Connectivity: OpenSim Grids.

Openlife grid, looking for connectivity?

Step one, install and load the OpenSim Server daemon from 3DXStudio. Follow the instructions.

Step two, point your opensim viewer to ‘Local’ and enter ‘Test’ for the first name and ‘User’ for the last name and using password ‘password’.

Simple

Now

To extend that to the real world we need to make a few changes to the file that describes the regions in your ‘world’. We do that as follows:

1) Locate the folder it lives in, one way, is to right click the 3DXStudio shortcut on your desktop and select ‘properties’ from the menu.

2) On the properties window, look for and click ‘Open File Location’ [Windows Vista]

3) Look for a file folder in the window that open, simply called ‘Regions’. Double click it to open it.

4) Locate your xml files. I now have several but you will have a ‘default.xml. I recommend strongly you copy it to the same folder and rename it to ‘Default.xml.Original’. You will be prompted about changing the file extension, but click through, you Know what you are doing...

5) Open the xml file in your favourite editor, ( I use notepad as it is a low overhead) and make the following minor changes...

[I am not the worlds expert on XML files and understand its simply a form of HTML with a lot more construct]
The file contents are :-

sim_name="Central"
sim_location_x="1000"
sim_location_y="1001"
internal_ip_address="0.0.0.0"
internal_ip_port="9001"
allow_alternate_ports="false"
external_host_name="192.168.1.4"
master_avatar_uuid="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
master_avatar_first="first"
master_avatar_last="last"
master_avatar_pass="mypassword"
lastmap_uuid="489ab303-67bf-4d82-a11a-233f644254eb"
lastmap_refresh="1225803513"

Explanations:

“Config sim_UUID”
This has to be a unique number, UUID is a collection I understand of the network card ID and the current time in Unix, this every time you create it, it is unique completely. Make sure each sim has a unique UUID


internal_ip_port="9001"
Make sure each sim you create has a new Port number, the first of which is 9000 and then incrementing 1 each time.


internal_ip_address="0.0.0.0"
Set your Internal IP to all zeros.


external_host_name="192.168.1.4"
Set your external I/P address to your network ID. (We know that internal network addresses cannot be seen outside the network, but we overcome that later)


One more entry you might like to change is the one for the map updates. You may notice your map is slow to update, so change the last entry above to ‘0’ to get an update each time the Server is started.


lastmap_refresh="0"


Save your xml file back to the folder and restart your server daemon.


'Beathe again'


Now, your cohorts on the same LAN can get to you easy peasy, but what if you want an outsider to ‘drop’ in to your space...

1) Change your port forwarding for UDP and TCP to 9000 on your router.

2) Get your friend to change the data in their location box at the bottom of their openlifegrid browser from ‘Openlife grid’ to http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:9000 where xxx is your I/P address.

3) Use http://whatsmyip.net to get your I/P address if you do not have it to hand immediatly!

Get your friends to start their browser and log in... But wait... you do need to add them to your access list


Start your server:

On the second tab (Command View), type into the green line the following: -
create user Joe Blogs password 1000 1000

That is their login first name, last name, password and the sim you want them to drop into.

Questions?