Pedro-NF

Hi David, the pbcl.db file is generated when PB installs and updates itself from the official installer files from my PB package. I didn't have any problem getting PB to install its files and services by simply copying the contents of my PB package to the PB directory. When I connected to a PB enabled server, the local PB server which runs along every ET server running PB (independently from EvenBalance) detected the installers and did all the work. However, this wasn't done from an ET 2.55 install, but from a 2.60 patched install, so I don't know if you might have had issues for not having patched ET to 2.60 before using the installers from my PB package. By the way, these installers are simply the last PB installer files available from the EvenBalance site for all Windows, Linux and MacOSX - all I did was put them together in a single package. As to your concern about distributing a modified version of pbcl.db, if it were me, I wouldn't care less. I won't say here what I think of EvenBalance and Activision for interrupting PB support for ET without any warning the way they did, because what I have to say would probably be against these forums rules, but you can read it at my own forums at http://forums.noobsforever.net in the respective topic in the Announcements forum. In any case, you do need to have generated an ETKEY file and placed it in the ETMAIN directory BEFORE copying the contents of the PB package and then connecting to a PB enabled server to have PB installed.

You probably didn't run the update patch that upgrades ET from version 2.55 to version 2.60 BEFORE extracting the file with the PB updaters from my server's site or the file with the updated PB directory from MayDax's links. In either case, you need to copy the PB directory from those files over your PB directory (overwriting it), AFTER running the 2.60 patch. As to the etkey file created by my generator or Schnoog's site, don't forget you need to copy it to your etmain directory.

Of course that's a joke, Fricka... If someone clicks on that link a flash animation will pop up calling the person an idiot. :lol:

I was careful enough to make my etkey generator create keys with the exact same size and structure as the "regular" etkeys. The only change I implemented was, instead of placing the time and date of the etkey file creation in the respective bytes in the file, which makes regular etkeys rather easy to spoof, my generator fills those bytes with 8-bit wide random values (0-255 instead of 0-9). The PB server that runs along the game server on the server host uses the date and time of creation data from the etkey file to compute the PB GUID, so this will generate GUID's that are much harder to spoof and make the generation of 2 equal GUID's practically impossible. :lol:

Just have your installer copy the contents of the zip files from MaydaX's post to the pb directory. The PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe services will be installed automatically the first time the player connects to a PB enabled server: You may also update PB from any version to the latest version released for ET by downloading the file available from my sites below, which contains updaters for all OS's. Just copy the pb folder from the file over the game's pb folder. The updates and the PB services installation will happen automatically the first time the player connects to a PB enabled server. http://www.noobsforever.net http://en.portaldosgames.com

Just remembered what I was concerned about: at what point the new PB services (PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe), implemented in 2007, were installed and by whom, since that change happened way after the release of ET's 2.60 patch (2005). So, I installed the game from scratch in a VMWare virtual machine, copied the updated PB client files over and run the game. I opened the console and no services were started. Then I connected to my server and that did it - the local PB client seems to convert the code in the htm files into the executables for the two services, which then started normally and I was able to play with my custom generated etkey with no problems whatsoever. :)

I don't use Xfire, but I'm going to compile a version of the generator that simply creates the etkey file without prompting the user and send a link via PM for you to download it.

Yes, I also downloaded all files for all OS's to put on my sites. You're missing the Mac files for clients (around 10% of my players use Mac's). By the way, the ET support page at the EvenBalance site is still online with all downloads working, although there are no links to it: http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=support-et.php

Just checked it and PBSETUP isn't listing ET anymore, so new players won't be able to connect to updated servers even with etkey files. As I see it, our options are: 1 - Write custom installers for the latest PB version released for ET. 2 - Downgrade all servers to the version of PB that is installed with the 2.60b patch and have existing players do the same. Or, of course: 3 - Come up with a new solution for player identification completely independent from PB.

