[JustNO]

The story. A known troublemaker within the L4D2 community, who has his own servers, is using the motd and host file from another server he has nothing to do with. Players who see the motd, and then click on "Join this servers steamgroup" will then arrive at his steam group. He does this consciously, and the request not to do so is ignored.

The person does not host the files himself. He copies the web address of the original server host into his own motd.txt and host.txt files in his server settings. Very pathetic behavior, but that's what he's known for.

The question. Does anyone have a good idea to prevent or block this?

[Bacardi]

I guess this is common problem.


I'm not sure or remember right, someone mention in this forum.
But did he make from Linux server work:
- When player connect to server, looks player ip (log_address info ?)
- Then some kind of script or program from host server, granted temporary access to connecting player based by IP, to allow download files.

So, you need access to server what host files, run SRCDS and change all kind permissions (or firewall).
Maybe too complex.
If you understood what I meant.

[JustNO]

I have root access to all servers, including the server where I host the motd and host file. I already suddenly changed the http address, but that didn't solve it. I also suddenly changed the IP address of the host server, but the motd was immediately visible again in its servers.

I had temporarily changed the motd by just writing a plain text in the motd.txt, which is not picked up by its servers. I hadn't changed the host file and saw yesterday that it now uses my host file as motd.

I know all the IP addresses he uses, and I've copied his entire plugin list to try and figure out exactly how he does this, in order to block it that way. He makes some plugins himself, so it is impossible to trace what they do exactly.

I was looking for possibilities to host the motd and host file on the game server itself, so directly, without the intervention of another server or host, but without having to install a web server on the game servers.