Forgot how to make an fserve.

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Forgot how to make an fserve.

Postby Delluel » Sun Mar 09, 2014 12:25 pm

It's been twenty years since I had a channel on Undernet. Back then we used fserves. I can barely remember how they work. But basically I've forgotten how to do it.

Anyone mind reminding me?

I only have less that ten files I want to serve.
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Re: Forgot how to make an fserve.

Postby XMog » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:17 am

First, a beginning note: Most of Invision's settings are per-server, so first make sure you are connected to the appropriate server (and have one of its windows in focus) when you are changing any of these settings.

The main section you will want to look at for setting up an fserve is located in the Invision menu, "File Server Manager." There are many options here in the Setup tab that you will want to look at and set according to your preferences. I will be somewhat detailed/verbose below, so if you already know something, just ignore or skim over my description of it. The main options to look at here are:
- Max Sends and Max Queues in the top left. Max Sends controls the maximum number of simultaneous sends per person and total simultaneous sends. Your settings on this will depend on your upstream bandwidth. If you have a low-speed residential connection, you may only want one send at a time, or maybe two, so that one user won't hold everyone else up. Max Queues, if it is set too low, people won't be able to queue what they want to receive. If it is too high, people may have to wait a long time to receive anything.
- Max Users is the amount of people that can be connected to your fserve at any point of time. They don't need to stay connected when receiving files or waiting in queue, this is only for people browsing your available files. A number between 5-8 should be plenty.
- Ad Delay, do not set it too low so that it will annoy the users in the channel. A recommended setting is somewhere between 30-60 minutes, but it depends on the channel's activity.
- Advertising Channels is important to set. Uncheck "All Channels," then type in your channel name in the top textbox and click Add.
- Optionally set a MOTD, and look through the other options to see if you want to customize anything further. The "Active Help" section at the bottom will show details when you hover your mouse over each of the options.

Once you are done in the Setup tab, click "Apply" at the bottom (shouldn't be necessary, but doesn't hurt to make sure the settings are saved), then click on the Triggers tab. Click the "Enable #1" checkbox and type in a trigger for people to type to access your fserve. The standard convention is to start a trigger with an exclamation mark (!), e.g. "!accessmyfiles."

Check the "Allow /CTCP" box to allow people to both type the trigger and also ctcp the trigger to you if they want. If you want to force people to use /ctcp to not clutter up the channel, you can check "CTCP Triggers Only" in the Setup tab.

Next, click the "..." browse button to the right of "Root Directory" to set the directory where all your files are located that you want to share. Make sure these files are completely separate from any personal files you might have, since all files and subdirectories located in the "Root Directory" chosen will be accessible to people using your fserve.

Set the Access Level you want - Most likely "All," but you can also choose to limit fserve access to ops only or ops/voices only. Finally, click Apply, then OK.

Next, open up the Invision menu again, and choose DCC Manager. Click on the Setup tab, and browse through the options here. In the bottom left, in the "Global DCC Send Settings" section, make sure "Enable PDCC" and "Enable FastSends" are checked. Also here you can set speed limits so that people receiving files do not max out your bandwidth, making internet browsing slow. To the right, the best "Packet Size" depends on the connection, but in most cases a setting of 2048 or 4096 will work best.

The "Enable DCC Watch" setting and the "DCC Watch Channels" list is for if you want to force people to stay in the channel when receiving a file or remaining in your queue. Click Apply/OK when you are done with these settings.

When you are ready to start your fserve, right-click in a channel window, choose Server Controls -> File Server -> Start. You can use this menu to Stop the fserve later, optionally finishing current sends in progress. Queues should get saved between running sessions. If you want the fserve to automatically start each time you connect to the IRC server, there is an "Auto Start on Connect" option in the File Server Manager.

Alternatively, Invision also has an XDCC Server, used for serving a set of individual files.

If you are behind a router (most home connections are) or a firewall, you will have to take additional steps for users to successfully connect to your fserve and retrieve files. Go into mIRC's options (Tools menu -> Options), then choose Connect -> Options on the left side, and click the Ports button. Set a small port range there, for example 15000-15020. You need at least one port for each fserve "slot" plus one for each simultaneous send, so if you have 5 slots and 2 simultaneous sends, you will need a range containing 7 ports (plus a few extras as a buffer). Then, go into your router's "port forwarding" section and forward that port range to your local IP. Each router is different, so if you need assistance on this step, you can look around on google or for instructions on your specific router.

Hopefully all this information was useful enough to get you going, and not too much to make you lose interest. Let me know if you have any additional questions or issues.
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