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I'm evaluating Smartfox for use as a comm server for online multiplayer flash games. I would have several different developers all working on individual completely seperate projects at the same time.

Is it possible (or adviseable) to run several different independent multiplayer flash apps from one installation of smartfox server?

Is it possible to setup individual logins to the smartfox admin area for each developer that only gives them permission to change settings for the project(s) they're working on and keeps them out of other projects?

I have good knowledge of Linux administration and general programming, but know nothing about Flash or Actionscript myself, so please keep this in mind when answering.

Is it possible (or adviseable) to run several different independent multiplayer flash apps from one installation of smartfox server?

Yes it is both possibile and adviseable. SmartFoxServer allows to run an unlimited number of applications simultaneously.
Each app runs in a so-called "Zone" and each Zone is completely separated from the others.

Is it possible to setup individual logins to the smartfox admin area for each developer that only gives them permission to change settings for the project(s) they're working on and keeps them out of other projects?

This is not possible. The server admin account is similar to the root user in a Unix environment: he has total control over the entire system.

I would reccomend two options:

1. use one single server for development and have one administrator that take the dev requests and applies the changes etc...

2. Each dev-team installs a local copy of the server and has full control of it

I would reccomend the 2nd one as it won't give you too many problems when you will need to deploy all the different apps on a single server instance.

What you will need is just to merge the zones of the different local test-servers into the config file of the production server.

Let me know if you have any other questions

Thanks, Lapo. That sounds like a good plan. I have one more question.

Once things get going, we'll have multiple "production" games going at once that are live with real players, and also multiple "beta testing" projects going where we test the games with limited numbers of selected players.

Is it adviseable to run the beta apps on the same installation of SmartFox as the production apps? If there are errors or problems in the beta apps are they more likely to crash the server or cause problems for all of the other apps?

I think that the free version would work for the local developer installations, but I would need to allow for more than 20 simultaneous users during online beta testing, but I'd like to avoid paying for 2 licenses if possible. Any comments or suggestions?

Is it adviseable to run the beta apps on the same installation of SmartFox as the production apps? If there are errors or problems in the beta apps are they more likely to crash the server or cause problems for all of the other apps?

No, I'd reccomend to use two server instances, one for stable games and one for beta-testers. You can safely install them on the same machine and just change the port of one of the two. This way you will avoid all problems.

I think that the free version would work for the local developer installations, but I would need to allow for more than 20 simultaneous users during online beta testing, but I'd like to avoid paying for 2 licenses if possible. Any comments or suggestions?

We can provide time-limited licences that are not limited in the max amount of users. This way you'll be able to stress-load your machines and profile your games.
Our time based licences usually last 30 days.

You can contact us directly via email to obtain the licence(s)

ok, one more question and I think I'm all set to get started:

Will it run ok on an Athlon 64 system running CentOS? Any known compatibility problems with this setup? If not, I'm off to order a dev server and get started with the free trial!

The Athlon64 is a very good cpu and I didn't know CentOS, but from their website I understand it is a Linux distribution... (I saw Tux, the penguin )
Am I wrong?

There's no problem with any Linux distribution.
The server has been tested on Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, FreeBSD and recently on Solaris-10 too

Yes, CentOS is a Linux distribution. It's basically a repackaged version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Thanks, Lapo, you've been very helpful!

I now have my dev server setup and I have the free trial version of SmartFox Server Pro setup and working on it. I've played around with it and it seems really great!

Lapo wrote:No, I'd reccomend to use two server instances, one for stable games and one for beta-testers. You can safely install them on the same machine and just change the port of one of the two. This way you will avoid all problems.

So would it be possible to have multiple installations of smartfox pro trial all running on the same server at once on different ports or different IP's (say around 5-10 copies running concurrently) for different developers to work with?

Then they could each have the admin tool password for their own installation and reconfigure and test all they wanted independently of each other (limited to 20 connections each). When the configuration is finalized and their game is tested then we could move it to the production server with the paid version of Smartfox Pro and merge in the xml zone info. Any problems with doing it this way?

So would it be possible to have multiple installations of smartfox pro trial all running on the same server at once on different ports or different IP's (say around 5-10 copies running concurrently) for different developers to work with?

Yes it's possible. Just assign each server instance a different TCP port. That's all you need.

Then they could each have the admin tool password for their own installation and reconfigure and test all they wanted independently of each other (limited to 20 connections each). When the configuration is finalized and their game is tested then we could move it to the production server with the paid version of Smartfox Pro and merge in the xml zone info. Any problems with doing it this way?

I don't see any problems Each zone describes an application that is completely independent from the other, so you'll be able to merge all the different <Zone> definitions in one single config file.

Running multiple instances is what we need as well. I have installed the SF twice on the same machine, however, it seems, only one service can be installed. How do I solved this? Do you mean, that having multiple instances on the same machine you need to run one as a service and other as an application?

If you need to run multiple instances I'd recommend to start them manually. It's easier.
Which version are you using? Under Windows I think you can only install one service at a time.

We are using SmartFoxServer PRO version 1.4 on Windows as a service. We have one purchased and we want to install another one, the limited one, for the purposes of testing. But having to run it manually, then someone needs to be logged on the server?

I think it's just a matter of changing a few lines in the wrapper config file to install a second service.

Open the wrapper.conf inside Server/conf/ folder. Scroll down the file until you find this section:
At least I'd change the to another name in order to avoid service name collisions

Once you have modified the file double click the "InstallAsService" icon

Let me know if it works

That worked. Wonderful support, Lapo, thanks!