Volume 2 VMs & Self Installer

From OuroDev

Ouroboros v2i2.01 self installer and VM images

Download links

These are torrent links, you will need a bittorrent client such as qbittorrent to download these.
  1. Self installer
  2. Hyper-V image
  3. VMWare image
  4. Installer for Windows 7
  5. XAMPP with user portal and manifest file pre-configured for self installer

Self installer

Introduction

This package has been created in response to the need for an easy to deploy version of COH server which can be set up on an existing system. This has been developed and actively tested on Server 2012r2, Server 2016 and Windows 10. The installer should work on any server version 2012 and above, and any windows Version 8 and above, it will work with 64bit operating systems only.
It is based on Ouroboros v2i2.01

How to install

Within the COH directory you will find this ReadMe.txt file along with an InitialSetup.bat script, unzip the whole contents of the zip file into a folder on your computer. Run the InitialSetup.bat to start the installation process.

What Initial Setup does

InitialSetup.bat is a script that will prepare your computer to run the COH server, it calls Script.ps1 which performs the following actions.
  1. Installs SQL Local DB
  2. Installs ODBC v13 for SQL
  3. Installs ODBC v17 for SQL
  4. Installs SQL command line tools
  5. Installs C++ Runtimes (2015 - 2019)
  6. Creates the SQL databases for COH
  7. Creates a default instance of COH called Ouroboros
  8. Adds firewall rules for the server

After install

In the COH folder after install you will find shortcuts to:
Configure_Your_Server
This allows you to set / change the IP address and Server name for your server, by default this is set for local computer play, but this can be changed to LAN or Internet play through this menu, the default server name is Ouroboros
Account_Tool
This launches a slightly modified version of the COHDBTool10 which allows you to create accounts for your server and manage existing accounts, characters and petitions. Note: This will only work after you have loaded the server for the first time as the server builds the database this application needs.
Startup_Server
This script launches the server without any maps pre-loaded. Users may experience a short delay on entering into a new zone for the first time as the server loads the requested map.
Startup_Server_All_Maps
This script launches the server with all of the listed maps. This enables your players to zone more quickly, but uses a lot more memory in your server, recommended for systems with 32GB of RAM or more.
Stop_Server
This script shuts down the server applications.
Client
This script launches the client and connects it to your server.

Playing on other computers

Share the Client directory with anyone you would like to be able to connect to your server, they will need to create a shortcut to ouroboros.exe with -auth <yourip> -patchdir ouro -noversioncheck in the target path.

SQL Details

The connection string of your DB is (LocalDB)\MSSQLLocalDB with a trusted connection.

Upgrading the Self Installer

Download the new verion of the self installer
From your current COH folder delete the Client and Server folders only, leave the shortcuts, setup, and COHDBTool folders as they are
Copy the Client and Server folders from the new download into the COH folder
Run the Configure My Server shortcut from the COH folder and re-select your correct settings
Share the client folder with anyone who has the old version so they can replace it
Play COH with the new version

VMs

Introduction

This VM has been developed for those who want to run their own i24 Ouroboros server without building and configuring it themselves.
This VM is based on Server 2012r2, it is running the i24v2i2.01 code, all COH server services are active by default, the auction house has been pre-populated with some recipes and salvage.

Setup VMWare Version

  1. Open VMWare 15 and click Create a New Virtual Machine.
  2. Select "I will install the operating system later" and click Next.
  3. Choose Windows Server 2012 from the dropdown menu and click Next.
  4. Choose a name and location for your VM, and make a note of the location you choose for a later step.
  5. The options you select here do not matter, just click Next.
  6. Click the Customize Hardware button.
  7. Change Memory to 8192MB (you can also just click 8GB to the left of the slider).
  8. Click on Processors, and change the number of cores to 4.
  9. Click on Network Adapter, and select the Bridged option. Then click the Close button.
  10. Click Finish to close this window.
  11. Right click on the VM you've just created, and select Settings.
  12. The Hardware window will reopen, click the Add button.
  13. Choose Hard Disk, and click Next.
  14. Select SCSI as the disk type, and click Next.
  15. Select "Use an existing virtual disk," and click Next.
  16. Select the VMWare v2 image you downloaded (it must be extracted from the 7z archive first), and click Finish.
  17. Select the first Hard Disk (not the 127GB one we just added) and click the Remove button.
  18. Select the new Hard Disk, click the Advanced button, and change the Virtual device node dropdown menu to SCSI 0:0 (this should be the first option in the list, you may have to scroll up)
  19. In the folder you chose for the VM in step 4, you will find a *.vmx file, open this in Notepad or any text editor, and add firmware = "efi" as a new line at the bottom, then save and close the file.
  20. Run the VM. The Administrator password is coh123!

Setup Hyper-V Version

  1. Add new Virtual Machine
  2. Select Next add a Name. Click Next
  3. Select Generation 2 and next.
  4. Set memory to 8192 or higher and click next.
  5. Select your HyperV LAN connection and click next.
  6. Choose "Use Existing Virtual Hard Disk" and navigate to the supplied VHDX. Click Finish.
  7. Right click on the new Virtual Machine and pick settings.
  8. Increase the number of processors supplied to the VM to at least 4. Click Ok.
  9. Right click on the virtual machine and click start.

