Why is ComputerCraft and Turtles disabled so often?

[kazagistar]

I very much enjoy CC, it is one of my favorite mods in the Technic pack. Unfortunately, it seems like it is banned on all the nice servers. I had a very difficult time trying to find a nice server that supported turtles, but I eventually gave up.

I am willing to build bukkit mods and mod computercraft itself to make this happen, and I am on good terms with one of the official maintainers. I would really like to know: Why exactly is ComputerCraft such a problem? One of the great benefits of CC is the fact that a server owner can customize the built-in OS to change what users are and are not allowed to do with their computers, and while it is very difficult, a patch could be made to stop any griefing exploits, or even just performance issues.

BTW, if you do know of any current exploits, you might not want to just outright post them. Just give me hints, or PM me. If you don't know, but play on a server that does have CC banned, I would also appreciate it if you could ask your server owners about it. Thanks for the help, and I hope we can move ComputerCraft a little bit further from EE and BC and more towards RP and IC. :D

[disconsented]

It has been reported to be a burden on the load.

[kazagistar]

It has been reported to be a burden on the load.

In what way? In general? If misused/ intentionally abused? When used in large numbers? Are these reports recent? Any details may help.

[VideoBoy]

In what way? In general? If misused/ intentionally abused? When used in large numbers? Are these reports recent? Any details may help.

Well... There's a very serious problem with CC. It's not a glitch or an exploit. I have it on my server because (luckily) nobody has figured it out so far. I'm not gonna say it here to not make the problem worse, but when some asshole posts the details in public many servers will crash. CC is one of my favorite mods as I've been playing with Lua before Minecraft even existed and I would hate to have to remove it.

EDIT: oh and turtles bypass all protections. They can even break personal safes inside Factions claimed territory, at least since the version included in Tekkit 3.

[Neowulf]

Turtles tend to bypass protections because people tend to OP the fakeplayer it uses.

Unfortunately the perturtle fakeplayer setting is incompatible with chat commands, as plugins like residences don't like the spaces in "[ComputerCraft] Turtle #", so owners set it to the single fakeplayer then OP it.

Yes it can bypass certain inventory protection plugins, but only if they have the permission to break blocks in the first place.

The main reason it get disabled is it uses a lot of processing power to run LUA code, which is non-native to java.

A dozen turtles won't bring a server down, but a dozen per person or running inefficient code will generate a lot of lag.

Steps can be taken to mitigate it.

Most permissions plugins allow you to restrict the placement of certain blocks to player groups, so the server admins could create a special group for computercraft using players and only allow people they trust into it. The same has been done on servers with quarries, fillers, and other potentially lag creating machines.

The startup sequence of all computers and turtles can be altered to require a password. Again only distribute this to people who prove they can use CC and not abuse it, and change it weekly or so. Though this will break startup scripts on computers.

Disable crafting of computers and sell them through a chestshop or something similar. Or just hand out a limited number to people looking to use computers, that will breed paranoia as people protect their computers from others stealing them.

[VideoBoy]

Turtles tend to bypass protections because people tend to OP the fakeplayer it uses.

Unfortunately the perturtle fakeplayer setting is incompatible with chat commands, as plugins like residences don't like the spaces in "[ComputerCraft] Turtle #", so owners set it to the single fakeplayer then OP it.

Yes it can bypass certain inventory protection plugins, but only if they have the permission to break blocks in the first place.

The main reason it get disabled is it uses a lot of processing power to run LUA code, which is non-native to java.

A dozen turtles won't bring a server down, but a dozen per person or running inefficient code will generate a lot of lag.

Steps can be taken to mitigate it.

Most permissions plugins allow you to restrict the placement of certain blocks to player groups, so the server admins could create a special group for computercraft using players and only allow people they trust into it. The same has been done on servers with quarries, fillers, and other potentially lag creating machines.

The startup sequence of all computers and turtles can be altered to require a password. Again only distribute this to people who prove they can use CC and not abuse it, and change it weekly or so. Though this will break startup scripts on computers.

Disable crafting of computers and sell them through a chestshop or something similar. Or just hand out a limited number to people looking to use computers, that will breed paranoia as people protect their computers from others stealing them.

I just changed turtle_fakeplayer_method from perturtle to one in the config. Does that mean turtles can't rape protected stuff anymore? I'm gonna go try...

[Neowulf]

That means the turtles will use a single fakeplayer, "[ComputerCraft]", to determine if they can destroy or place a block.

It makes some things easier, mainly players themselves can grant/revoke permission to the computercraft fakeplayer as needed in protected areas, so you don't have to OP it like most servers end up doing.

[VideoBoy]

That means the turtles will use a single fakeplayer, "[ComputerCraft]", to determine if they can destroy or place a block.

It makes some things easier, mainly players themselves can grant/revoke permission to the computercraft fakeplayer as needed in protected areas, so you don't have to OP it like most servers end up doing.

But... how come a turtle with its own name was able to destroy factioned terrain? How do you explain that? My ops.txt file is 0 bytes... :P

[Neowulf]

I don't play with factions so I have no clue. I do no residences on one server I play on gives my poor stripmining fleet of turtles major problems unless I "/res set move true" and "/res set build true", which gives all normal users rights to do it.

And servers with towny have to give rights to turtles for them to work as well.

Check your factions settings and look for default user rights. Someone not in a faction may have the ability to do it as well.

[t0bbage]

In factions.conf

"playersWhoBypassAllProtection": [

"[buildCraft]",

"[industrialCraft]",

"[RedPower]",

"[ComputerCraft]",

"perturtle"

],

To disable ComputerCraft from breaking faction protected land simply remove it and perturtle from this list.

[matejdro]

On our server, we don't treat fake players different than normal players. That means that no automated machine can mine inside any protected area (even it it's yours). It might be a little problematic at first, because every contraption must be built on unprotected zone, but it prevents people using turtles to destroy your home or placing quarry over your house.

[LandmineGT]

Is there a way to prevent [ComputerCraft] from breaking blocks that have been claimed via GriefPrevention?