Remember - help is available in the Admin Mod web forums, if your questions cannot be answered in the documentation.
How do I get that green thing that appears in the middle of my screen to work and say what I want?
I can't seem to use the weapon and menu restriction commands?
When my server changes maps, all the clients get “dropped.” What the #&^$%?
The map returned by nextmap is not the next map in the cycle. How come?
I saw a server that let people forgive teammates for team killing. How can I do that?
My server crashes every 10 minutes/My server crashes when I use admin_csay.
I run a Linux server and I have a Win32 compiled script? Why wont it work?
Q: When I try to start Admin Mod on my server, it doesn't work and I get a message telling me that I "must define script_file or admin_plugin_file on my server." What's wrong?
There is no one, simple answer to this question. What this error is indicating is that Admin Mod is trying to start, and the DLL has been successfully loaded, but for some reason your server.cg pr listenserver.cfg is either incorrectly configured or is not being read correctly.
Here is a partial list of things to check to try to resolve the problem:
Make sure there is only one copy of the admin mod cvars (configuration variables) in your server.cfg or listenserver.cfg file. Note that if you run the installation script more than once, you may end up with multiple copies of this file, which will cause problems when you try to run your server.
Make sure your server.cfg/listenserver.cfg file is smaller than 16KB in size. Due to a restriction in the Half-Life server code, .cfg files cannot be larger than this size. Files over 16KB in size will fail to load.
If you are running a Windows server, make sure your file names are all spelled correctly. You must have file extensions for all file types viewable in order to be able to accurately determine if the files are named correctly. This is configurable in the options for Windows Explorer. Filenames are required to be spelled correctly and must be located in the correct directories to be found and to function. Almost all the files used with Admin Mod are to be located in the game mod directory. Plugin files that have been compiled and the Admin Mod DLL files are located in the game mod's "dlls" directory.
Make sure you are configuring the .cfg file that is located in the game mod directory of the game you are running on your server.
The obvious: Make sure either admin_plugin_file or script_file is specified in your server.cfg/listenserver.cfg file, and that your files are named and located where the .cfg file indicates.
Reinstall Half-Life and server files, then update to the latest Half-Life and server versions from the Internet, and then reinstall the latest version of Admin Mod, following the directions carefully.
Q: How do I get that green thing that appears in the middle of my screen to work and say what I want?
Ahh, the never-ending question. The answer is simple. In your (listen) server.cfg, enable the pretty_say cvar. Then, in the same file, enter:
admin_repeat_msg "This is the XXXXXXXX server.”
To make a new line, simply add a ^n where you want the new line. For example:
admin_repeat_msg "This will be the first line.^nThis, the second.”
Q: I am running a Counter-Strike Server. After I installed Admin Mod, I can't seem to use the weapon and menu restriction commands that Admin Mod is supposed to allow for Counter-Strike servers? Why not???
You need to take a look at the page in this manual called Setting up your plugin.ini file, which will explain what you need to do in order to enable Counter-Strike specific plugin capability. It also explains how to enable TFC-specific capability, by the way.
Additionally, you will need to set your "admin_cs_restrict" cvar in server.cfg to "1" or else all will be for not. If all of the following are true, it should work:
You are running a Counter-Strike server
You have "admin_cs_restrict 1" in your server.cfg
You have enabled the plugin_cs.amx in the plugin.ini file
You have executed commands to restrict stuff (of course)
The commands and cvars involved are all listed in the reference section of this documentation.
Q: How do I get my WON ID?
There are many ways to view your WON ID. The easiest is to join any random server, pull down the console (press “~”) and enter “status” (without the quotes). Then search for your player name and look for a big long number on the same line. That is your WON ID.
Q: Where can I find a list of commands?
Check the Admin Mod Commands page in the Admin Mod Reference section of the documentation.
Q: I don’t understand the whole password deal.
A summary: here's what you can do to get going. In the (listen)server.cfg on your server, make sure you have this line:
password_field "pw-home"
In the users.ini on your server, make sure you have this line:
username:password:65535
And in your adminpass.cfg on your CLIENT, make sure you have this line:
setinfo "pw-home" "password"
In each of the above examples, you must replace "username" with the player name, and "password" with that player's password. Note that we now advise people not to use autoexec,.cfg for setinfo information storage - You should use adminpass.cfg instead, for security reasons. For more information about configuring these aspects of Admin Mod, refer to "Client configuration via setinfo commands" elsewhere in the documentation.
Q: When my server changes maps, all the clients get “dropped.” What the #&^$%?
This is typically not Admin Mod’s fault. One of the more common causes of this is an enormously large custom.hpk file.
