Starbind is a program to allow easy mod synchronization between clients and servers for the game Starbound.
If you host a Starbound server and would like to allow players to use Starbind to synchronize mods specifically for your server, then follow the Server installation instructions below.
Follow the setup instructions for the Starbind server below and then to run just the Starbind client use:
node app.js
Download the Starbind OSX build and unzip to the directory of your choice. Edit the config.json file with your settings (see below for a description of the settings). Place your mod zip files in the mods directory. Double click the StarboundServer.command file to start the server.
Download the Starbind Windows build and unzip to the directory of your choice. Edit the config.json file with your settings (see below for a description of the settings). Place your mod zip files in the mods directory. Double click the StarbindServer.bat file to start the server.
First, install NodeJS
Once NodeJS is installed, download Starbind using Git:
git clone https://github.com/DougHamil/starbind-server.git
Create a new config.json file in your Starbind directory and modify it with the settings for your server (see below for a description of the settings)
Next, install Starbind NodeJS dependencies with
npm install
And run Starbind with
node app.js server
To easily keep your Starbind server running (and restarting automatically on crashes), forever is a great NodeJS application for doing this. Install forever with:
sudo npm install -g forever
And start Starbind server using forever with:
forever start app.js server
Read more on using forever here
The config.json file contains the various configuration settings available:
PORT: The port for the Starbind server, NOT the same port as your Starbound game server
STARBOUND_INSTALL_DIR: Path to the base of your Starbound game installation
ADMIN_USERNAME: Username for the admin login
ADMIN_PASSWORD: Password for the admin login
SESSION_SECRET: Random string to be used for login sessions
HTTPS_KEY_FILE: Key.pem file for HTTPS, if you want use HTTPS specify the location of the file using the property
HTTPS_CERT_FILE: cert.pem file for HTTPS, if you want to use HTTPS specify the location of the cert.pem file here.
If you leave ADMIN_USERNAME or ADMIN_PASSWORD unset or an empty string, admin login will be disabled. If the HTTPS_KEY_FILE or HTTPS_CERT_FILE properties don't point to valid locations, then Starbind will fall back to HTTP.
To enable admin login you MUST specify ADMIN_USERNAME, ADMIN_PASSWORD, and SESSION_SECRET.
{
"PORT":1337,
"STARBOUND_INSTALL_DIR":"/path/to/starbound",
"ADMIN_USERNAME":"admin",
"ADMIN_PASSWORD":"password",
"SESSION_SECRET":"MySessionSecret"
}
To install a mod on the server, just drop the mod zip file in the mods directory in your Starbind installation directory. Starbind supports the standard mod zip packages and will look for a mod.json metadata file for mod info. Additionally, Starbind does merging and allows for partial mods to base game assets. See mod merging below for more info.
After adding a mod zip folder to the mods directory, you will need to restart Starbind server in order for the changes to be merged in.
At the moment there is no mod manager besides a simple mod package listing available if you set a admin username/password and navigate to the Starbind server on your browser.
By supplying an admin username and password in your config.json file you will be able to login to your Starbind server by pointing your browser to the server. Once logged in, an admin panel is provided with some basic information regarding your server. The admin panel is still in progress as of this writing, but it will list your installed mods and give the option to start your Starbound server, though it is NOT required to start your Starbound server through the Starbind admin panel.
Starbind works with zipped mod packages as most other mod managers. Starbind also supports differential mods to existing game assets meaning a mod can specify a player.config mod and only list the properties that should change. Starbind will read in the existing player.config file from the Starbound/assets directory and merge the change. It will do the same with any conflicting mods.