Ventrilo: Gamers' Best Friends.

[iXeta 0]

The idea for this tutorial actually came from the reason im coming back to Xisto.I was working on a .NET application that converts a ventrilo's rcon (remote console)logs into a useable database for information sharing. Which is particularly usefulfor people who are working for big ventrilo servers. I, myself, am the user-endtechnical manager for a large gaming clan's 100 slot vent. When I found myself goingto other friend's ventrilo to help them out, often they didn't even know about someof the very useful tools built into ventrilo to provide a more designed environment.Some of the tools, such as command targets, are simpler to use. While other, includingrcon, advanced ip bans, and user rank points, take more to understand. This tutorialwill be written in a way for people who are already somewhat familiar with ventrilo,so if it's your first time using it, don't expect to have full control in the first day.Also, since I'm going to write about the features in a way to easily find informationon what you want, ill separate everything out as neatly as I can (I wish I could saythe same about my house >.>).Channels ***Channels in ventrilo are very easy to use, take seconds to set up, but with most of thesettings being pre-selected, people rarely take a look at what some of the more advancedfeatures are. Well start with channel types, there are three channel types insideventrilo. Normal, Authentication, and Passworded. Normal allows anyone to come and goas they like, without restriction. Authentication requires each specific user accountin the user editor to be allowed to access the channel. Authentication is not includedin the preset file in a user account, so if you use the preset, your still going to haveto check off any authentication you want affiliated with the user. Passworded is thelast type, with passworded, as soon as somone enters the password for the channel, theyhave access to it until the room is deleted, or the password is changed. They do nothave to re-enter the password each time they want to join the room however.Another usually unused feature for channels is the transmit level. Each rank insideventrilo is able to be assigned a rank point. These rank points are used for only onething inside ventrilo, and thats transmit rights. Every time you create a channel,there is a box in the bottom right that you can select, and input a rank point. Ifyou enable broadcast ranks, only people who have a rank with a point higher than thenumber in the channel may talk. The users can still hear, and move into the channelbut their ability to broadcast user-to-channel will be disabled.One of the *LEAST* used features for channels that I see is Channel Admin. Most peoplethink that the only way to let somone control vent is to give them full admin, nottrue. In ventrilo's user editor, you can go into a user's editor then select thechannel admin tab. You can select any channel or sub-channel for the user to be anadmin. An channel admin can edit the channel in any way, just as an admin could.They are limited to that channel, and any of it's sub-channels however. A channeladmin can: Create a sub-channel, edit his/her channel and its sub-channels, deletehis/her channel and its sub-channels, mute users in the channels, kick users fromthe channels, ban the user from the channels. There is one bug with banning users fromchannels however. When you ban a user from a channel, even if its a subchannel, andthe user does not have admin over the main channel, the ban is added to that channeland all channels higher and lower in rank from it.The last channel feature I'll go over is the voice mode. This isn't an especiallyuseful feature, but if you're ever in the case that you have too many people tryingto talk, this can be kind of helpful. In the channel editor, there are three radioboxes you can select. Normal allows everyone to transmit just as you would in theserver lobby. Qeued mode sets the channel so users can only transmit one at a time,once somone lets go of their hotkey, whoever starts transmitting next will be theonly one able to transmit until they stop, unless they are muted. The last mode ismuted, this instantly mutes every user in the room. A channel admin can thenindividually un-mute and re-mute any user in the room. This is good if you want tohave a meeting and make sure only a select few people can talk, until you open itback up to normal mode.Targets ***There are two types of targets in ventrilo, command targets and voice targets.But what are targets? The target system is like a big version of the private messagesystem. It allows you to push to talk to a specific group of users (voice targets)or do a mass message that arrives in a similar form to private messages (commandtargets). How do you use the target system though? Well, to start off you need toaccess the user editor. Inside the user editor there are two buttons in the bottomright, that say voice targets and command targets. Both of them are so similarall I really need to do is describe one of them. Inside the command targets, at thetop it gives you a list of groups, second line is the owner of the group (just forinformational purposes), then there are two list boxes. The right-hand list isa list of all the users in your user-database. The left-hand side is the users you'veadded to the group. Also inside the left hand list, it will show whether the userhas transmit rights. Just click on the user(s) you want to add on the right handlist, click add, and *boom* you're done. Well, not quite, by default every user youadd cannot transmit, any user you want to be able to transmit to the rest of thegroup you need to double-click. You will see the word transmit next to their name ifit worked. Now just click send to save the group, and now you can go back to ventriloright click anywhere, click misc then hit command targets. You will see the groupin the left hand list (that is if you added yourself to it), and then you can type inthe right side. By default, every user's command target window is set to automaticlyopen as soon as a message is received, so as soon as you send