127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 nile.ics.uci.edu nile

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time harassing just about everyone in my University’s Networking Support department because I couldn’t get an OpenSim server to serve clients anywhere. We know that OpenSim networking is hard. But, damn it, I’m one of the core devs of OpenSim, and I have a pretty good idea of what’s involved in the protocols between the server and the client. I’ve had lots of OpenSim servers running successfully in all sorts of networks, including my University’s. Well, the problem turned out to be… Ubuntu!

The default installation of Ubuntu comes with a horrible hack in /etc/hosts:

127.0.1.1 nile.ics.uci.edu nile

Yes, this maps the domain name to an interface in localhost, for reasons explained here. As stated in the Debian Reference:

“This is really improper because system hostnames and domain names are two very different things; but there you have it.”

How does this impact OpenSim?

Upon client login (over TCP), OpenSim sends its UDP address to the client. In doing so, it needs to send the actual IP address, not the domain name — the client expects the IP address. Due to that entry in /etc/hosts, OpenSim was getting nile.ics.uci.edu translated into the localhost IP… Fail!

Fix: either remove/comment that line from /etc/hosts or replace it with the external IP address of that server, if it has one.

Conclusion: bad Ubuntu! (Debian may suffer from the same problem)

Like many of you, I read Maria’s article last December saying that Vivox was giving free voice service to small OpenSim worlds. I thought that was a nice gesture, but I confess I found it hard to believe, so I didn’t act on it. Until yesterday.

I decided to give it shot, because my projects could really use inworld voice, and I had nothing to loose just for asking. Yesterday was Sunday. To my surprise, I got a reply within 1 hour of my request. I filled out the license agreement. This morning an email was waiting for me with the precise instructions, down to the lines that I needed to add to my .ini, and a link to the blog post that Kitely wrote on how to enable voice. I just had to copy-and-paste the config, and I had voice working in 10 minutes! — 9 of which were spent figuring out which buttons to press on the viewer to enable voice all over.

I couldn’t believe it! Someone at Vivox must really like OpenSim! Wow.

D2-ers, don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity! See Maria’s article and take it from there. No need for complicated and costly licenses. No need for horribly complicated and fail-ful Freeswitch installations. Small worlds just got as powerful as the big ones — or even more powerful, because big, commercial worlds need to pay for the service, and the small ones don’t. At least for the time being.

Hi everyone! I’m happy to announce the personal Hypergrid Teleporter! Its goal is to make your Hypergrid travels a bit easier and more enjoyable. Get it here as iar.

Let me first give a bit of context. Hypergrid teleports have been possible for a long time. Using plain OpenSim installations, traveling on the Hypergrid can be done in a couple of ways: (1) via the Map by typing in the HG address in the search box; or (2) by establishing the hypergrid link in the OpenSim console with the “link-region” command. While this works well, it’s a bit inconvenient. The Map process gets very confusing if you are using Viewers 2-3, because these latest viewers assume that there is only one map. The link-region command assumes that you have access to the server console, which obviously not everyone has.

In order to make things easier, we have seen systems like the Hypergates emerge. The Hypergates establish a centralized service where people can register their worlds, and others can travel to them using an inworld teleporter — a scripted object that uses osTeleportAgent at its core. The inworld object is really neat; it’s inspired in the Scifi TV series Stargate SG-1. The object  is relatively powerful and complex. When you click it, you are presented with a series of options about where to go. Once you choose your destination, you step in and, with luck, you are teleported there. I say “with luck” because two of the major characteristics of the Hypergrid as it exists today are (1) the fact that many worlds are turned off as much as they are turned on, especially those hosted in people’s homes; and (2) the annoying 4096 travel distance limit. So, for a number of reasons, the teleport may not succeed.

I like the idea of inworld teleporters like the Hypergates. They make HG travelling a lot more fun than using the map. But the Hypergates is a bit too complicated for me. I wanted to have a much simpler object that just teleports me to a specific world that I already know and like. After all, osTeleportAgent is super easy to use.

Hence, the Metaverse Ink Hypergate Teleporter! It’s also Scifi-inspired, in this case the Star Trek teleporter. Let me explain how it works.

First of all, the Metaverse Ink Hypergrid Teleporter uses osTeleportAgent, an OS function that requires special permissions. The owner of the world needs to enable it. In the Diva distro, this function is enabled by default, but restricted to the estate owner and the land owner. So only those users can run this teleporter.

When you rez the teleporter, it comes with a default destination, the UCI Grid. You can try it as is. So how do you actually teleport? Very simply by walking in and stepping on the platform, just like the picture at the very top of this article illustrates. There is a 2 sec delay just for the fun of being showered with a particle beam, and then the teleport starts. The teleport may still fail, for a number of reasons. One of them is the 4,096 limit. Other reasons may be the cause; for example, the destination may not be accepting HG agents, or it may be misconfigured, etc. If the teleport fails for some reason, you will be told so.

You can change the destination by editing the object and setting a new destination in the Description field (see picture of the left). For example, if you want to set it to OSGrid, change the Description field to, for example,
http://hg.osgrid.org jump4000 (that’s accessible to the lower grids, jump8000 for the upper ones).
Close the editing window.

In order to get immediate feedback on whether that destination is up or down, “touch” the platform of the teleporter (the bottom part). This will perform a status check. If the destination is up and running, you will be told so, and the yellow particle beam will continue to flow; if the destination is off, you will also be told so within 30 seconds, and the particle beam will stop.

The teleporter performs an automatic status check on the destination every hour. If it can’t reach it, it turns itself off; if it can reach it, it turns itself on. In either case, it checks it again one hour later. So you can just let it be, and be assured that the particle beam  represents the status of the destination within 1 hour error margin. For example, on the left you can see 4 teleporters, each one set to a specific destination. The left-most one is offline at the moment I took the picture.

You can always check again any time you want by “touching” the platform.

But there’s more!

If you touch the top part of the teleporter, the search icon, it launches the Web browser on the Metaverse Ink Search page. Depending on how you have that configured, it may launch it embedded in the Viewer or external to it. What i’m about to explain works in both cases, although I personally prefer the embedded browser.

That first page has a few Hypergrid addresses that I personally recommend. You can go there simply by clicking on the Web links! That’s right — HG teleports can be triggered by Web links too! This works particularly well for OpenSim 0.7.3.1 and later.

But you can also search for other worlds using the search box on the top left of the page. I confess that I have been neglecting the Metaverse Ink Search engine, because I have been busy making the Hypergrid actually work. MI Search has issues on worlds running Opensim versions before 0.7.3.1, especially grids. But I am restarting to work on it. So as worlds upgrade to Opensim 0.7.3.1, MI Search will work  much better!

This is a post-vacation resolution to give some balance to my inherently obsessive personality: I’ll spread the energy among many addictions! Small twits on Twitter, bigger twits here. All this to prevent me from falling into that mental zone where nothing matters but the software.