Client mods analyzer

Hello people of Sponge,

I would like to ask/suggest something that would be really useful for server administrators and moderators related to client mods. Well, let’s say that there is a suspicious player that server staff think uses x-ray mod (wich is illegal). I was wondering if Sponge will or could be able to analyze the mods installed over the client, and deactivate illegal mods.

Regards!

3 Likes

Unfortunately it won’t be very efficient as the client could just remove the prohibited mods/plugins from the list of installed mods sent to the server.

Forge is going to support Vanilla(non-forge clients) to join the server, we can’t touch those clients. Not every player wants to modify their client so they can join a server.

1 Like

I fail to see how xray mods are illegal. Only ones built with intent to crash servers or to cause severe latency to them are illegal.

3 Likes

I remember the days when everyone had modded clients and it was socially accepted on majority of server. Now if you see someone with a modded client, everyone treats it like witch craft and shuns them…

First server on MC I joined was a public survival, everyone, including the admins recommended me to get Zombe’s mod pack and even took the time to show me how to get it. Now, everyone is trying so hard to get rid or banish any modded client they see on a server…

1 Like

So true. Why cant i use PvP cheats on PvP server? … Yeah. It really depends on what that modded client is doing.

2 Likes

I’m playing minecraft multiplayer since 2011 and I’ve always had the client modded. But always respecting the rules of the corresponding server wich I play on. Many servers have its rules and its own game style, included the one I manage. There are lots of servers, If someone doesn’t like to play with the rules and style one offers, then search another server, that simple.

Particularly, my server only allows to use those mods that doesn’t give you advantages over other players.

3 Likes

You can’t analyze their clients. And everything the server sends to clients can be used to them. So x-ray is in fact totally legit. Hmm, Maybe we could make a plugin that disguise ores with stone when their isn’t air attached to the current block. But ya that consumes server resources of course. Also counts for other things that can be exploit.

Disguising ores will affect those users that doesn’t have x-ray installed?

Not really, they can’t see these blocks :). For them I would just send the correct block the moment they start digging the stone block next to it.

Oh, that would be a really great idea then. I wonder if there is already a Bukkit plugin that offers this functionality.

Same here! First multiplayer server I went on, was in like 2012 or 2011. People helped me get zombe’s fly mod, which was really cool. Now, even talking about fly mods can get you banned on some servers. It’s rediculous but sort of understandable for some servers.

Having forms of x-ray mods on the client can be useful for admining purposes, like when you are copy/cut and pasting (moving) stuff around on the server, it can allow you to see if you got everything in the copy by allowing you to look for the players underground structures.

I started my server back in 2010 and had very loose rules when it came to flying on the server, as long as they didn’t set like 4-5x plus speed on it I was generally ok with it.

As for the rules that I have on my server, I usually allow flying on it, for my vip players(The more long term / trusted players on my server.). They can use either zombe or classic style flying by either classic mode or the /fly command for flight. I’d prefer them to use classic style flying over zombe though. However I wouldn’t really want them to use ore finding x-ray on the server.

I can still see how some server’s wouldn’t want their players to use fly on their servers, as it can lag their servers if they set a very high fly speed on their client, it’s possible to set a fly speed so high on zombe that you can fly 100 units in about 1-2 seconds flat, at least you can limit that speed by using classic style flying on the server. Also pregenerating the world on the server can help with lag if they happen to use fly in an area that otherwise wouldn’t have been generated.

2 Likes

I was under the impression that Spigot already had the functionality to disguise ores. In the spigot settings, there is settings for it, and from what I’ve seen on my server, seems to work decently enough. If I’m not mistaken, it only disguises the ores when the chunk data is initially sent and when it’s reloaded. If you alter a block and insert an ore without reloading the chunk after, x-ray can still see it.

I’d be willing to say that the guys from Spigot working on Sponge may want to re-implement that feature again at some point, although maybe not immediately.

I think he meant that, per certain server rules, x-ray mods are illegal. In other words, some servers have rules against x-ray mods and it would be nice if those servers could choose to analyze a client’s installed mods for such mods. The bukkit approach was a number of server mods which fought x-raying… such as Orbfuscator.

This idea could be extrapolated to other types of mods as well though if a server wanted to ban other types of mods.

I don’t like the idea personally, but this is what he’s getting at I think.

It has the bukkit plugin Orbfuscator built-in and optimized.

1 Like

Does the server send the client the world chunk by chunk or block by block?

If it’s by block why not just not send any ores until a block beside them is updated?

I think ore obfuscaters generally work that way, and I think chunk by chunk. It likely loops through the blocks in a chunk and replaces the data for ore blocks with stone blocks unless there’s air/water/lava next to it.

That is where the inefficiencies come from, if it’s doing possessing by chunk then stopping to check each block adds a lot of time to the posses. I just figured if it was possessing each block anyway it might actually speed things to skip some, but it doesn’t do it by block, so my point was moot. (or is moot, IDK, I can’t grammar, I can barley English)

I feel like it does it once, then caches or saves it off some where, then only changes a chunk if some is doing something in that chunk. I could be wrong im just infering from what would make sense, to me at least…