the message, everyuser in the group will have a box looking exactly like what you just opened and willbe able to read it. But unless you allowed them to transmit, they cant talk back.The voice system is almost exactly the same, except you only need a window the trans-mitting side not the recieving side.User Editor ***Im going to start off the part about the User Editor with something that will saveyou LOTS and *LOTS* and **LOTS** of time! Whenever you create someones account, yougo through giving them a password, rank, adding their rights, display privalges,and area settings. All those checkboxes and finding the right default channel takesquite a bit of clicking. But theres a simpler way! In the top right of the usereditor there is a combo box, and two buttons. This is the vuep (Ventrilo UserEnvironment Profiles) manager. You can load or save profiles through here. Eachuser on ventrilo creates and maintains their own set of vuep files. So it isn'tstored on the server for other people who use the user editor. If you want to givesomone else a vuep file, that means your going to have to use some other form ofcommunication to give them the actual vuep file stored on your computer. But howit works, is either create a new user, and set up all its right (not includingpassword, rank, or name, that information is NOT INCLUDED in the vuep file.), orjust go to one of the people you've already created, that you know their rightsare what you want to copy, then hit the save button in the top right. Now when youreload the user editor, the vuep profile will be available in the dropdown box.Just choose the username you want to create, type in a password (if you use them)and choose a rank, then select the vuep profile from the dropdown box, and clickload. Add the user and your done. That was... only 3 click instead of 40?Rcon (Remote Console) ***This has to be my favorite admin control for ventrilo. Probably because its themost powerful, but maybe because its a console and I love typing commands ^.^(Outdated but egotistical I know.) RCon (Remote Console) is acessible from theadmin menu. I won't go over all the commands because most of them aren't veryuseful and you can find them anywhere on google, so it wouldn't add anythingof importance to my tutorial unlike the other things I've listed. The firstcommand ill go over is called 'loggrep' (no 's of course) It works like this:loggrep 100 (number of lines to return to the user) something to search for hereloggrep 20 iXetaThat last line will return the last 20 lines logged that contain the word iXeta.But note, if my username is iXeta and you search for IXETA or IxEtA you won'tget any lines returned. Thats because the log is cAsE sEnSiTiVe. That and youcan search for more words like:loggrep 20 20081015 12:20:13 LOGON:So everything including 20081015 12:20:13 LOGON: will be searched for, but theyall have to be together in the log. So as an example, it won't search for a linecontaining each separate word, but all of them together exactly like I asked for.But anyways, if you understand that, everything of importance is recorded bythe log system. Admin changes, logon and disconnects (including how long the userwas online) attempts at using the Admin Menu 'Login...' password, and more.While im on the topic of the loggrep command, I might go over something usefulfor you people who are having your server attacked by somone using VEX orventriloFP. Contrary to popular belief there is a way to add a netban on ventriloStart by getting their IP from the loggrep command that I showed above. Just typetheir name in like this loggrep 100 haihaxedu, or if their using rapid connection(most do) just type loggrep 100 LOGON: and that will return the most recent loginsfrom the bottom up just copy the IP (the 4 sets of octets [1-255]). Now go intothe ban list through the admin menu. Add in the IP then add a reason and click ban.Now if they disconnect, they can't come back in, but if their still in your serveryou will have to kick them, the system doesn't automaticly do it when you banthrough the ban list. Now ill step into netbans. Netbans are when you ban basedupon one or more of the octets. Say the person is connecting from the IP of123.345.567.789 and now lets say you ban them, but they come back, why? Wellwhats probably happening is their using a proxy or changing their IP of theirrouter or modem (which in fact, if your using it to harass somone, is illegaland you can report them to their ISP and I can almost guarantee they will be shutoff). But how do you stop them? If their using a proxy, it may not be possiblebecause with proxies, they are located all over the world and can use so manydifferent geo ips, and banning every one that the hacker uses could eliminate someof your legitimate members. But if their just changing say the second, third,or fourth octet (345, 567, or 789) you can easily ban them. How you'd do thisis copy the IP into the ban list just the same, but replace the octets yourbanning with one 0. So it would be like this 123.0.0.0, or 123.345.0.0, or123.345.567.0, and then you should notice there is a dropdown box in the banlist that has a number 255.255.255.255 that number should have the same 0sas the IP you entered, so if you entered the IP 123.0.0.0 you should selectthe mask 255.0.0.0, and if you entered 123.345 the mask should be 255.255.0.0and so on. Just type in a reason, and ban. Now if they change their IP to anythinginside that mask they won't be able to connect. But do a check and make sureyou didn't ban any of your legitimate members by netbanning, but thatsa little much to explain, you can figure it out on your own.But thats enough for today! If you have any questions, feel free to ask, Itry to make sure I know how everything works with ventrilo (at least user-side adminwise that is)- Need2Dominate GEN [Vent-Tech] iXeta

[HESSgt 0]

Hey, i know you posted this a long time ago, but hopefully ill get an answer somehow =)I was wondering if there was anyway to log the User Editor changes that occur, because thats pretty important sometimes. I dont think there is, however if anyone knows that there is I'd appreciate it =D