Bzflag configuration file

Default port is This makes the server private. You should remove -public and -publicaddr when using it. If your router is open, you can still give people your IP and port, and they will be able to connect, you just wont be on the list.

This specifies where the server advertises itself. The built-in default should work just fine. You need to hunt down the proper address if it doesn't work. The server uses the first interface by default. You don't need to use this unless your server has multiple interfaces and doesn't show up on the server lists. Players are placed on teams with lowest number of players first, then those with the lowest scores or kill ratios. It can be done in 2 ways.

A flat count of players, or by number of players on a given team. This allows up to 50 players, no team limits. Typical home DSL connections max out at 12 players before lag begins. Lag equals players times shots. So a one-shot server could have more players, and vice-versa. The order is rogue, red, green, blue, purple, observer. In most cases you can probably live without this.

Consider using global groups instead. COP This option kicks the user after they have been idle for a number of seconds. Idle means paused, not-spawning or not-responding. Packetloss is a percentage of total data being completely lost.

A player with packetloss is usually downloading files, switching between applications, or simply has a bad connection. Jitter is variation in the time between packets arriving, caused by network congestion, timing drift, or route changes. A player with jitter may be purposely manipulating his lag to avoid being shot, or to "lag through a wall". These next four functions should be used with caution, slower servers may wish to avoid using them altogether.

This option warns the user their packet loss is too high. The ban list will be loaded from this file when the server starts if the file exists and written back to the file when someone gets banned or unbanned. If this option isn't used the ban list will not be saved. This is ip masks separated by commas. This is the server welcome message. Please change it. A multilingual badwords file can be found in source downloads.

Messages have words provided via a -badwords file are replaced with! Callsigns are compared against bad words provided via -badwords. Providing this option will make the -filterCallsigns and -filterChat comparisons exact match only. Lock on. And fire! Guided missiles will follow your target until it hits something or is outmaneuvered.

You can run but you can't hide. With a powerful radar displaying enemy positions and bullets that go through walls, there's no enemy you can't hit and no place you can safely hide. Skip to Content. Download for macOS. Download for Windows. Download for Linux Flatpak. Download for Linux Snapcraft. Download 2. Gameplay Trailer. In any event, most of the options can be understood by reading the file bzfs.

BZFlag has a central list server that keeps track of all the public servers. Using the -public "some text" command line argument will tell your local server to attempt to register itself on the public server. This is normally all that is required to get your server listed. The list server will need to be able to access your server just as other players will.

This is done by connecting back to the public IP address where your server is running. The list server only checks the tcp connection back to your server at present, though players will also try udp on the same IP address and port number. You can view the raw server list in your web browser. If you do not see your server, then your server is firewalled or misconfigured and the list server cannot contact it.

You will need to resolve this if you want your server to be publicly accessible. Note: when you run the bzflag client on the same network as a server it should discover the server by using a broadcast ping.

If your server shows up in the list, but without the description next to it, this means that you found it through broadcast discovery, and not from the public list server. If the server description that you included on the -public "this text" command line option is there, then your server is correctly listed on the public server list. Using multiple -d options to the server will result in some useful and some useless messages from the server.

There are different ways to run a server. The program containing the server is BZFS. Double clicking on it will run a server with default options, but clearly you want to specify your own options, for example those you saved in the configuration file generated in the previous step.

One way to do it is to specify all the commands for the server in a batch file, so you can just double click on it to start a server. Open notepad or any other text editor, copy the content of the file, make the changes that you need to change notably: the location of BZFS and the config file bzfs.

Save the file with a nice name and extension. You probably understand what the batch file is doing: the lines beginning with "set" specify the content of some variables, such as the location of BZFS and the configuration files. The server is started on the line next to last before "pause". If you don't want to have a batch file or for some reason your batch file doesn't work, here is a procedure that always works: from the start menu in your windows machine, look for the "command prompt" and click on it.

A black window will open up. A config file can be made simply by taking all of your command line options you want to pass to BZFS, and placing them in a config file, one options on each line. A shell script can be made the same way. You'll be greeted by the client as an administrator. The KeysAndCommands and ServerCommands pages list a number of things you can do as an admin although I don't think either of those pages is complete. If when you type one of those commands you get a "You do not have permission" message on client commands, it means that you forgot to login as admin or somehow your login failed.

If this doesn't work shut down your server, go back to the configuration step and make sure you are getting the right password. Sometimes people will want to share administrator status.

This allows a server to be better administrated, as when one admin is not watching it, another one can. So how do you do this? This is quite easy to do. First off, configure your server to accept group permissions. This stores group names and permissions for that group.

Make one up, but please do not alter ADMIN group, as this is stuff administrators can do, and why limit yourself? Groupnames may not have spaces or quotes. Replace "permissions" with permissions, and take out the backslash in the command. Make sure the group name and ALL permissions are on the same line!