MatchDog is a FIBS bot. It can invite and accept invitations from other players or bots on FIBS and play matches with them. It uses the gnubg backgammon evaluation engine as backend.
Bots are allowed on FIBS but if you want to run one, the best is to check with the site administrator. If you abuse FIBS, you will be banned.
FEATURES
- several preconfigured users can be stored
- run MatchDog in multiple instances
- select user with command line argument
- autologin option
- keep track of saved games
- resume saved matches
- a list of 5 preferred players and match lengths (for auto invite)
- RepBot integration: check players' reputation before accepting invitation
- crawford rule handling
- separate user settings (true or false) for:
- automatically invite preferred players
- automatically invite players when they log in if there is a saved match
- automatically join an invitation for a saved match
- automatically join an invitation (if this is true, then opponent experience and reputation is considered before joining)
- opponent experience divider:
the following must be true to accept an invitation:
[match length] < [opponent experience] / [opponent experience divider] - opponent reputation limit: the opponent's reputation reported by RepBot must be greater than this limit
- primitive chatbot: replies something silly when talked to
- manual (runtime) switching of a number of settings currently including:
- autojoin, autoinvite, crawford
- option to send commands to fibs/gnubg/gnubg socket from command line
- timeout for inactivity
- player statistics - keeps detailed log of all games and matches (including dropped ones with detail on all drops/resumes)
- statistics writer - write to stdout or file
- statistics uploader - upload player statistics file to ftp server and send url to user on request
- preconfigurable user preferences include settings for:
- fibs user name and password
- a list of 5 preferred players (opponents on fibs)
- autologin to fibs
- maximum match length (when accepting invitations)
- autoinvite preferred players
- autoinvite for saved matches
- autojoin for saved mathces
- autojoin
- gnubg checkquer play ply
- gnubg cube decision ply
- gnubg noise
- gnubg movefilters
REQUIREMENTS
OS: However MatchDogServer is written completely in Java and is a console program (without GUI), it has only been tested in a bash shell of a Debain Linux box. It will probably run in other Linux distributions and it will most likekly NOT run in MS Windows (cmd.exe).
Java: I used the 1.6 update 3 release of the JDK to write and test the program. It will probably also work with any 1.5 release of JRE but has not been tested with any earlier release.
GNU Backgammon:
In order to successfully run the program you should be able to run gnubg.
MatchDogServer will run the gnubg binary with -q -t options (silent, no gui). Give
full path to the binary in config/matchdog.prefs (see matchdog.prefs.sample).
MatchDogServer should be able to open and also to connect
to a socket on the localhost on the port number specified
in config/matchdog.prefs.
MatchDog has been tested with gnubg 1.04.000 and 1.05.002. Since there were changes to the external interface since, it's not guaranteed to work with versions above.
FIBS:
MatchDog's FIBS player must have set boardstyle: 3 and use the following toggle settings
to work correctly with MatchDog:
autoboard YES
autodouble NO
automove NO
bell NO
crawford YES
double NO
greedy NO
moreboards YES
moves NO
notify YES
ratings YES
ready YES
report YES
silent NO
telnet YES
wrap NO
SETUP
NOTE!
Specify global parameters in config/matchdog.prefs
and at least one user in config/[n].pprefs before running.
See comments in config/0.pprefs.sample
Also, for the 'show log' function to work, the first five
variables in the included ftpupload.sh file need to be set.
COMPILE
One way to compile the sources on a Linux a system is to
change directory to [PROJECT_ROOT]/bin
(or create it if necessary) and issue the following
three commands in a bash shell (assuming that the java
binaries are on the path):
javac -d . ../src/jcons/src/com/meyling/console/*.java
javac -d . ../src/etc/TorExitNodeChecker.java
javac -d . ../src/matchdog/*.java
Make sure files compile without errors. Ignore 'Notes' from jcons.
USAGE
On a Linux a system, change directory to [PROJECT_ROOT]/bin where the compiled java .class
files are located and issue the following command in a bash shell
(assuming that the java binaries are on the path):
java matchdog/MatchDogServer N [0|1]
where N is the index number of the player preferences object
in the player map.
There must be at least one user preferences object instantiated and put in the players map at index 0.
If no command line parameter is given or not a number is given or there is no user preferences object at that index of the map, the default user at index 0 is used.
By default, MatchDog prints an awful lot of information about what's going on to stdout with console escape sequences to colour text and background to differentiate where the information came from and also accepts user input from stdin to control various things in the server while it's running, mostly for debugging purposes. By passing 0 as a second command line argument, stdin and stdout are not attached and MatchDog runs silently.
When i_listenerport in the user pprefs file is set to a valid port number,
MatchDog will expose that port on the host machine if it is permitted to do so and
accept connections on it. This allows for remote monitoring or controlling of the bot.
Example gnubg initialisation command sequence
set threads 8 # number of cpu cores this instance will use
set eval sameasanalysis off
set evaluation chequer eval plies 3
set evaluation cubedecision eval plies 3
set evaluation movefilter 1 0 0 16 0.320
set evaluation movefilter 2 0 0 16 0.320
set evaluation movefilter 3 0 0 16 0.320
set evaluation movefilter 3 2 0 4 0.080
set evaluation movefilter 4 0 0 16 0.320
set evaluation movefilter 4 2 0 4 0.080
external localhost:xxxx # this causes gnubg to expose the external interface and will accept user input via the API