I'm working on a game bot for an online game. The original client is written in C, and i managed to convert the client/server protocol to my java bot application.

It al works fine, except i need to start the application from my home computer to get the bot appear in game.

Now i would like the app to run from some webserver so the bot will be online 24/7. How do i alter my code so that it will run from a webserver, and how do i get it there in the first place. Do i need a shell account with java support? and where can i find those.

Or is this a no go, becauce the app opens a socket to the server and sends data via TCP/IP. I can imagine that a server forbids these kind of actions for security measures.

I hope someone can help me out here,

Greetz DaVinci.

A web server is not going to do that for you unfortunatly. You can open TCP/IP connections from a webpage's backend code, but any secured server would have time limits on how long scripts in the background are permitted to run between page loads, it is something like 2 minutes... so you would need to keep reconnected to the server... not recommended.

The correct way to do this would be to have a dedicated server, or purchase console access which will allow you to run applications while not logged in (usually these accounts also permit you to run daemons)... java support would obviously be required, but I think that is pretty standard these days... just make sure.

A full dedicated server runs you up about $90USD/mo--but you pretty much own that server, you run anything you want on it.. install anything you want on it, and get 1.2TB data transfer/mo (no IRC server is going to break that).

I personally do not sell shell accounts without the whole dedicated server thing right now so I can not tell you how much the run for, but take a look around. The only catch with shell accounts is that they are always shared amoungst many users... and thus you will get what you pay for... low cost accounts will mean less CPU cycles for you, and slower transfer speeds.

or you could just leave it running at home all the time.

Okay thx,

I have done some searching myself..and running from home is an option..but the bot will have some downtime, cus i'm not the only user on the pc.

I found alot of hosts who offer shell access on their server, and alot of them also allow background task such as an irc eggbot. Will such a host also allow my kind of bot.....?

In fact they do the same tasks..it responds to other user requests with an pm..

But i'm not that familiar with those host..i need one with a Java interpreter so i can run my code...

If anyone has a suggestion please let me know,

Greetz DaVinci,

All you can do is ask.

as far as if your code will run on there box, you'll just have to ask em.