hgm wrote:I like the idea of a 'ping'. I could put this as an option in WinBoard:
winboard -ics -icsPing N
could then make WinBoard send some command, like 'who', to the ICS every N minutes, starting N minutes after the last game finishes.
You have to be careful. You can get blacklisted on ICC doing that. The purpose of the autologout idea is to avoid tying up internet socket connections which are not being used. ICC server code uses a monster select() system call and the system supports a finite number of open sockets. If everyone does this, ICC would start to see the inability to accept new connections because there are too many old (unused) connections. It is risky as they might well blacklist specific versions of winboard/xboard.
I think the command script works just as well and will not piss them off...
hgm wrote:I like the idea of a 'ping'. I could put this as an option in WinBoard:
winboard -ics -icsPing N
could then make WinBoard send some command, like 'who', to the ICS every N minutes, starting N minutes after the last game finishes.
I think this sounds OK, but I'd suggest the following:
1) Don't allow this option in 'human' ICS mode (winboard being used as ICS client without using an engine). I don't think the servers want human accounts idling constantly.
2) Don't use the 'who' command, because this can cause thousands of player names to be sent to the clients. Using a lower bandwidth command like 'finger' is better for the server.
hgm wrote:I like the idea of a 'ping'. I could put this as an option in WinBoard:
winboard -ics -icsPing N
could then make WinBoard send some command, like 'who', to the ICS every N minutes, starting N minutes after the last game finishes.
I think this sounds OK, but I'd suggest the following:
1) Don't allow this option in 'human' ICS mode (winboard being used as ICS client without using an engine). I don't think the servers want human accounts idling constantly.
2) Don't use the 'who' command, because this can cause thousands of player names to be sent to the clients. Using a lower bandwidth command like 'finger' is better for the server.
The "date" command would be better and produce less screen clutter. And yes, it would be evil to allow its activation apart from a chess engine.
