Problem setting up PennMUSH 1.7.7p32 (or connecting to it) (WinXP Prof.)

Greetings to all. I almost passed all yesterday (only had 3 hours of sleep, urgh) reading about MUSHs, MUDs and noticing that I could set up my own MUSH/MUD hybrid thing for the RP community I frequent in an IRC channel. So, I decided to mount mine, and after checking that MUDs like SMAUG are more for battle rather than socializing, I decided to give a go to PennMUSH. I readed the README and the good tutorial of how to set it up http://www.gammon.com.au/pennmush/installingpennmush.htm which helped me a lot. I also decided to use MUSHClient as a mean to connect to my MUSH so I'm using both (I normally used ZMUD to connect to MUDs and others but I found MUSHClient more appealing and easier to customize).

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Now my problems :( I run the MUSH using the CMD console and I use Notepad++ to edit and create files. Previously, I "edited" the editable things in the TXT folder, and on my mush.cnf I tweaked the name of the MUSH, the currency (from pennies to guineas), putted localhost, changed the port from 4201 to 445 (since I found out that my MUSHClient couldn't listen to 4201 (error 10061) but to 445 but I dunno if this caused me more evil than good) and did other minor changes following the annotations in the same file. I created the .cnf files required and more or less my GAME folder looks like this:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9640/sample1n.jpg

Then I open CMD and I type the adress. This is what appears:

Microsoft Windows XP [Versión 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

E:\Documents and Settings\Administrador>cd..

E:\Documents and Settings>cd..

E:\>cd dgmmush

E:\DGMMUSH>cd pennmush

E:\DGMMUSH\pennmush>cd game

E:\DGMMUSH\pennmush\game>pennmush /run
[04/10 12:20:55] Setting ctype locale to Spanish_Spain.1252
[04/10 12:20:55] Setting time locale to Spanish_Spain.1252
[04/10 12:20:55] No support for message locale.
[04/10 12:20:55] Setting collate locale to Spanish_Spain.1252
[04/10 12:20:55] Reading mush.cnf
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: directive 'ssl_private_key_file' in cnf file ignored.
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: directive 'ssl_ca_file' in cnf file ignored.
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: directive 'ssl_require_client_cert' in cnf file ignored
.
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: option max_pennies value limited to 100000
[04/10 12:20:55] Reading alias.cnf
[04/10 12:20:55] Reading restrict.cnf
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: directive 'exit_flags' missing from cnf file, using def
ault value.
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: compression program is specified but not used in Win32,
 ignoring
[04/10 12:20:55] CONFIG: compression suffix is specified but not used in Win32,
ignoring
Redirecting stderr to log/netmush.log

E:\DGMMUSH\pennmush\game>

Apparently since I already did the first run of the program, this is what appears from now on each time I try to "run" the MUSH. I dunno if this means that my MUSH is now running (I wish there were a way to test if the MUSH is online by doing a ping to it or something similar). In order to connect to the running MUSH, I go to MUSHClient, create a NewWorld, put a name, localhost, put the port 445 and the autosave on closing. This is what appears after I hit "Connect":
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/427/sample2.jpg

I connected today for the screenshot, but anyway, only it appears that and nothing else budges. I tried to connect to my fav MUD and of course it works:
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/5609/sample3.jpg

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In other words, I don't know what's happening. I checked these forums to see if someone else shared the same problem but I found nothing similar to my question or either there were too old that the versions doesn't match by a couple of numbers. I don't know if the problem was the change of ports on my mush.cnf but if I leave the 4201 as default, my MUSHClient will drop me the error 10061:
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9586/sample4l.jpg

I checked that forum id and sadly, I saw nothing to correct my problem since I has no firewalls in this Windows version and most likely my port 4401 is closed. That's why I checked this website to see what ports were open on my cable modem and use them with MUSHClient and eventually my PennMUSH:
http://www.jensign.com/JavaScience/localportscan/index.html

And yet, I'm still unable to connect to my MUSH or to see if it is running properly at all. Can someone shed some light upon this problem and show me possible solutions I might need to delve into? I'm eager to learn but this issue beats me because I have no way to know what I'm doing wrong :( Thanks for reading.

PS: I'm about to consider if to use TinyMUX instead of PennMUSH. Do you think it is better than the later?

First, where did you get that version from? The latest version from the PennMUSH site is somewhat later (eg. 1.8.2):


http://download.pennmush.org/Win32Binaries/




See my page on connection problems:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=8369

I quote from that:


Finally we have reached the game server - but is it up? Servers (and PCs) crash. If everything else looks OK but you get a message like this:

Unable to connect to "Realms of Despair", code = 10061 (Connection refused)

This could simply mean the MUD has gone down and is being rebooted.


MUSHclient has no problem connecting to port 4201, the fact that you got connection refused simply means the server is not up at that time. In fact, changing to port 445 may not help, as ports 1023 and below are reserved for system use.



It is normal to not see much output on the console, as it is being redirected. However as you got this message:


Redirecting stderr to log/netmush.log


The first thing I would do it the server appears to be not up is open that file in Notepad or similar. There may be some message about a configuration or other problem.

Anyway, to see if the MUSH is running, try to connect to it.

I think netstat will tell you what network connections you have (this is part of XP). For example:



The line in bold is my Smaug server waiting for connections on port 4000.



Not sure, I would fix this problem before changing things, otherwise things get confusing.

Another approach is to install Cygwin, and then compile and execute from within that. Whilst this is slightly more effort initially you have more control.

Ugh, it was my fault. I was misled by the version the readme was written for, but the version I really used is 1.8.3p6_win32 not the 1.7.7p32 I apologize.

I compared the logs from before and the new one which has the port redirected again to 4201. Now it can bind and gives me some new lines at the end:


Netstat gave:


MUSHclient connected perfectly on the spot. I feel ashamed. I suppose the coincidences of being unable to configure it at first and thinking it was a MUSHclient problem because it tossed me the 10061 error made me to further mess it up when I changed the port to try to make the client to match a different port.

Anyway, thanks for the patience. Now it is running and that is what it counts :) Time for me to apply these new character templates I was writing offline. My best regards and thanks again for the help.