MagicMOTD

A BungeeCord proxy plugin that replaces the MOTD with dynamic messages!

Please note: this plugin is for BungeeCord (or other proxies) ONLY. A Spigot version is on the roadmap for the distant future.

This plugin was inspired by plugins like SwiftMOTD, that allow server operators to serve customised MOTDs to players.

As opposed to SwiftMOTD, the plugin stores the IP to player name map to the disk, so that it is recovered when the server restarts. Additionally, it uses up to date BungeeCord APIs, to avoid deprecation and eliminate the BungeeYAML dependency.

This plugin uses bStats to collect anonymous usage data. You can opt out of this by disabling metrics in bStats' config.yml file. Read their privacy policy here. Your data is only used for the purposes of deciding areas of the plugin to improve.

Features

• Send a random MOTD from a list of MOTDs
• Format the MOTD with colours and formatting codes
• Use templates to display dynamic information
• Force a specific MOTD with a command
• Access and edit the IP to player name database through the plugin API

How does it work?

Magic. (and H2)

I opted to use H2 as it is lighter than SQLite and MapDB. I wanted a single-file DB (but not slow like JSON) to store KV. In the plugin JAR, H2 takes up a little over a megabyte (compared to upwards of 16MB for the other choices).

There are plans to allow for a choice of storage implementation, but for now you'll have to fork the repo if you wish to use a different DB.

When player name detection might not work

• You forgot to enable ip_forward in BungeeCord's config.yml.
• You enabled ping_passthrough in BungeeCord's config.yml.
• Multiple players are using the same IP address (e.g. behind a NAT like a home, school or office network). Other players may see the wrong name in the MOTD.
• The player frequently changes their IP address (e.g. using a VPN or dynamic IP address)
• Your server is behind a reverse proxy (e.g. Cloudflare, ngrok, etc.)

These limitations cannot be overcome, as the plugin has no way of knowing which player is pinging the proxy. It collects their IP when they join, and uses that to determine their name next time they ping the proxy.

Commands

Command	Alias	Description	Permission
/reloadmotd	/rmotd	Reloads the plugin configuration.	magicmotd.reload
/forcemotd [motd index]	/fmotd	Forces the MOTD at the position in the config to be displayed, or stops forcing an MOTD if the argument is blank.	magicmotd.force

Development

Notes:

• This plugin uses Maven to manage dependencies and build the plugin.
• When accessing an attribute of the current class, always use this. to avoid confusion with local variables.

Setup

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/obfuscatedgenerated/MagicMOTD.git

Install the dependencies:

mvn install

Building

To build the plugin, run the following command:

mvn package

The built plugin will be located in the target directory with the name MagicMOTD v<version>.jar.

You can build the javadoc by running:

mvn javadoc:javadoc

The javadoc will be located in the target/site/apidocs directory.

API Usage

The plugin exposes an API for other plugins to use. The API is exposed through the MagicMOTD class.

Getting the API

To use the API, you first need to specify MagicMOTD as a provided dependency in your build system.

Maven:

<!-- in your <repositories> section -->
<repository>
    <id>jitpack.io</id>
    <url>https://jitpack.io</url>
</repository>

<!-- in your <dependencies> section -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.obfuscatedgenerated</groupId>
    <artifactId>MagicMOTD</artifactId>
    <version>VERSION</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

Gradle:

repositories {
    maven { url 'https://jitpack.io' }
}

dependencies {
    compileOnly 'com.github.obfuscatedgenerated:MagicMOTD:VERSION'
}

Using the API

To get the API, you need to get the MagicMOTD instance from the plugin manager and cast it to the API interface. Something along the lines of:

import codes.ollieg.magicmotd.MagicMOTD;

// ...

MagicMOTD api = (MagicMOTD) getProxy().getPluginManager().getPlugin("MagicMOTD");

Then, you can access the PlayerDB by calling api.getPlayerDB(). This returns an instance of PlayerDB:

import codes.ollieg.magicmotd.PlayerDB;

// ...

PlayerDB playerDB = api.getPlayerDB();

For documentation of the available methods, please consult the javadoc.