Unencrypted connections

[diafero]

I'd like my testing Shard to use an unencrypted connection to the client. This is mainly to make debugging the network communication easier (as the wireshark plugin would also need the keys otherwise), but it could also simplify setting up a basic Shard.
What do I need to configure in Dirtsand and the CWE to disable encryption? Is this even supported?

[phoenix]

I agree with you... The encryption adds to the processing overhead as well, and in a testing environment encryption hides too much. I would also like to know how to turn encryption off. It should not be that hard, since dirtsand has been setup with two versions of moulscripts in the Sandbox wiki , one encrypted and the other unencrypted. So the data is there.

[Deledrius]

dirtsand has been setup with two versions of moulscripts in the Sandbox wiki , one encrypted and the other unencrypted. So the data is there.

That's completely not related to the encrypted network communication.

[phoenix]

That isn't what I implied. All I said is that the data is there in both forms, encrypted and unencrypted. How a coder to chooses to harness that is up to them, but the data is already there.

[Zrax]

That isn't what I implied. All I said is that the data is there in both forms, encrypted and unencrypted. How a coder to chooses to harness that is up to them, but the data is already there.

It's still unrelated, since diafero was talking about the network traffic, not the data... Either one can be either encrypted or unencrypted completely independently of the other.

Back to the original question though, there is actually a preprocessor flag in Cyan's code which can disable encryption (namely, "NO_ENCRYPTION")... Although there isn't one in DirtSand yet, modifying it to include such an option would probably be fairly easy. However, that would only help you with the DirtSand side, since the MOULa server will still require encryption (and will boot you out if your connection is not encrypted, unless Cyan changes it on their end).

However, I must say your question came with great timing... Just yesterday, I started playing with an idea to log and analyze the network traffic completely independently of the encryption, by means of adding some special logging code to the client, and a tool to listen to it. If you want to play around with this (and better yet, help me add to it), the code is on github -- the tool itself is plNetLog (also on the H-uru projects), and you'll need the netlog branch of Plasma to make it work.

- Michael

[diafero]

Such a tool definitely sounds interesting.
I still think however that unencrypted connections can make the setup easier - and such an option should be a run-time, not a compile-time flag. But well, e got the sources. maybe I can do something about that

[Christian Walther]

I haven’t looked at plNetLog yet, but I’m curious: Does it do the same thing as a'moaca's Wireshark plugin? Or what are the differences and advantages?

[phoenix]

Zrax: Either one can be either encrypted or unencrypted completely independently of the other.

Aaaaah, got it! click! Would be nice if both could be set (as you say independently) at runtime and not compile time.

[diafero]

I haven’t looked at plNetLog yet, but I’m curious: Does it do the same thing as a'moaca's Wireshark plugin? Or what are the differences and advantages?

If I understood it correctly, it's different: It does not catch the packets "on the wire" and then decodes them, but instead relies on the client making the packages available to the logger (on a level where encryption is already handled, but little more). That means it has the advantage of being encryption transparent, and the disadvantage on not being as independent from the tools that are debugged as a dedicated wireshark plugin.

[Zrax]

Right. I also find the Wireshark GUI a bit cumbersome and constricted for visualizing complex hierarchical data like Plasma messages... But that's probably just preference. The actual reported data should be identical; it's just a matter of how you prefer to look at it

For further information, I redirect you to Mr. Screenshot: http://moul.zrax.net/plNetLog.png