InSim Tutorials

Information

The Tutorials section is meant to become a collection of tutorials on how to connect to InSim using various programming languages. I know that of course there are lots of precompiled software packages (like JInSim for Java, FullMotion.LiveForSpeed for C# and so on) on the LfSForum and lots of them are also very good, but you do not really learn how to use InSim if you use precompiled packages. So each section of this page should be for one programming language and should contain the following subsections:

1. Datatypes
2. How to build/parse packets
3. Connecting to InSim
4. Disconnecting from InSim
5. Easy example

Tutorials

Tutorials are available for the following programming languages:

PHP5

InSim Relay usage information

The InSim Relay is a service that can connect to your LFS host via InSim and relay the InSim information sent by your host, to anyone who connects to the InSim Relay. This relayed data can be used by programmers for various things, such as the LFS Remote (remote viewing / adminning of a race) and race-tracking to store race information and statistics.

To have your host connected to the Relay, see this page on LFS World: http://www.lfsworld.net/?win=hosts&whichTab=insim_relay

The rest of this document is only for programmers who want to know how to connect to the InSim Relay, so they can make use of the available data.

Connecting to the InSim Relay

The Relay code below can be seen as an extension to the regular InSim protocol, as the packets are constructed in the same manner as regular InSim packets and use their own identifiers.

Connect your client to isrelay.lfs.net:47474 with TCP. After you are connected you can request a list of hosts, so you can see which hosts you can connect to. Then you can send a packet to the Relay to select a host. After that the Relay will send you all insim data from that host.

Some hosts require a spectator password in order to be selectable.

You do not need to specify a spectator password if you use a valid administrator password.

If you connect with an administrator password, you can send just about every regular InSim packet there is available in LFS, just like as if you were connected to the host directly. For a full list, see end of document.

Packet types used for the Relay

#define IRP_HLR		252	// Send : To request a hostlist
#define IRP_HOS		253	// Receive : Hostlist info
#define IRP_SEL		254	// Send : To select a host
#define IRP_ERR		255	// Receive : An error number

To request a hostlist from the Relay, send this packet :

struct IR_HLR // HostList Request
{
	byte	Size;		// 4
	byte	Type;		// IRP_HLR
	byte	ReqI;
	byte	Sp0;
};

That will return (multiple) packets containing hostnames and some information about them

The following struct is a sub packet of the IR_HOS packet

struct HInfo // Sub packet for IR_HOS. Contains host information
{
	char	HName[32];	// Name of the host
	
	char	Track[6];	// Short track name
	byte	Flags;		// Info flags about the host - see NOTE 1) below
	byte	NumConns;	// Number of people on the host
};

// NOTE 1)
#define HOS_SPECPASS		1	// Host requires a spectator password
#define HOS_LICENSED		2	// Bit is set if host is licensed
#define HOS_S1		        4	// Bit is set if host is S1
#define HOS_S2		        8	// Bit is set if host is S2

struct IR_HOS // Hostlist (hosts connected to the Relay)
{
	byte	Size;		// 4 + NumHosts * 40
	byte	Type;		// IRP_HOS
	byte	ReqI;		// As given in IR_HLR
	byte	NumHosts;	// Number of hosts described in this packet

	HInfo	Info[6];	// Host info for every host in the Relay. 1 to 6 of these in a IR_HOS
};

To select a host in the Relay, send this packet :

struct IR_SEL // Relay select - packet to select a host, so relay starts sending you data.
{
	byte	Size;		// 68
	byte	Type;		// IRP_SEL
	byte	ReqI;		// If non-zero Relay will reply with an IS_VER packet
	byte	Zero;		// 0

	char	HName[32];	// Hostname to receive data from - may be colourcode stripped
	char	Admin[16];	// Admin password (to gain admin access to host)
	char	Spec[16];	// Spectator password (if host requires it)

};

If you specify a wrong value, like invalid packet / hostname / adminpass / specpass, the Relay returns an error packet :

struct IR_ERR
{
	byte	Size;		// 4
	byte	Type;		// IRP_ERR
	byte	ReqI;		// As given in RL_SEL, otherwise 0
	byte	ErrNo;		// Error number - see NOTE 2) below
};

// NOTE 2) Error numbers :
#define IR_ERR_PACKET1          1    // Invalid packet sent by client (wrong structure / length)
#define IR_ERR_PACKET2          2    // Invalid packet sent by client (packet was not allowed to be forwarded to host)
#define IR_ERR_HOSTNAME         3    // Wrong hostname given by client
#define IR_ERR_ADMIN            4    // Wrong admin pass given by client
#define IR_ERR_SPEC             5    // Wrong spec pass given by client
#define IR_ERR_NOSPEC           6    // Spectator pass required, but none given

Regular insim packets that a relay client can send to host :

For anyone
TINY_VER
TINY_PING
TINY_SCP
TINY_SST
TINY_GTH
TINY_ISM
TINY_NCN
TINY_NPL
TINY_RES
TINY_REO
TINY_RST
TINY_AXI

Admin only
TINY_VTC
ISP_MST
ISP_MSX
ISP_MSL
ISP_MTC
ISP_SCH
ISP_BFN
ISP_BTN

The relay will also accept, but not forward
TINY_NONE // for relay-connection maintenance

List of escape codes

^v - |
^a - *
^c - :
^d - \
^s - /
^q - ?
^t - "
^l - <
^r - >

^L = Latin 1 (CP1252)
^G = Greek (ISO-8859-7)
^C = Cyrillic (CP1251)
^J = Japanese (Shift-JIS)
^E = Central Europe (ISO-8859-2)
^T = Turkish (ISO-8859-9)
^B = Baltic (ISO-8859-13)
^H = Traditional Chinese (CP936)
^S = Simpified Chinese (CP949)
^K = Korean (CP950)

^0 - Black
^1 - Red
^2 - Light green
^3 - Yellow
^4 - Blue
^5 - Purple
^6 - Light blue
^7 - White
^8 - Dark green (default)
^9 - Original text colour and codepage.