I compared the data from a few different etkey files and this is what I concluded about the files structure: 1 - A 12-byte header common to all etkeys: 000000100220 in ASCII (0-9 ASCII = 48-57 decimal = $30-$39 hex). 2 - 6 bytes with the date of the file creation in ASCII in the format: YYMMDD (ex.: 111007 for 07 Oct 2011). 3 - 2 bytes with 0's. 4 - 8 bytes with values between 0 and 9. I'm guessing this might be the time of the file creation but I couldn't figure out how it was encoded (didn't give it much thought anyways). If anybody knows about this block's meaning, please PM'me. 5 - 39 bytes with totally random values. Total = 67 bytes Note that the PB GUID is not stored in the etkey file. It will be computed by the PB server that runs along with your game server locally on the server host based on the data in the etkey file.

The [>NFNF http://www.noobsforever.net Feel free to offer the program on your sites and to distribute it at will, but do not link directly to the file on my server's site because the path and the file name will certainly change in the future.

I couldn't disagree more. Flawed and spoofable as they may be, ETPro GUID's at least aren't completely disposable like PB GUID's are in ET. Being able to cross-reference both types of GUID's at Yawn is a great help when trying to establish someone's identity and, for example, check out cases like Kanonenfutter's. Noob and semi noob cheaters will have a much harder time to fake their ETPro GUID's than to change their PB GUID's, and will eventually resort to some multihack with a GUID spoofing feature which will probably help get them caught sooner or later. More experienced cheaters will have to go through all the trouble of using non-detected hacks, MAC spoofing, etc. With all their limitations, ETPro GUID's, when used with knowledge, care and responsability, ARE a much better way to control a server's audience than PB GUID's will ever be (again, in ET's case). It's a real shame to see that many of you have assumed the same "mr-know-it-all" attitude as Bani, ReyalIP and co. have, and in the process are helping to kill the great mod that ETPro is, especially in pubs (oh, it's a "competition" mod? sorry, but I don't recognize that concept). I've been using ETPro ever since I started working with ET servers and only recently ended up deciding to switch to another mod because of said individuals utter disregard for the community outside their small closed world. Long time traditional servers like the Chicken Bucket, which also have used ETPro for years, changed last month to ETPub in an obvious attempt to increase their average user frequency to any value above zero, because the very authors of the mod are helping to kill it. Any ETPro server admins who don't think ETPro GUID's are useful simply aren't qualified for that job.

I was doing some minor changes in my signatures and, after saving them, a backslash (\) started to appear on the image right before the single quote (') character. The line with the single quote wasn't even altered: [132,84,#000000,1]$GROUP_TAG's catches: $TOTAL_BANS The resulting image: I use mainly Opera 9.23 and, when necessary, IE 6 and Firefox 2.0.0.9. Already tested saving again with all 3 browsers. Any ideas as to what might be causing this?

Please update the following info for my team account (ID = 812): Website: http://www.noobsforever.net E-Mail: [email protected] I've updated this info in my forum profile but it didn't seem to affect the info that appears on the team account management page.

I had just figured that out and came here to edit the other post when you replied. :lol: Sorry for the silly mistake and thanks, Benway. Streaming's OK now.

Strange that the server is not streaming, I had already set it up a couple of hours ago in the PB config files (and of course restarted PB via pb_sv_restart and even the server afterwards). File pbucon.use is in the PB folder too. pbsv.cfg (at the very end): pb_sv_load pbbans_hub.cfg pb_sv_task 0 3600 pb_sv_ver pbbans_hub.cfg: pb_sv_autoupdban 1 pb_sv_usessionlimit 2 pb_sv_uconadd 1 63.211.110.32 pbbans pbbans An /rcon pb_sv_uconlist gives: PunkBuster Server: [slot] [Type] [Mask] [Name] PunkBuster Server: 1 1 63.211.110.32 pbbans PunkBuster Server: End of PB UCON Profile List (1 Entry) Am I missing something here?

Hub ET -NF