/inidbi2-linux

Linux port of the inidbi2 extension for Arma

Primary LanguageC++

inidbi2 for Linux Servers

inidbi2 is an extension for Arma 3 that allows to save data to .ini files that later can be read again. This allows to persist data and allows for state that survives across server restarts, while not requiring a full-blown (SQL) database.

Unfortunately, inidbi2 (as opposed to inidbi) is written in C# and only provides a dll file for INI handling, so it does not work on Linux servers.

This implementation of inidbi2 aims to address this by re-implementing all C# code of inidbi2 in C++, allowing us to generate a Shared Object file, making the extension usable on Linux servers.

Disclaimer

This is a quick & dirty re-implementation of the C# code of inidbi2 in C++. It is not designed with efficiency in mind.

I replaced all Windows-specific function calls with stuff I found in the boost library. On my server, this 'just works', but you might need to install additional dependencies that I am not (yet) aware of. Open an issue if you find you were missing a dependency, then I'll add them here.

Also note that the inidbi2.so file is huge compared to the inidbi2.dll. This is because the boost library is statically linked. Dynamic linking might work just as well, but my aim was to get this done fast and to do the bare minimum to get it to work.

Installation

To install the extension, first download the inidbi2 extension. Put it into your server directory, e.g. /usr/games/arma3/@inidbi2. Rename the Addons folder inside the @inidbi2 folder to addons (The Arma server for Linux doesn't like the capitalized name). Download the inidbi2.so file built from this project and place it inside the @inidbi2 folder (e.g. /usr/games/arma3/@inidbi2/inidbi2.so).

Make sure you add @inidbi2 to your server's startup command line (e.g. -serverMod=@inidbi2).

That's it! You should now be able to use the extension on your Linux server.

You can try it by loading up a mission, enabling the admin debug console in the mission's properties, logging in as admin, entering the following snippet into your Arma console and running it on your server:

_inidbi = ["new", "test"] call OO_INIDBI;
_version = "getVersion" call _inidbi;
diag_log format ["Inidbi version: %1", _version];

Look into your server's output, there should be a line reading "Inidbi version: Inidbi: 2.05 Dll: 2.05 (linux)".