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Server commands and player announcements: console, RCON and Telnet

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#5,047 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
8/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
bash, shell
Domain
cli, tooling

Research direction

This is a tracker, not a single change, so start by reading the existing send command and the warning countdown merged in #5025, then record the capability matrix for ARK, Rust and 7 Days to Die that the issue asks for. Decide which transports (console, RCON, Telnet) are viable before touching code, and confirm that constraint with maintainers in the thread. Done means an agreed matrix and a scoped first step, not a full implementation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

engine: unity3d engine: unreal4 Epic game: 7 Days to Die game: ARK: Survival Evolved game: Rust info: dependency type: feature

User story

As a server admin, I want a consistent way to send commands and broadcast messages to players, including warnings before a planned stop, restart, update or backup, across games with different console and remote administration interfaces.

Current behaviour

LinuxGSM already provides send for games with an interactive tmux console. #5025 added the warnplayerstimer countdown and cancellation messages for supported games, and #4595 added player-aware restart postponement. The broad auto-restart request #2107 has been closed as completed.

Games without an interactive console still need a supported way to deliver commands. ARK, Rust and 7 Days to Die have related requests involving RCON, WebRCON or Telnet. These are different protocols and need explicit compatibility checks.

Manual broadcasts and automatic restart warnings share the same underlying requirement: deliver the game's announcement command to connected players. This tracker brings those requests together and tracks the remaining delivery and game-support work.

Related requests

Manual messages and ARK warnings
  • #2334 — standalone ARK broadcast command.
  • #2922 — ARK broadcasts before restart, stop and update, with a proposed Discord alert integration. Reuse the existing warning countdown for in-game messages; assess external alert changes separately.
Similar requests to warn players before server restarts
  • #807 — Rust in-game restart/stop/update warnings. The original report also describes an in-game restart failing to bring the server back; assess that behaviour separately before closing it.
  • #4419 — Rust shutdown warnings, plus concerns about saving and graceful shutdown.
  • #674 — 7 Days to Die restart announcements through Telnet.
Existing work and previous decisions
  • #5025 — merged warning countdown implementation; reuse its timer, player checks and cancellation handling.
  • #4595 — merged player-aware stop/restart protection.
  • #2107 — completed umbrella request for warnings and waiting until players leave.
  • #299 — previous RCON discussion. Broad support was declined because game implementations vary and maintaining them would be costly without a well-supported client/library. Reassess this constraint before selecting dependencies.
  • #2201 — related 7 Days to Die shutdown refactor to remove expect. Coordinate any Telnet work without making that refactor a prerequisite for all announcement support.

Proposed approach

  1. Use a shared command-delivery interface for the existing interactive console and explicitly supported remote administration clients.
  2. Keep each game's announcement command separate from its transport: say, broadcast and other commands should use the same delivery path as manual server commands.
  3. Route automatic warnings through the shared announcement handling, extending the existing countdown to additional games.
  4. Define consistent public command behaviour for manual announcements and raw commands, preserving the existing send command. Final command names should be agreed during implementation.

Initial scope and completion criteria

  • Record a capability matrix for ARK: Survival Evolved, Rust and 7 Days to Die: transport, announcement command, configuration requirements and client/library support.
  • Evaluate maintained clients/libraries and their compatibility, installation and credential-handling requirements. Document any unsupported game or protocol explicitly.
  • Provide shared delivery and announcement functions, preserving existing console-based behaviour.
  • Support manual announcements and the existing warning countdown for the initial games where a viable transport is confirmed.
  • Report unsupported games, missing settings, authentication failures and timeouts clearly, without exposing credentials in normal output or logs.
  • Verify message quoting, spaces and special characters, and ensure user-supplied message text cannot become an unintended additional console command.
  • Test manual broadcasts and stop/restart/update warnings against real servers, including cancellation and delivery failure handling. Verify world-save and shutdown behaviour separately where those issue requirements apply.
  • Document supported games, setup, commands and limitations.

This tracker covers planned-operation announcements. Crash recovery cannot deliver an in-game warning after the server has already stopped responding. General RCON monitoring, universal protocol support and unrelated game configuration bugs are outside the initial scope.

Dominant language
Shell
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Forks
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Avg merge
1d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
68

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