Alternatives to MMDB?

[dstromberg2]

Given the recent troubles with the Minetest Mod DataBase (see here), I did a little digging, and saw that there are configuration settings which allow changing the endpoints where the client looks to populate the Online Mod Repository screen (modstore_download_url, etc in minetest.conf).

So my questions are a) Are there currently any other options set up for the mod listings that work with the Minetest client? and b) Is there an API reference some place if somebody wanted to set up an alternative? I can probably put together definitions for this, but I wanted to check if there was an official document somewhere

I don't necessarily think we should be abandoning ship on the MMDB, but it would be nice to have some alternatives ready to go if something happens again in the future. Considering that the previous problem was not resolved for months, as well as the huge importance of mods and easy access to them for the success of Minetest, I think it would be much better to be able to tell users to swap out a couple lines in the conf and have a working mod repo, rather than just saying "oh well".

[rubenwardy]

It makes me very angry how this problem has gone unfixed for months. Whilst I am a developer of MMDB, and I have write access to the repo, no one will tell me what the problem is other than vague details, or give me error logs so I can see.

MMDB is a rewrite of my project, Minetest Extensions. Minetest Extensions was the first project I ever wrote using databases, and the first one I wrote that used PHP, so it was a bit terrible. It is not compatible with the ingame store, and is not hosted anywhere.

[TG-MyinaWD]

I probably make an site where ppl can register an domain for an minetest page or something like so.

I already have my Reseller Account working so I can get an cpanel up and running in 10s flat.

Only problem overall is, users need wait until I push out the domain register string and API..

Other then that I think each player should have about 10GB Of Diskspace and, 15GB Of Bandwidth. With the power to run 5 subdomains.

But, alternative MMDB Should be possible to do on it. If was to add an define search box. like %userdomain%.%domain-or-tld%

But that the thing, SQL might be needed.

Needless saying.. I will look into my Minetest Web Hosting Service. Just gotta make an new Logic Domain Input on my Reseller Account Database.

But all I know I just install the mods from the forum basicly.

[rubenwardy]

The MMDB is going to be moved soon to another host, thexyz is no longer willing to host it on his server. Progress at least, it should be working again soon (maybe a week or so)

[dstromberg2]

That is good to hear about moving hosts. Are you looking into scalable/cloud/PaaS options? I am more than willing to help out with any of that if you would like.

[dstromberg2]

]Other then that I think each player should have about 10GB Of Diskspace and, 15GB Of Bandwidth. With the power to run 5 subdomains.

15gb transfer per month might be a little low for a site like this, as it has to serve up downloads for all of the mods. Some quick back of the envelope calculations gives me around 50k unique downloads per month on those limits, which is just for the downloads, not including site views, uploads, etc. I'm not sure what kind of traffic the current site is getting (or would be getting if it were regularly active), but once you get above 1000 users in a month you will likely start to have issues with that kind of bandwidth limit. It might be beneficial for keeping a semi-private repository, though.

[Sokomine]

A link to Krock's mod search might be more helpful than the MMDB in its current stage. It's too much work to enter a mod into the database and to fill out all by hand, even for one own's mods, let alone that of other modders. The mod search page above gets its information from pasring the forum topics. It is currently the only way to actually *find* a mod.

[Baggypants]

What might be useful is to go down the repository route like ppa's for apt packages or RPM repos for Fedora. People can then curate their own collections, publish a url and then that can be added to Minetest. Mods would need to include their own metadata and screenshots which would mean a descriptor file, (html, xml or json) that minetest could then read and display in it's store.

[rubenwardy]

I like the idea of a flexible package system - mmdb could just work as a web interface for it. Mods can already use a mod.conf file to supply a mod name. That's the file that should be used.

[Baggypants]

I like the idea of a flexible package system - mmdb could just work as a web interface for it. Mods can already use a mod.conf file to supply a mod name. That's the file that should be used.

That's absolutely the file that shouldn't be used because a billionty existing mods will break everything,

[rubenwardy]

Why shouldn't it be used? That file was added to store meta data such as author, versions and URLs. (Although none of that has been standardised or utilised)

Nothing would be broken.