webserverSP1-1.html - (an attempt at) running an aim server...

recently mattkc uploaded a video about an open source project on github that allows anyone to run their own aim server

this led me to gain an interest in running my own aim server. i already made my own web server, this would just be a walk in the park to setup and deploy.

my oh my was i absolutely fucking wrong.

step 1: fun

by the way... here's the github repo.
first things first, i need to actually install the aim server stuff onto the server. easy enough, all yoou really have to do is just download the release, configure the settings.env file and run the executable. id run it through terminal (to get logs), but i think you could just double click on it as well i think. at one point i was confused as to why my aim client wasnt connecting to the server, but i realized that opening ports 5190-5197 mightve helped (it did).

after that, i was able to connect aim 5.1 to the server through my local network.

step two: run it through the internet

"this part should be the easiest part, all i have to do is create a subdomain that points here with the ports and i should be all set!" the previous statement was made by naive past self. apperantly according to the retro aim server discord (an old message i wasnt there for), its not possible to use the same method i used to point webdelfuk.elite784.online with this aim server (i even tried myself, by adding a bunch of subdomains that pointed to the same local ip with a different port ranging from 5190 to 5197, the default configured ports for aim).

the same person who said that did theorize that one could probably use cloudflare warp to do the thing, so i decided to test that theory

elite784 recently searched for: how the fuck do i run an old irc thingy through cloudflare?

no. warp isnt for that, at least according to my "fuck around, find out" methods. but at least i know that i could do vpn-like stuff with it i think. (after some more fucking around, aim suddenly connected to the server. unfortunately, it was through the warp client that it successfully did so. warp is like some kind of thing that allows you to do things youd do at home like access your router with 192.168.0.1 like normal, only remotely. so problem is still not solved)

after wasting around what i think was 2 hours of my life pulling my hairs figuring this thing out, i finally decided to ask in the ras discord.

what the hell do i do?

i got a response after a while. during that timeframe i was researching about normal ddns through cloudflare (weird that i discovered tunnels before ddns on cloudflare). the response did confirm that you can route an aim server through cloudflare, all i had to do was add an A record with proxying off. with that, i decided to install ddclient onto my server, did the usual configuration, only to find that its was reporting that "zone=" was some bullshit that i cant remember (apperantly wasnt defined in the config file). lookedup how to configure ddclient for cloudflare , _{someting something something uhhh..dead end.}

at this point, im running around in circles. ddclient is seeming like a real pain in the ass. what i initially thought would be a fairly easy project has suddenly turned to something im starting to really hate because of this road block.

i scouered through some forms for how to run a game server through cloudflare (since i assume that this aim thing would be like running a game server only with somewhat different configs. in practice it shouldv'e been, but in reality i've been spending most of the project trying to make it communicate to the outside world) and apperantly you need a subscription to some service that allows you to use ports that aren' t 80 and 433. obviously, im not payng for that because (1) im broke and (2) im broke ass poor. oh woe ;;