Internet Configuration

Proper functionality of Galixsys Hub has several dependencies and “best practices” required to see it’s full potential. While the specific operations required have a lot of dependencies outside Galixsys Hub settings, the key care-abouts and actions are listed below.

Internet Connection

It is anticipated most deployments of Galixsys Hub will be on the user’s home network. Even when Galixsys Hub is hosted on an Android device, it is recommend to connect the device to the user’s home network, and use that infrastructure to expose the device to the greater Internet as a whole. A cheaper, wi-fi only Android device that remains on at the user’s home is the anticipated Galixsys Hub host device deployment. While it might be possible to host Galixsys Hub on a cellular-enabled Android device, the cellular network was not developed to host server-enabled devices, and the mobile nature and hence changing of the public IP Address while other Galixsys Communicator enabled devices are connected will cause significant network disruption over a period of time. This may result in a poor “World” experience for members connected.

It is vitally critical to the user experience of others who join the world that the device hosting Galixsys Hub has as strong as possible network connection. A weak or spotty connection will result in a very poor user experience, and may include messages being lost and other undefined behavior. The more concurrent users on the world, the more powerful device hosting Galixsys Hub will be required. No benchmarks or guidelines as to how many concurrent users are possible on what class of device are available at this time as Galixsys Hub is still in an ALPHA state and in development.

ISP Gateway Configuration

Galixsys Hub runs as a server application on-top of a native Web server, using the HTTP protocol. As a server, the ports used must be opened (i.e., a ‘pinhole’) in the gateway supplied by the ISP in order to make the device hosting Galixsys Hub visible on the Internet at large. How this is done is gateway-specific (refer to the ISP provider’s documentation), but is no different than the required steps to host an on-line game for example.

Domain Name Service (DNS) Usage

Although direct IP addressing is possible to Galixsys Hub, if long term World usage is anticipated, it is strongly recommended to get a domain name for your home network’s public IP Address to the outside world, and to maintain that domain name with your public IP Address. That way, when the ISP changes the public IP Address, or if the ISP hardware is updated in the home, only the DNS service needs to be updated with the new public IP Address, and not every device connected to the World. Getting and maintaining a domain name is fairly straight forward, with several router’s offering a free service. A simple web search will yield multiple options on how to acquire and maintain a domain name for the network, some free of charge.

Hosting Multiple Worlds on Separate Devices

Given the lack of server virtualization capability in Android, it is expected that only a single instance of Galixsys Hub will be run on any single device. However, multiple devices may be on the local network with each hosting a different World (i.e., it’s own Galixsys Hub application). Each of these devices would have a different local IP Address but would be seen to have the same public IP Address as in most home networks, the ISP gateway would provide only a single public IP Address. Even if a domain name is used, that will be for the local network at large (via the gateway device). Therefore, if multiple Worlds are desired to be administered on different devices, it is recommended to use a different port range for each local device. These port ranges MUST NOT overlap with each other. Each device uses a base port entered (see “Ports Used” in Create World for details) + the next 3 sequential ports. For example, if World 1 was created with a base port used of “50500”, then the pinholes would need to be created in the gateway router to the device hosting World 1 for 50500, 50501, 50502, 50503. If a second device hosts World 2, then a second pool is needed (say “50510”, which then uses 50510, 50511, 50512, 50513). If a base port of 50501 is for example entered, this would overlap with the port pool of device 1 and cause network disruption on both devices.