Viscosity

WTF is this?

Solving the issue of proxy <—-> server communication.
Intended to be a drop in, no configuration replacement for socket communication.

The current solutions:

Sockets

• Requires a new port to be opened
• Can be messy and difficult to maintain/setup.
• (GOOD) Allows for more refined firewalling/access control.

PluginMessages

• (KEY ISSUE) Requires a player connection to communicate
• (GOOD) it’s an already established protocol inside Minecraft itself.

Some sort of message queue/database

• Requires additional services to carry out what should be a simple task.
• Potential abuse of services to perform tasks that they’re not intended for.

Viscosity’s solution:

• Requires little to no setup.
• No additional services/ports required.
• Doesn’t need a player connection.

How?

Viscosity uses websockets on the already open and configured port of the minecraft server.

This allows for a minimal configuration, and the avoidance of several issues outlined above.

Setup

(Yet to be implemented)

1. Install all bukkit plugins (Viscosity and ProtocolLib).
2. Install all bungee plugins (Viscosity).
3. Join the proxy and server you wish to configure.
   • Multiple proxies can be configured by carrying out these steps on each proxy.
4. Type /viscosity configure
   • This will automatically exchange the security tokens required for the proxy and server to communicate.
   • You’ll need the permission (on bukkit) viscosity.configure
5. To configure all servers in your network you can type /viscosity configure all.
   • Ensure you have the viscosity.configure permission on all servers.
6. Voila! Any plugins that rely on Viscosity

TODO

• Allow proxy <—-> proxy communication
  • This will be move involved since these details aren’t already used.
• WebSocket binary data.
  • Currently all data is turned into JSON.