View source for HaloNet Halo CE and PC Map repo

'''Halo CE and PC Map repository'''

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The map repository at HaloNet.Net is available here: http://maps.halonet.net/maplist.php

That location is where HAC2 downloads it's maps, so if there is a map missing, please submit it.

As of May 2024, all HaloNet.Net web infrastructure is served by CloudFlare. I have created multiple load-balanced back-end web servers, and two off-site bare-metal backups, one in Manhattan, the second in Frankfurt. All HAC2 requests will go through CloudFlare after May 2024. 

The map repo is housed in an on-site 3-node VMware cluster, with battery backup. The off-site backup servers are used only when the main site is off-line. Time to switch over is less than a minute. 

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As of July 2019, I will be providing both .zip and .7z compressed map files. Legacy HAC2 will continue to download .zip files. New Halo CE/PC mods are welcome to use a new protocol to download maps, detailed here: https://halonet.net/wiki/index.php/HaloNet_Map_Download_Protocol

There will be two storage locations. 

- HAC2 or other mod downloads. These .zip, .7z, or .inv (invader-compress) files will not include the README.txt or image files. They will contain ONLY the .map file. Generally, this location is not advertised, but is available. In the case of invader-compress files, the format can only handle a valid map file as a single stream.

- http://maps.halonet.net/maplist.php - These files will contain the original .map files with mismatching names, warts and all. If a README.txt or image files were supplied, they will be in this download. Maps that may have their internal names fixed, or size zeroed in the header, or other modifications, are not available here. These maps will be the originals as downloaded from various map sites or provided to me by Btcc22/Chaosvex or sehe. Newer maps that were submitted directly to me will be retained as supplied.

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'''Guidelines for submitting maps to the HaloNet.Net map repo'''

- New maps should not include alt-codes or spaces in the name. If you have an older map to submit, I'll deal with it, but only on an as-needed basis. 

- (Optional) Include a README.txt in the file with a map description, including recommended/supported game types.

- (Optional) Provide images of the map to be included in the map list details in JPG format. Name the files map1.jpg, map2.jpg, etc., up to a max of 10 images.

- Supplied files, such as the README.txt and images will NOT be available in the .zip of .7z files in the map download repo. 

Contact me on Discord to arrange a submission. Join the HaloNet.Net discord server here: https://discord.gg/sbSwAR8

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'''More notes on the map repo'''

In June, 2019, I have set the internal names in all map files to match the filename. There were over 90 maps (out of over 5000) where the internal name did not match the filename, so were unusable. These have been fixed.

Furthermore, there were some maps that had "alt-code" characters in them that made them difficult to host in a way that was available for most. These maps have been "fixed" and are now downloadable, but the names have changed slightly. 

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There is a bug in stock Halo, both server and client, where a large map over a certain size, 200MB+ or so, would do two things:

- Cause Halo to leak file descriptors. If a server was up long enough, and kept playing these large maps for extended periods of time, file descriptors could be exhausted.

- Cause Halo to ignore the internal name of the map. Because most of the mismatched name maps were larger than the cutoff, the name mismatch was not noticed. However, because the bug is fixed in HSE®, HAC2, and possibly Chimera, these large maps would have been unplayable. 

The solution to everything is to zero out the size in the map header, but I have been reluctant to do this to the HAC2 repo for now. If anyone cares to discuss it with me, please do.