[BAILOPAN]

Since many people have been complaining on hlds_linux and IRC about this, I thought I'd make a public announcement to the AMX Mod X community.

Currently, there are various bugs in the Half-Life 1 engine server concerning player steamids. There are widespread reports of players getting each other's steamids, players not authenticating (STEAM_ID_PENDING), and related bugs.

This is not a bug with AMX Mod X, but with Valve's software. However, it can drastically affect administration tools -- if a connecting player is accidentally assigned a Steam ID which happens to be an admin on your server, they will get admin access unknowingly. This is not a rare coincidence. It can happen if an administrator joins, disconnects, and then another player joins into the same slot.

If this is happening on your server, I highly recommend that you either implement passwords for your admins or use name/password based authentication. This will make it so players who accidentally get an admin steamid by the HL engine will be kicked, rather than granted administrative rights.

You can read more about this method of AMX Mod X authentication here:
http://wiki.tcwonline.org/index.php/...28AMX_Mod_X%29

If you are not experiencing this problem on your server, you can disregard this message.

[Caesar]

Interesting this happend on my server a few days ago, I thought someone had got into my account (it had a 15 number password) so i changed my password to 3 random words and 26 numbers or something (thank the lord for photgraphic memory)

lol

[SweatyBanana]

Someone was on mine and had STEAM_ID_PENDING the whole time.

[BAILOPAN]

update on this issue, alfred reynolds posted this to hlds_linux:

Originally Posted by Alfred Reynolds We have a beta release available for both the Source and HL1 engine. This beta fixes the steam id swapping problem amongst other small fixes. You can apply the beta by running the hldsupdatetool and adding "-beta swapbeta" to the command line. A couple of users in an initial test reported a server hang and associated assert (pipes.cpp line 29, if you see this please send me your OS configuration and hardware. - Alfred

[pendragon]

I'm assuming this only applies to Linux boxes then?

[teame06]

No It for both

[diamond-optic]

so anyone try it out yet?

before i i bother putting in a support ticket to my host to have them add it to the cmd line...

[Skyrider]

I'm not going to try something out which is only beta. Besides, i never have the STEAMID problem anymore. Even though i had it once, which really freaked me out, but after that never again.

[Petey B]

im not sure if this works on amxx but i have STEAM_ID_PENDING in my users.ini with a password so it will kick them if they get the password wrong (which is allways)

[Curryking]

Originally Posted by BAILOPAN update on this issue, alfred reynolds posted this to hlds_linux: Originally Posted by Alfred Reynolds We have a beta release available for both the Source and HL1 engine. This beta fixes the steam id swapping problem amongst other small fixes. You can apply the beta by running the hldsupdatetool and adding "-beta swapbeta" to the command line. A couple of users in an initial test reported a server hang and associated assert (pipes.cpp line 29, if you see this please send me your OS configuration and hardware. - Alfred

This night I've tried out this "beta". Update from Linux Server Engine 29 -> 33. Bad idea! With this version no SteamID was identificated, everyone had STEAM_ID_PENDING and VAC2 was disabled automaticly.
Result: Cheaters were attract by a non secure Server and Admins weren't able to react 'cause they weren't admins anymore (idendification by STEAM_ID). So downgrade back to engine 29 and back to the old STEAM_ID-Error.

Viva la steam!

Curry