GB/HB on Linux

[icu]

My goal is to run multiple WoW instances to protect against a multiple MAC address ban by protecting the accounts with separate MAC addresses.

My idea was to run several Sun VirtualBox (VB) computers each with their own MAC address all running WoW & GB/HB and have all the VB computers running through a proxy server on the host machine.

My failed attempt so far:

I have a Win7 host machine and a WinXP VB machine that I installed WoW on only to run into some unforseen problems. Prior to installing I checked that VB has 3D support and I checked that it can run OpenGL and I checked that WoW can run in OpenGL mode. However I disappointingly have a "World of Warcraft was unable to start up 3D acceleration" dialogue box to greet me when I try to run WoW as an Administrator.

After doing some digging around on Google it seems like I'm not the only person to run into problems trying to get WoW to run in a VB.

My next idea: Ubuntu VB running HB/GB & WoW under Wine

So now I'm looking at a Linux VB PC (for example Ubuntu) and running WoW through Wine which my research shows is possible. However I really don't know if GB/HB will work under Wine and so I turn to the bot community for some ideas and advice.

My questions:

Q1: Has anyone in the GB/HB community successfully run WoW & GB/HB in Linux?

Q2: If so, how did you do it?

Q3: Perhaps there is there a better way to get the same result?

 

[axazol]

GBHB need DotNet libs to work. In theory you can run it on any OS wich can using DotNet libs. It's first.
In second, even if you run multiple clients on different MACs this is not protect you from "same IP" filter. And one more. No matter how much VB you run, you'll stay on same IP and same MAC what linked with your ISP. Coz all your virtual local network work trough your real hardware wich connected to your ISP

IMO

 

[j0achim]

You can do it with VMWare.

Ive used VMWare quite a bit in the past when botting. (when glider did not have background capabilities etc...)


Edit: Not very resource effective way to do it, but it gets the task done. Theres not really anything to explain its a fully virtual machine.

 

[chinajade]

Q1: Has anyone in the GB/HB community successfully run WoW & GB/HB in Linux?

This info was collected about 6 months ago...

I've gotten WoWclient 3.3.5 to run full speed on Linux in OpenGL mode using Wine. The OpenGL cursor pre-4.0.1 was software only which was a little annoying because it made the interface feel a little "rubbery". But the Game ran just great, and subjectively seemed a little snappier than even on Windoze (minus the software cursor problem).

I've also run Sun's VirtualBox, which is a great little emulator. However, I too was unable to get WoW to run under it.

Here's the gotcha...
Honorbuddy can't use OpenGL mode, it must use DirectX9. (This is part of its injection technique.) So, you're basically out of luck unless Wine has finally gotten decent DX9 support.

Q2: If so, how did you do it?

Q3: Perhaps there is there a better way to get the same result?

I have no answers for Q2 and Q3 at this time. I may give it all another shot around Christmas just to see how much progress has been made.

Even if its successful, you cannot expect the Buddy team to support a configuration like such. But, if you're willing to seriously consider Linux, I'm sure you already know this.

cheers,
CJ

 

[Jparker]

I just did this, and went back to windows. I was running Ubuntu host and windows in a VM. It was sooo slow that the CC had problems doing its job. I also tried wine, it was garbage imo.

 

[icu]

Thanks for your views axazol, I realise that this configuration will not stop a "same IP" filter ban. My research of these forums indicate that the community does not believe Blizzard to ban IP addresses when they suspect an account of botting. As I will be using a proxy server service such as "lowermyping.com" my IP will be masked by being the same IP address of non-bot users.

The point of the exercise is to protect other accounts once one account is flagged by Blizzard as botting.

Regarding the comment about how I'll stay on the same IP and same MAC that is linked to my ISP... my ISP is unlikely to pass along information about me to a 3rd party like Blizzard. All my 'game' traffic will be through the proxy and all the the Virtual machines' and the host PC's MAC addresses are spoofed... so I don't foresee a problem.

 

[icu]

Thanks j0achim, with regards to VMWare there seems to be quite a few options. From what I've read it comes to two options: VMWare Sever and VMWare Player. Can you give me some advice on which to use?

 

[icu]

Thanks for your reply Chinajade.

Pity to know I was doomed with Sun Virtual Box from the beginning as HB/GB doesn't operate in openGL!

Regarding Wine DirectX support, the official Wine Wiki says:

"Wine itself provides a DirectX implementation that, although it has a few bugs left, should run fine. Wine supports DirectX 9.0c at this time. Plans for DirectX 10 are underway."