Common Setup

This VM will automatically log on, we recommend you change the password to one of your own, by clicking ctrl-alt-del and “change password”. The password is coh123! by default.
Once your VM machine is installed, run “Configure your server” from the desktop, here you can choose to use your local network IP if you plan to use the server on your home network only, or your internet IP (or domain name) if you plan to run this online for others to connect. You can also choose the name of your server from this application.
In the case of Internet play you will need to open or redirect ports on your router, and forward them to the LAN IP of the VM. Unfortunately, we cannot script the opening of the ports for you as the procedure will vary on the make and model of your router.
The ports you will need to open / forward are
  1. tcp 2106
  2. udp 7000-7200
  3. tcp 80 (only required for web portal website)
  4. tcp 443 (only required for web portal website)
You can re-run the “Configure your server” tool as often as you need.
Once you have completed the steps above you are ready to start up your server, to do this run the “Start up your server” script, this will load the server, maps will be loaded as demanded during play. Alternatively run the “Start up your server with all maps (Minimum 32GB RAM)”, this will pre-load all commonly used maps into memory, this will improve zoning time for players during play, however you will need a minimum of 32GB of RAM in your server to support this.
You will need to create accounts for your players. A web portal is preinstalled, you can access this via the start menu, or by browsing to https://YOURSERVERIP/ from a connected computer. Alternatively, there is a start menu shortcut to "COHDBTools10" in the COH tools section. This application gives you access to many useful GM functions, such as creating accounts, importing and exporting characters, shard management and petitions.
There is a test GM account already preinstalled.
Username: test
Password: coh123!
The name of the GM is GM-One

Client Install

In order to install the correct version of the client on your players computers, you should browse to the account portal via https://YOURSERVERIP/, there you will find a link to the download. Download and then unzip the ouroboros.zip to your hard disk, create a shortcut to "ouroboros.exe -auth YOURSERVERIP -patchdir myvol2" Run the application via this shortcut and login with the account created in the above steps.
Alternatively, your users may already be using Tequila or Creamsoda to access other servers, in this case they can add the manifest for this server to their application. This will be default be available at http://YOURSERVERIP/manifest.xml
If they do not already have Tequila or creamsoda, they can also download them from links on the account portal page.

Other Information

Xammp is installed and set up, however to secure this you should consider setting up SSL, this can only be done once you have a domain name. More details can be found on https://wiki.ourodev.com/view/Account_Portal.
For more advanced users, you can find links to the configuration files in start menu to help with changing your configurations.
This server has notepad++, Chrome and 7zip pre-installed for convenience.
In the c:\VMSetup directory of the server you can find the scripts that the server uses, along with the script used to pre-populate the auction house in case you wish to modify or re-use any of these.


Installer for Windows 7

Introduction

This is a patcher to get the Ouroboros v2i2 installer up and running on a Windows 7 machine. As there are significant differences in powershell and compatible SQL versions between Windows 7 and later versions of Windows the self installer cannot work with Windows 7. This package, whilst less elegant than the self installer, will at least get you up and running without too much work.

Pre-requsites

This assumes that you have already downloaded and extracted the self installer (Ouroboros_v2i201_self_installer.7z) onto your computer.

Installation Steps

  1. Unpack the contents of this 7z into the COH folder so you should then have:
    • Server
    • Client
    • CPHDBTool10
    • Setup
    • COHWindows7
  2. Open the COHWindows7 folder, you will find three scripts:
    • 1 - Install apps.bat
    • 2 - Setup DB.bat
    • 3 - Firewall rules (run as admin).bat
  3. Run the "1 - install apps.bat" file, you will need to follow through each prerequsite installer accepting the default options.
  4. Once that is complete you can run "2 - Setup DB.bat"
  5. At this point you may need to modify the shortcut files, the files have been generated with a base install location of c:\COH, you will need to modify these to your chosen folder path.
  6. If you plan to only play locally then you are done at this point and you can use the server as you would have following the ReadMe that came in the original zip.

Network Setup

If you want to go for network play then you will need to run "3 - Firewall rules (run as admin).bat", run this as Administrator by right clicking on it and choosing the "Run as Administrator" option.


XAMPP with user portal and manifest file pre-configured for self installer

Introduction

This is a basic setup of an XAMPP installation with a COH user portal and manifest file for the Ouroboros v2i2.01 self installer. You will receive messages about the site being insecure, these can be ignored, however it is recommended you look into setting up SSL, to do this you can follow the guide on the followning link https://wiki.ourodev.com/view/Account_Portal

Pre-requsites

This assumes that you have already downloaded and installed the self installer (Ouroboros_v2i201_self_installer.7z) onto your computer.

Installation Steps

  1. Extract the xampp_for_V2_Self_Installer.7z file onto your computer, it is recommended that you don't use the "program files" directories or any other protected locations as these have special permissions which can cause problems with XAMPP.
  2. Open the XAMPP folder and run setup_xampp.bat, choose option 1 to refresh settings.
  3. Run xampp-control.exe
  4. On the line for Apache, press start
You should now be able to browse to the portal page at http://127.0.0.1

Further Configuration

There is a folder xampp\htdocs, within this folder you will find a file called manifest.xml, this is a manifest file which you can configure for your users.

You will need to copy the client files to the location you specify in this file.

You may also want to add creamsoda and/or tequila to this folder and edit index.php to reflect the connection options your users will need to use.

Windows 7

This setup will need modifying to work with Windows 7, you will need to edit the functions.php, change the line:
$serverName = "(localdb)\mssqllocaldb";
to read:
$serverName = "(localdb)\v11.0";

Network Configuration

In the case of Internet access for this site, you will need to open or redirect ports on your computer and router, and forward them to the LAN IP of the VM. Unfortunately, we cannot script the opening of the ports for you as the procedure will vary on the make and model of your router.
The ports you will need to open / forward are
tcp 80
tcp 443