I’ve gone dark for quite a bit due to other projects, but wanted to put a post up on several issues which temporarily stalled my OpenSim efforts. My main goal here is to ensure others don’t run into these AND for someone to post links on better approachs/solutions.
I got OpenSim stood-up and running on Debian Linux. I then sorted out how to configure the terrain to my purposes and setup physics. Using the client estate editing tools I also sorted out how to build/apply custom terrain textures (haven’t posted on this yet, there are some good resources out there though).
Then I invited a few friends from SL to come on over and start building. This is when I started to run into very practical problems. The main issues were around avatar and object persistance across OpenSim upgrades and restarts. The first issue I ran into is somehow I had not setup persistance of objects in the world. Things were built, but when I restarted the server one day, it was all lost.
Test #1: Test object persistance with a friend. Get another avatar in your world. Build a few things together. Leave. Restart the server. Login and see if things are still there. Do this early before you create a master piece.
Secondly, when upgrading, I had used the default MSSQL for persistance. I don’t really know how to manage MSSQL or have any confidence that if I backed up the data I could script my way through a schema change if needed. So, I tried to move from MSSQL to MySQL which is more familiar territory for me. This looked like it was going to be a major scripting effort and I could not find any tools that existed to do this. So, once again I scrubbed my sim as part of the upgrade to get to MySQL.
Test #2 Test database backup/restore. Once you have confirmed suggestion #1, create a backup of the stores. Try to spin up a new instance of OpenSim using these stores. See if you can do it.
I haven’t had time to do this yet, but it will be a real issue if I start inviting several SecondLifer friends into my SIM only to have them loose everything during some upgrade. I expect there are some solutions to this problem which have been built mainly by other grid providers like OSGrid and the like, but nothing quickly found in a web search. Send me info if you have it :-).
Finally, I ran into a physics problem which required me to rebuild ODE on Debian Linux in order to get up to date with the latest OpenSim trunk. This exercise and subsequent debugging was where I had to leave it. I finally decided to wait a few months and then do a clean install/upgrade. It was a far cry from the fun of building out your own sim.
No surprise, but OpenSim is still early days.