Phantasmal Site > Installing Baseline Phantasmal

(soon to be updated, kotaka's install script can also handle phantasmal pretty well with a little tweaking.)

Before you install Phantasmal, make sure that you read the README file included. You can find it in the top level directory.

To get Phantasmal running, you need to do three things. Get DGD installed, then install Phantasmal, and finally, there will be some administrative stuff to do when you log into the MUD for the first time.

Getting DGD Up and Running

Before you can do anything else, you'll need DGD up and running. Before you can do that, you'll need to know which version you need. Your copy of Phantasmal probably came with a file called TESTED_VERSIONS in its root directory. That's a text file, which will say something like "DGD 1.2.90-1.2.93". That means you'll need a recent experimental DGD, something between 1.2.90 and 1.2.93. So pick your version of DGD with this in mind. You may also be running other things that require a specific DGD version.

Usually you'll unpack DGD and patch it (see instructions elsewhere on how to create an experimental copy of DGD). If you're running something other than Linux or OS X, you'll need to modify src/Makefile. Specifically, you'll need to change the HOST variable to something reasonable. For instance, old copies of Linux will use the 'LINUX' value. Check the DGD documentation for details if the default doesn't work for you. Then go into the 'src' directory and type 'make install'. You'll get an error message on installation, and a message saying that the error is being ignored. That's normal if you haven't built DGD before in the same directory, or if you deleted the old copy of bin/driver last time. It's not a problem, which is why the error is ignored.

Then, you'll need to test the Kernel Library and make sure it works. You'll need to modify 'mud.dgd'. Specifically, find the "directory = <blah>" line, and replace the old "blah" value with the right thing for wherever you've put DGD. You'll need to use an absolute path, not a relative path, so start with a slash or a drive letter, not a dot or a directory name.

Type "./bin/driver mud.dgd" if you're on Unix, or "bin\driver mud.dgd" on Windows. DGD should tell you what version you're using, along with a message telling you that it initialized. Then it'll hang there. That's expected -- that's what your MUD server usually looks like when it's running.

Telnet to your local machine, port 6047. You should get a login prompt. Log in as "admin" (set the new password to whatever you like, it won't matter soon), and type 'who'. You should see that you're logged in. Typing 'people' will tell you a bit more. You can find out more about the Kernel MUDLib user commands if you check the web or ask around a little. For now, don't bother — you'll be using Phantasmal soon anyway.

Getting Phantasmal Up and Running

Different versions of Phantasmal may have different steps. When in doubt, check the INSTALL file in the root directory of your Phantasmal directory. However, the steps below are typical for current non-bundled Phantasmal installation.

To install Phantasmal, you'll need to put the Kernel Library headers into place. The easiest way to do that is to copy all the headers from mud/include/kernel in the Kernel Library into the include/kernel directory of Phantasmal. It's possible to symbolically link them, but I wouldn't bother if I were you. When you upgrade the Kernel Library, just copy the new headers into place. Note that you'll need to upgrade the Kernel Library when you upgrade DGD, at least if the new DGD version has a different version of the Kernel Library.

You'll also need to put the rest of the necessary Kernel Library code into place. If you're on a Unix box, this can be a good opportunity to use symbolic links. If you're in Phantasmal's kernel subdirectory (usually called something like mudlib/kernel or phantasmal-0.016/kernel), and your DGD installation is at a location called /usr/local/dgd, you'd type ln -s /usr/local/dgd/mud/kernel/data . to symbolically link DGD's kernel/data directory to act as Phantasmal's kernel/data directory. You'll need to do this with all four subdirectories of kernel — sys, lib, obj and data.

If you're not on a Unix box or don't want to use symbolic links, you can instead copy the directories into their new locations. Note that upgrading DGD can be error-prone in either case, and that you may need to do it slightly differently if you copy than if you symbolically link. See the PROBLEMS file in the root of your DGD installation for further details.

Speaking of the PROBLEMS file, make sure to check it if you're having problems installing. That's what it's there for.

You're also going to need to edit phantasmal.dgd so that it works right. Specifically, you're going to need to edit the 'directory' entry, the one that says to replace it with your absolute path. You'll need to replace it with the absolute path to your copy of Phantasmal.

It needs an absolute path, not a relative one. You should *not* use the tilde (~) variable on Unix in the path, just use a straight-up path like "/usr/bob/code/phantasmal".

I like to make a couple of extra convenience files as well. Specifically, I'll usually link to the dgd/bin directory in my Phantasmal directory, so instead of running the MUD by typing "/home/angelbob/code/dgd/bin/driver ./phantasmal.dgd", I can just type "./bin/driver phantasmal.dgd". It's up to you whether you want to do something similar, put DGD's driver in your path, write a script to run DGD for you or what.

I also copy the DGD API documentation into my doc directory. Specifically, I copy DGD's "doc/kernel" and "doc/kfun" stuff into the same places under Phantasmal for easy use. Again, you may or may not want to.

Once You Can Run Phantasmal

If you've followed the instructions above faithfully, you should have a running copy of Phantasmal, which you can access by telnetting to port 8888 of your local machine. If you then login as admin and type "help" you'll find yourself face to face with a pretty daunting amount of online help. We consider this a Good Thing (tm).

However, before doing all of that, make yourself a non-admin account. It's good to have accounts for admins other than just the single lone "admin" account, because you'd like to have separate space to work in, different privilege levels for different accounts, and the ability to have more than one admin log in at once. Good things all.

First, log in and create your new account. Just give the name of the new account when it asks for the login name, and then pick a new password when it asks you to. Then, from the admin account (not the new one, the old one), type grant <name> access, but replace <name> with the actual account name you just made for the new admin. Don't put it in the greater-than and less-than signs, that's just to show you what to replace. The line above makes the account an admin account. That is, it makes it possible for it to have admin privileges, though it doesn't actually give them any.

Then (no, we're not done yet), still from the old admin account, type grant <name> / full. Replace <name> again with the same thing. This grants the new admin account full read-write-admin access (that's what "full" means in the command line above) to the root directory of your MUD (that's why it's a slash, above — that means the very top-level directory). So the new admin gets full-power access to every file in your MUD. Don't give admin access to somebody you don't trust. Also, back up your MUD regularly, especially if you're giving admin access to people that may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer... They can mess up your MUD by incompetence just as easily as malice. Easier, usually.

What Now?

Well, you have the online help mentioned above (please note that the help for admin and non-admin accounts is different — don't be surprised when you notice). Phantasmal's web site, the one you're looking at, also includes a wide range of Tutorials and similar documentation, which are highly recommended. This stuff has all been written — use it.