Electro Server Configuration for MacOSX

Configuring ElectroServer (4.0) is an easy task for Windows. You just download the setup, install it and run the server. And you also have the admin tool and the UI to tweak and adjust the settings of the server. But not an easy task with MacOSX.

Here I would be giving an information about how to configure Electro-Server for the MacOSX. As you know to run ElectroServer 4.0+ you need JVM 1.6 or higher. But SUN does not have a download of JVM 1.6 for MacOSX as Mac decided to bring up its own virtual machine.

At this point I hope you must be knowing what ElectroServer is. In simple words it is a server used for developing and configuring multiplayer games and MMOs. For more information kindly visit the Electro Server website.

To run the Electro Server in MacOSX, do the following

1) Download the Unix (without JVM) version of the Electro Server.
2) Un-Archive it. And run ElectroServer unix executable file.
3) If you run it, you would probably get an error stating that the required JVM was not found. And that it can be resolved by adding a path to the home directory of the JVM.
4) Now open up the Terminal under utilities. This is like the command prompt of the windows.
5) Type in mkdir ~/.MacOSX This would create a hidden MacOSX directory under the home directory.
6)Now its time to create the .plist file. The .plist is a property list file which contains the information of all the path variables. Basically it is a list of name value pairs. Just like how we load the environment variables in windows. So we shall now create the environment.plist file under this MacOSX directory. To do this easily download the Property List Editor from the apple website.
7)Create a new child enter the variable name as INSTALL_4J_JAVA_HOME and set the path to /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.frameworK/Versions/1.6/Home/. Also add another child with name PATH and set the path to /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.frameworK/Versions/1.6/Home/
9) Save the file as environment.plist in desktop and then copy it to the MacOSX folder using the Terminal.

There you go, you are now done with configuring the ElectroServer for MacOSX. Restart the machine or log off and login. As you login the environment.plist file is read and the required environment variables are set. Now run the Electroserver unix executable file. If your day is good, it should show the following


06:19:56,842 [main] INFO DisplayLogger -
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Starting ElectroServer 4.0.6
Go to http://www.electro-server.com/ for the newest version.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Computer Information
Operating System: Mac OS X
Operating System Architecture: x86_64
Processors Available: 2
Memory Available: 122Mb
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Virtual Machine Information
Virtual Machine Vendor: Apple Inc.
Virtual Machine Version: 1.6.0_05


06:20:03,978 [pool-1-thread-3] INFO DisplayLogger -
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
ElectroServer has started successfully

Comments

SkeletalMesh ( KC ) said…
Nice article... Good blog.. Thanks for the article:)

Btw!! welcome to the "stuck with the stupid mac at work" club :)


KC
11:41 PM
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