[Feature Request] Toggle suggestions for the RCON backup messages to server

[Jadiction]

Have you read the Important information text above

• Yes i did

Describe the feature

I am suggesting an environment variable to toggle on/off the RCON backup messages. If not many people are talking, it gets pretty "spammy".
For example, this will be repeated each time:

I do want rcon enabled for the player messages (join/leave/name change), but my players don't need to know when a world is saving or being backed up. It's unnecessary information/spam for them to see constantly.

Additional information

• Would you be willing to help implement this feature?

Final checks

• I understand that this is a feature request function. I also understand that if i use this to report a bug report, that my issue might be un-answered closed.

[jammsen]

Hey @Jadiction we added that with no toggle for "informing" the players that a lag or a slow-server reaction might be coming in the next 5 seconds. We did that to keep the player informed when stuff happens, when its done and when its over. We would hate it, that someone is in a bossfight and dies because of lags that were not informed and based on backups.

Could you please explain in more detail how a solution for opt-in or opt-out and the idea behind the FR is from your point-of-view please?

Thanks for taking the time and caring!

[Jadiction]

Hey @Jadiction we added that with no toggle for "informing" the players that a lag or a slow-server reaction might be coming in the next 5 seconds.

Yeah, that's a valid reason to have it and I'm sure some people appreciate it.
I would just prefer not to have it and an option to toggle it would be nice. Currently, my backups and saves have arguably unnoticeable server performance. I know this will vary based on how many players, how large the maps are server specs, etc.

I'd prefer to have a cleaner and less spammed chat than to keep informed by a potential small lag spike.

My suggestion is to add an environment variable to make it optional.
if RCON_NOTIFICATIONS is set to false, it for example, won't use the RCON broadcasts from these functions in rcon.sh:

save_and_shutdown_server
broadcast_automatic_restart
broadcast_backup_start
broadcast_backup_success
broadcast_backup_failed

Or if you wanted, you could do 2 variables such as RCON_BACKUP_NOTIFICATIONS and RCON_SAVE_NOTIFICATIONS to further the optimization.

[jammsen]

Hey @Jadiction

After readind your answer and some thinking about it, i would be open to extend it like this:

We already added BACKUP_ENABLED to change if you like backups or not. A valid and reasonable extension on to this would something like BACKUP_NOTIFICATIONS_ENABLED directly after the setting BACKUP_ENABLED to give context to the user/admin and also to help make more informed decisions.

BUT the value would be on/true by default and for backwards-compability. I really dont like thousands of server to break in an instant, just because the have auto-updates enabled and had not chance to read the patch-notes. Thats a no no.

What the server saves before stoping thing affects, i dont want to change that. I a sense to speak of / in a sense you could say, im open to extend the functions of the "backupmanager.sh but im happy with whats in the servermanager.sh i dont want to touch that. Again it comes down to inform the player of events. Server reboot is setup via cron you can do that every 5m or once a month, that what you can already control whats happening and the "spamming" is in the admins control. But messing with this, also does messing with automation for server-management, im not really happy to change that sorry.

Again im open to hear more feedback, but thats my current offer to extend this.

[jammsen]

@Jadiction ping

[Jadiction]

A valid and reasonable extension on to this would something like BACKUP_NOTIFICATIONS_ENABLED directly after the setting BACKUP_ENABLED to give context to the user/admin and also to help make more informed decisions.

This would work, but I was also looking for this to include the save message notifications, unless you're thinking about including those for this variable.

BUT the value would be on/true by default and for backwards-compability.

I agree, having it inform players is a good default and let it be an option for server admins on where they want it to or not.

But messing with this, also does messing with automation for server-management, im not really happy to change that sorry.

I'm confused on what you mean by this. Adding an if statement for a new variable (defaulted to how it is now) wouldn't affect the automation process other than allowing customization to the notifications.

[jammsen]

A valid and reasonable extension on to this would something like BACKUP_NOTIFICATIONS_ENABLED directly after the setting BACKUP_ENABLED to give context to the user/admin and also to help make more informed decisions.

This would work, but I was also looking for this to include the save message notifications, unless you're thinking about including those for this variable.

That would be covered if i understood you correctly.

I'm confused on what you mean by this. Adding an if statement for a new variable (defaulted to how it is now) wouldn't affect the automation process other than allowing customization to the notifications.

What i meant was regarding to the first request you wrote "i want to reduce spamming regarding backups" im open to that, thats in a single file called https://github.com/jammsen/docker-palworld-dedicated-server/blob/develop/scripts/backupmanager.sh

BUT the other rcon-messages are in the server-manager-part ( https://github.com/jammsen/docker-palworld-dedicated-server/blob/develop/scripts/servermanager.sh ), meaning join/leave/start/stop and i dont consider them spamming.

[Jadiction]

BUT the other rcon-messages are in the server-manager-part ( https://github.com/jammsen/docker-palworld-dedicated-server/blob/develop/scripts/servermanager.sh ), meaning join/leave/start/stop and i dont consider them spamming.

Oh yeah, I agree. It's just the backup messages that I consider "spammy." I imagine most people have it backup relatively short, especially with a retention option, it makes sense to have recent backups in the case of world corruption (which has been an issue since beta release). The other notifications are helpful.

[jammsen]

Hey @Jadiction i finally got around to work on this, sorry it took so long.

Its no on develop for testing, feel free to load this image tag to try it out jammsen/palworld-dedicated-server:develop

Changes and explainers are here: c1704b3

I decided to announce "ERRORS ONLY" still to the ingame chat, no matter what. I think that is one thing we didnt talk about, but it still counts as important to get an important info that you need to research whats happening.

Please let me know if that works for you!

[jammsen]

This is now on Master! Have fun!