The Deny/Allow Commands

Send comments or corrections (only for the HTML version of this file) to Doug Massey (masseyd@valhalla.btv.ibm.com).

You can receive a copy of this file via E-mail by sending your local Judge a message with "get denyallow" in the body.

I've added four commands to the Judge's command list:
	SET ALLOW PLAYER [-]address
	SET DENY PLAYER [-]address
	SET ALLOW MASTER [-]address
	SET DENY MASTER [-]address

where the master of a game can add or remove players from the .ALLOW and
.DENY files for their particular games.  In addition, the JK can use these
commands to add and remove players (or masters) to the Judge .ALLOW and .DENY
lists remotely, by signing on to the CONTROL game, and issuing these commands.
By including the '-' prepender, the listed player will be removed from that
file.

For example, let's say I am Mastering a game DUMMY, and I want to make sure
that Joe@Blow.com can't sign on to the game, I would issue the command:

signon mdummy password
set deny player joe@blow.com

or, let's say I wanted to prevent joe from getting on my judge altogether,
I'd issue the command:

signon mcontrol password
set deny player joe@blow.com

[obviously, if I'm operating locally, it's simpler just to edit the file,
 but you see what I mean.]

The mechanism works as follows:

There are four files which are critical to this mechanism.  They are:

players.ALLOW - this file will contain a list of all players that will be
		allowed to be players on the judge (or game).
players.DENY  - this file will contain a list of all players that are
		barred from playing on this judge (or game).
masters.ALLOW - this file will contain a list of all players that are
		allowed to act as masters on this judge.
masters.DENY  - this file will contain a list of all players that are
		barred from acting as masters on this judge.

When a player signs on to the judge (or onto a game), the judge will:

1) Look for a file players.ALLOW in the judge's directory.  If it finds
it, it will look for this players name.  If it finds it, it will allow the
player to continue.  If it doesn't find the players name, it will not allow
the player to continue.
2) If there is not a players.ALLOW file, it will look for a players.DENY file.
If it finds that, it will look in that file for this player.  It it finds the
name, it will not allow the player to continue.  If it doesn't find the player,
it will allow the player to continue.

This process is identical for signing on to a game, except that the
players.DENY and players.ALLOW files will be looked for in the D
directory.

Similarly, when a player attempts to CREATE a game, the judge will follow the
same algorithm, looking for masters.ALLOW, and masters.DENY files in the
judges directory.

There are several VERY important things to remember take note of:

1) I would recommend using the players.ALLOW file in the main directory
sparingly.  If you only list 5 players in this file, those are the ONLY 5
players that can sign on to the judge.  This is much more useful for the
games file, as this can be used for setting up invitation-only games.  You
create the game, and set up the seven players you want to have in the game,
and those are the only ones that will be allowed in, including Observers.
2) Whenever a change is made to any of the files using the judge, the judge
will save the previous version of the file as .bak.  Currently, only
one player per command can be added.
3) The format of the files is:
=
the '=' is required.
4) If you already have the blacklist file (dip.blist), you will need to copy
it to players.DENY.

Larry Richardson  1/95