However I don't know if this translates into what you mean by "decent support".

As far as I know, WoW 4.x only uses DirectX9 so if we assume that WoW will work under Wine, would it would in a Linux virtual machine?

If WoW did work, the next issue would be to try and get HB/GB to work under Wine with WoW.

As for Buddy support for this configuration, I don't expect any support.

 

[icu]

Thanks Jparker for replying.

I imagine a windows VM would be slow. That is why I planned on running Game Booster 2 in my WinXp VM. The idea to use this program came from researching the forum. Basically its freeware that kills all of the unnecessary Windows background programs and a few other things that improve game performance.

I only need the VM as a MAC address 'shell' and from what I know so far, the only way to give a spoofed MAC address to each instance of WoW is to encapsulate it within a VM.

 

[x11r6]

Game booster isn't going to do much (i'd say anything at all). Rendering a game inside a virtual machine is an HARD task, it uses a lot of memory and cpu time. A core2 with 2 gigs of ram can (barely) hold up 4 gb sessions, if you use vmware you're going to get max 1-2 instance running (with a way higher cpu usage). It's a huge waste.
The only way for Blizzard to get your MAC is let the game collect it and send it to the headquarter (there's absolutely no other way, even if you connect to blizzard servers they can't see your mac address unless the game client sends it as part of a data packet).

I suggest you to simply use a MAC spoofer to change your MAC once every xx weeks, so you'll hopely not trigger the "too many clients from the same MAC in a short amount of time" alarm.

PS: My apologizes for my crappy english.

 

[eddie4]

Thanks j0achim, with regards to VMWare there seems to be quite a few options. From what I've read it comes to two options: VMWare Sever and VMWare Player. Can you give me some advice on which to use?

Am using VMWare as well it works good whit the small exception you can't turn whit the mouse and you need a good pc. And if you wanna proxy clients why don't you do that on the client (although it isn't needed). Note that vmware server/ESX/Vsphere do not support 3D so you can't use them. To my knowledge only Workstation and Player support 3D. So if your gona go for a legal option go for player else there is no reason not to use workstation.

So VirtualBox doesn't work? was thinking of giving that a run.

(it's early i know my sentences don't make a lot of sense)

 

[icu]

Hi eddie4, thanks for the reply.

On your advice I'll be going with VMWare Player. I'll download it and try to set it up.

Regarding your proxy comment, from what I've read here in the forum I think the chances of Blizzard banning accounts who share an IP address are far lower than the chances of banning accounts that share a MAC address. And as far as I know, there is no way to run multiple instances of WoW on one Operating System (OS) and fool each instance of WoW into thinking it has a different MAC address than the host OS.

I don't buy the 'change your MAC every week' suggestion by x11r6 (but thanks for your post). From my perspective a Blizzard employee investigating the Bot account will be able to string all the Bot accounts together by just looking at the pattern that they all changed their MAC address at the same time.

In order to protect myself against a multiple banned account situation I figure I needed to go the Virtual Machine (VM) route and have different spoofed MAC address for each VM. I'm not too worried about using up system resources. I'm pretty sure my AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6 GHz Processor and 4GB of RAM should be able to handle 3 VMs running WoW on its lowest settings. If not well I'll get an i7 chip with a solid state drive and 8 GB of RAM.

I plan on having 6 accounts that bot and my main account I won't bot on. The first 3 botted accounts will be on a morning bot shift and the other 3 botted accounts will be on a night shift. From what I gather as long as GB/HB stays undetected, my accounts look like a 'real played' account and I don't bot 24/7, my only risk would be a player report.

My train of thinking is that why would I want to jeopardise all the botted accounts by using the same MAC address if it can be avoided (albeit through some work)?

 

[icu]

Just a quick update on this thread, I'm happy to say that with the advice from the community I've managed to get WoW 4.+ working on a VMWare Player Virtual Machine (VM). The most impressive thing is that VMWare Player has DirectX support that works so I can run GB/HB (however I haven't tried GB/HB in the VM as GB/HB has been hit by WoW patches). The guest operating system is WinXP SP3, the host operating system is Win7. With this set-up I'm sure I'm going to be able to reach my goal of several VMs running WoW bots with spoofed MAC addresses on the guest VM.

I'm now in the process of trying to clone the working WoW + WinXP VM to start testing how many VMs I can have running simultaneously botting WoW with my computer.

Thanks again to all that pointed the way.