP
.B
-p
Ignored; solely for compatibility with
.B
login(1)
.TP
.B
-h hostname
Ignored; solely for compatibility with
.B
login(1)
.SH "CRASH RECOVERY"
.PP
If a user somehow disconnects in an unclean way,
.I
dgamelaunch
will usually send nethack the SIGHUP signal, which causes nethack to save
the game.
.PP
If a user tries to play while he already has a game in progress (for example
because nethack hung),
.I
dgamelaunch
will warn the user and send nethack the SIGHUP signal if the user agrees. If
nethack does not shut down within 10 seconds,
.I
dgamelaunch
will ask the user for permission to send it the SIGTERM signal, which causes
nethack to terminate quickly (without leaving a savefile usually).
.PP
In some cases (e.g. at "Restoring save file...--More--") nethack doesn't leave
a savefile if sent SIGHUP. To avoid loss of games,
.I
dgamelaunch
can backup the savefile. A human must then restore the backup if necessary.
This must be configured with the
.B
savefilefmt
option in the configuration file.
.SH AUTHORS
.PP
M. Drew Streib wrote the original version.
.PP
Later, Joshua Kwan, Brett Carrington and Jilles Tjoelker added many new
features.
.PP
NhExt support was written by J. Ali Harlow.
.SH FILES
.DT
.ta \w'dgldir/ttyrec/<login>/*.ttyrec\ \ \ 'u
/etc/dgamelaunch.conf		Default configuration file (can
				be changed at compile time).
.br
.PP
All other files are in the chroot as defined in the configuration file. Most
of these filenames can be changed in the configuration file.
.PP
.DT
.ta \w'dgldir/ttyrec/<login>/*.ttyrec\ \ \ 'u
dgl-login		Login names, passwords and email
			addresses.
.br
dgl-lock		Lockfile for dgl-login, locked
			with fcntl(2).
.br
dgl-banner		Text shown on the screen.
.br
dgl-default-rcfile	Options file for new accounts.
.br
bin/nethack		The NetHack binary.
.br
dgldir/inprogress/*	A file for each game in progress;
			the file is locked (with fcntl(2))
			when the dgamelaunch process
			is still alive.
.br
dgldir/rcfiles/*	Options files.
.br
dgldir/ttyrec/<login>/*.ttyrec	Recorded games, this may get
				very big very quickly.
.\".SH ENVIRONMENT
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
nethack(6), slashem(6), telnetd(8), login(1), curses(3), fcntl(2)
.SH BUGS
.PP
None known.