When players connect with custom decals, these get uploaded to the server. The server stores them in the custom.hpk file and sends them to the other clients. But the custom decals never get deleted from the custom.hpk file which is why it increases in size over time. If the file gets too large it takes the server a long time to load and search it. There have been custom.hpk files over 30MB large. If you delete it the server simply creates a new one. The new HLDS has cvars to control the maximum size of the custom.hpk file.
Aside from that, if you want to point fingers, point yours at that heap of metal under your desk. Admin Mod uses very little system resources on top of the Half-Life server process. HLDS on the other hand requires some horsepower and plenty of RAM to operate most efficiently. There are online resources available for server administrators to learn and troubleshoot problems with HLDS, including the forums at http://server.counter-strike.net/ and the Valve Software dedicated server mailing lists for both the Windows and Linux servers.
Q: 56k-ers lag my server. How can I ban them?
Sorry, but there is no way to ban HPB. Admin Mod does not check the ISP of clients, nor does it find the serial number of the modem, nor does it download credit card numbers (rats!). You can encourage them to leave by setting sv_maxrate and sv_minrate higher, therefore making 56k-ers lag.
Q: The map returned by nextmap is not the next map in the cycle. How come?
There has been some confusion in this area, so just to set things straight: Admin Mod uses the maps.ini file to restrict map votes to a set of maps. It uses the file specified by the HLDS mapcyclefile cvar for map cycle information, usually mapcycle.txt. The next map gets out of sync if a map was changed to by a vote or by a manual map change. Admin Mod reports back the next map in the mapcycle.txt file but the HLDS will jump back into the mapcycle where it left off before the manual change.
Q: How do I uninstall Admin Mod?
You don’t. :D Just kidding. It's really very simple:
1. Remove the Admin Mod specific CVARs from your server.cfg or listenserver.cfg (whichever one applies to your situation).
2. Then edit your liblist.gam file to return the gamedll filed back to "mp.dll" (Windows) or "dlls/cs_i386.dll" (in the case of Linux running under CS). Or, if you used the installation script to originally install Admin Mod, just find the "AdminMod Backup of liblist.gam" file in your mod directory and copy it over the current liblist.gam (assuming your previous liblist.gam was working properly before you installed Admin Mod).
Q: I was kicked from my own server!!!
Your users.ini file and setinfo line may not be working together. Read through the manual to make sure you have set everything up correctly. Help on this topic is available in the sections labeled Client configuration via setinfo commands and Setting up your users.ini file.
Q: I saw a server that let people forgive teammates for team killing. How can I do that?
This option is only available for Linux users at this time, and it is not done by Admin Mod. It can be done on Linux servers with an application called HLFD. There are also some remote console programs that can detect team killing and take action, but again - they are not related to Admin Mod..
Q: I am banned from my server. How do I get back in?
In your mod directory (cstrike, tfc [Team Fortress Classic game mod] , or other) there is a file called banned.cfg. Inside will be your WONID. If you know your WONID, simply remove yours, and only yours. If you do not know your WONID, simply delete the contents of the file.
Q: I am getting Bad Nick Info every time I try to connect!!!
This means that your users.ini file and/or your setinfo lines are not set up correctly. Read through the manual and make sure you have followed instructions. Help on this topic is available in the sections labeled Client configuration via setinfo commands and Setting up your users.ini file.
Q: How can I make map specific configurations?
Admin Mod 2.50 has a new option that allows Admin Mod commands to be directly entered into the dedicated server CLI (command-line interface), or to be called from a file that is executed by the server. Create a .cfg file with the name of the map (i.e. de_dust.cfg) and enter the commands you want to execute along with that map. By way of example, let's say you wanted to restrict the AWM/P rifle on the map de_dust. You would create a plain text file called de_dust.cfg and inside that file you would simply put:
admin_command admin_restrictweapon 4 6
That would restrict the AWM/P every time the de_dust map is loaded, assuming you have the proper Admin Mod plugins loaded to perform weapon restrictions.
Q: My server crashes every 10 minutes/My server crashes when I use admin_csay.
This is because the length of the message you have entered is too long to fit on a line. Reduce the size of the message, or make it wrap around to a new line (using “^n”). For example:
admin_csay This is line one^nThis is line two^nThis is line three^netc...
Q: I run a Linux server and I have a Win32 compiled script? Why wont it work?
Linux and win32 are different platforms, and the Small compiler creates slightly different versions of the .amx files on each platform, so they are not cross-platform compatible. The uncompiled scripts (.sma files) are identical in structure, so you use any uncompiled text plugin file (typically has a .sma extension) that was written on either platform, but you will have to compile it on the same type of system your server operates on (e.g. Linux or Windows).