Need help with a few terms.

[taylorjonl]

I am pretty new to this site, this is my second post.  I posted here because this seems the best forum to ask general questions about what something is.

I have a little experience in programming bots for DII.  I did pathfinding in the JED2.0 bot.  I haven't dealt much with battlenet protocols and many packets.  I have seen people reference serveral things that I don't fully understand.

I want to know about these things because I plan on writing a bot of my own and just love to learn new things.

BotNet:

I am assuming this is a ValHalla bot that offers you some additional functionality or is it a channel moderation bot?

D2GS:

I think this is a D2 Game Server?  Is it like your own battlenet server?  If so could you give me a link that will tell me more on who wrote it, what it does and any other info you think maybe helpful.

BNLS:

Battle.Net Login Server...  Is this basically a server that someone has written to allow people to login to it and connect to battle.net indirectly?  If not what is its purpose?  How can I learn more about it?

Also if you know of any other usefull projects or documents that may be usefull in learning how a D2 client and battlenet interract please post.  Like I said I don't know much about this subject but am eager to learn more.

[Kp]

BotNet:

I am assuming this is a ValHalla bot that offers you some additional functionality or is it a channel moderation bot?

It's a Valhalla product, but not a specific bot.  Skywing originally wrote it, and has since turned it over to me for maintenance.  Botnet provides centralized storage of an ACL, allowing a series of separate moderator bots to operate with a common understanding of who is permitted to do what operations.  Aside from some restrictions on the data portion (which are scheduled to be removed), the botnet server does not attempt to interpret or modify the data.  Botnet serves other purposes, but that's the most bot-like purpose.  If you want to get involved using it, there is a protocol specification at http://www.valhallalegends.com/kp/bnsp-latest.txt.

D2GS:

I think this is a D2 Game Server?  Is it like your own battlenet server?  If so could you give me a link that will tell me more on who wrote it, what it does and any other info you think maybe helpful.

I'm not much of a D2 person, but, yes, D2GS = D2 Game Server.  Beyond that, no comment from me.

BNLS:

Battle.Net Login Server...  Is this basically a server that someone has written to allow people to login to it and connect to battle.net indirectly?  If not what is its purpose?  How can I learn more about it?

Also if you know of any other usefull projects or documents that may be usefull in learning how a D2 client and battlenet interract please post.  Like I said I don't know much about this subject but am eager to learn more.

Skywing and Yoni co-authored BNLS.  It provides the functionality necessary to pass battle.net's logon challenges.  You (the bot author) connect to BNLS and to battle.net.  Tell BNLS what game you want and the version check string battle.net supplied, and BNLS will compute the correct answer for you to pass back.  Same general idea for other parts of the authentication; it can be used to do any or all of the authentication for CD keyed clients.  You will need a BNLS ID (available from Yoni or Skywing) to use it.  See the BNLS protocol specification <http://www.valhallalegends.com/yoni/BNLSProtocolSpec.txt> for more details.

[Edit: fixed up hyperlinks.]

[taylorjonl]

It's a Valhalla product, but not a specific bot.  Skywing originally wrote it, and has since turned it over to me for maintenance.  Botnet provides centralized storage of an ACL, allowing a series of separate moderator bots to operate with a common understanding of who is permitted to do what operations.  Aside from some restrictions on the data portion (which are scheduled to be removed), the botnet server does not attempt to interpret or modify the data.  Botnet serves other purposes, but that's the most bot-like purpose.  If you want to get involved using it, there is a protocol specification at http://www.valhallalegends.com/kp/bnsp-latest.txt.

So it is basically like the Microsoft Active Directory service?  It basically just stores user information that various moderator bots can share so that if a person gets banned all the moderator bots will know this?

Skywing and Yoni co-authored BNLS.  It provides the functionality necessary to pass battle.net's logon challenges.  You (the bot author) connect to BNLS and to battle.net.  Tell BNLS what game you want and the version check string battle.net supplied, and BNLS will compute the correct answer for you to pass back.  Same general idea for other parts of the authentication; it can be used to do any or all of the authentication for CD keyed clients.  You will need a BNLS ID (available from Yoni or Skywing) to use it.  See the BNLS protocol specification <http://www.valhallalegends.com/yoni/BNLSProtocolSpec.txt> for more details.

[Edit: fixed up hyperlinks.]

So it is basically just a server that a bot author can use to help with the authentician that battlenet requires?  If so that is all I need to know.

If anyone else has any info on D2GS please post.  Need to learn more.

[Soul Taker]

D2GS is just what people call the servers which all D2 games on Bnet take place on.  When you join/create a D2 game, you connect to a D2GS and all data for the game is sent and recieved to/from it.

[taylorjonl]

D2GS is just what people call the servers which all D2 games on Bnet take place on.  When you join/create a D2 game, you connect to a D2GS and all data for the game is sent and recieved to/from it.

I have seen people reference a D2GSclient.dll and have actually downloaded one such file.  It is of course for v1.09d so not too usefull for me.  I am just wondering if someone out there has any documentation available on what functions are inside and what I can possibly use it for.  It would basically just save my time so I don't have to try to figure out what functions I can use instead of rewriting my own...

Such as battlenet packet compression/decompression.