Question about VAC (secure servers) and Bots

[Boondoggler]

First of all I will state that I am running mEAn bot admin mod , and the podbot 2.6mm version developed and circulated through the other forum. After observing and manualy banning a few hackers lately I was looking into making my server secure. My question is can I run my server as a secure server, or will VAC see however the bot's "hook" or how they select targets as a hack? I read a little bit on VAC but they dont seem to want to share how it works over at counter-server, so not sure if it works only from client side scanning their hard drive or what. I would try my server out just to check but I don't exactly know how the warning that a hack has been detected, or have the desire to get my server key banned by VAC. Thanks in advance for any input.

[Onno Kreuzinger]

you should start using Cheating-Death, i operate a server on a daily basis, and heck w/o CD i bann aroung 6-8 ppls per evening. with CD i banned 25 in 4 month. and since the last CD update the cheat coders seem to be lazy or very carefull, atleast no public cheat for CD is known this days (acctually there is one, but does only work for very few people and adds only lamert and model gfx efects, no Aimbot).
VAC sufferts from too infrequent updates and the need to re-download the vac module from the server on each mapchange (which leads to slow clients having to reconnect because the get a time out, very contraproductive).

cheers
(p.s. both do work with metamod and bots, even on linux)

/pps:
your server has no cd key, running a server s for free (apart the server and bandwith you donate to the valve software users (players))
and vac is enabled by deafault you are most probably using it allready

[rob]

VAC doesnt detect bots or meanmod as a hack

[sPlOrYgOn]

CD... i never like joining those servers... so annoying.. gotta dl a program and make it load halflife and all...
I always have VAC on with podbots and all..
no problem here..

[Nova]

you should start using Cheating-Death, i operate a server on a daily basis, and heck w/o CD i bann aroung 6-8 ppls per evening. with CD i banned 25 in 4 month. and since the last CD update the cheat coders seem to be lazy or very carefull, atleast no public cheat for CD is known this days (acctually there is one, but does only work for very few people and adds only lamert and model gfx efects, no Aimbot).
VAC sufferts from too infrequent updates and the need to re-download the vac module from the server on each mapchange (which leads to slow clients having to reconnect because the get a time out, very contraproductive).

cheers
(p.s. both do work with metamod and bots, even on linux)

/pps:
your server has no cd key, running a server s for free (apart the server and bandwith you donate to the valve software users (players))
and vac is enabled by deafault you are most probably using it allready Onno, thats not true any more.
As you know, im part of the steampowered.com mod team, and i have access to the internal message moard there.

VAC has recently been updated roughly EVERY NIGHT, some updates meing minor and some being REALLY big detection routines.

Nick Shaffner from Valve has really been cracking down on hacks, so basically as SOON as a new hack is out its already being detected.

You can see by the amount of people on steampowered.com forums saying "I NVR CH34T BUT I GOT BANNED ! FARK U VALVE UNBAN ME OR I DDOS YOU ASS"

Seb

btw. just have a look at the hlds mailing list, and youll see how often VAC has been updated in the past 2 weeks.

[Onno Kreuzinger]

wow, i did not know ;)
until very recently i allways found quite some cheats for VAC and few for CD.
even the main source for cheats is down ATM...

/edit
i changed my test server now, cause CD pulls down my PC so much, i can "feel" enemies by the lag CD causes when they come close to me....

[rob]

feel hacks

[Boondoggler]

Thank you for your input guys. I thought that VAC was on by default as well but when I did a status in the console my server came up as unsecure. I believe it may be because I dont have the mapchangecfg in my shortcut. Also thanks for pointing out that the server isn't run with the halflife key. I will look into cheating death if VAC doesnt do the trick. Thanks again.

[Onno Kreuzinger]

i learned that VAC is now even more often updated as CD, and since VAC really punishes cheaters i encourage you to use VAC (they ban ~15 000 cheaters a day since they increased the effords massivley).
to activate it in yout liblist.gam add/edit a line
"secure=1"

cheers

[DreamLord34]

if you're running a cs server, you can also install CSBLD which stands for counterstrike blacklist database. It's a blacklist of hackers/cheaters & when this is running on your server & it finds someone that's on it's list, their banned automatically. One thing tho, it's no longer updated as the author has joined up with the HLGuard team. Which means that HLG will have a blacklist of it's own soon.

[Nova]

if you're running a cs server, you can also install CSBLD which stands for counterstrike blacklist database. It's a blacklist of hackers/cheaters & when this is running on your server & it finds someone that's on it's list, their banned automatically. One thing tho, it's no longer updated as the author has joined up with the HLGuard team. Which means that HLG will have a blacklist of it's own soon.
Look at this, VAC update stats:
http://home.covad.net/~k25125/VAC/VAC.htm

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

wow, these guys aren't inactive indeed.