Cannot connect AI bot to Game Server from outside of machine host.

[markmandel]

Description

If I have a STK server hosted in the Cloud, and I want to connect AI agents from other machines in the cloud for system load testing, or from my local machine, because if I do, it gets rejected with the following message:

➜  SuperTuxKart-1.1-linux ./run_game.sh --connect-now=x.x.x.x:7217 --network-ai=3

Running 64-bit version...
...
[info   ] STKHost: Host initialized.
[info   ] ConnectToServer: SETUP
[info   ] ProtocolManager: A 15ConnectToServer protocol has been started.
[info   ] ConnectToServer: Trying connecting to 34.69.193.116:7217 from port 37607, retry remain: 3
[info   ] ConnectToServer: Connected to 34.69.193.116:7217
[info   ] ProtocolManager: A 11ClientLobby protocol has been started.
[info   ] ProtocolManager: A 15ConnectToServer protocol has been terminated.
[info   ] STKHost: Listening has been started.
[info   ] ClientLobby: Synchronous message of type 2
[error  ] STKHost: Connection refused: Invalid player connecting.
[info   ] ProtocolManager: A 11ClientLobby protocol has been terminated.
[info   ] STKHost: Listening has been stopped.

Steps to reproduce

1. Host a Game Server in the cloud / on the internet somewhere.
2. Attempt to connect a game AI agent to it, through ./run_game.sh --connect-now=x.x.x.x:port --network-ai=3
3. Watch it fail. 😭

Configuration

STK release version: 1.1
STK Source (PPA, distribution package, official binary, etc.): official binary
System: Debian

Additional information

I'm assuming the concern here is that people could spam bot a server if you allow AI's to connect from anywhere. It would be useful to have an option in server_config.xml that allows AI connections from anywhere, without having to recompile from source.

My use case is to use this to do load testing and demos of a game server orchestration system, so having this as an option would be highly useful.

[Benau]

#4147 (comment)

You need to change those line for now, actually in latest git it is possible to let ai join in the same process so the ai_handling option will be changed to ai_anywhere soon (but not now, too many todos atm.....)

[markmandel]

Thanks for the quick response. I made the change as well and compiled, and it is working.

I look forward to the new release with new AI handling options 👍