RCON

RCON is a text based protocol completely unrelated to the Source RCON protocol. It is designed with readability, ease of implementation, and human usability in mind.

Packet Format

RCON packets consist of a single-byte Type ID, a variable number of ASCII strings separated by the Delimiter (Start of Text/0x02), and a newline. The text after the Type ID and before the newline is referred to as the message.

Type ID	Message	End Message
1 byte	Variable Characters	0x0A (Newline)

Limitations

RCON strictly contains standard ASCII strings and does not support null characters. RCON therefore only guarantees the reliability of character values [1, 127]. This is largely because RCON is interpreted entirely as strings by the Renegade X server, but both TCPLink and Rx_TCPLink are incapable of directly reading or transmitting non-ASCII characters when in text mode.

Player are consistently represented in the format id,team,name. This means that you can parse RCON output directly without retaining any information about players if you so choose.

Escaping

Unicode sequences are escaped and interpreted in the format "\uXXXX", where XXXX is the hexadecimal representation of a Unicode code point. There is no support for Unicode code points beyond 16 bits in size, largely because the Unreal Development Kit does not support these strings. Therefore, both RCON and the Unreal Development Kit can only possibly support characters within the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP).

The only non-Unicode character that you must sequence is the backslash (\) character, which can be escaped as \\

Processing

The recommended and intended method of processing RCON output is to:

1. Process incoming data into lines (split on newline; no CR is included)
2. Process tokens in each line into an array
3. Process each token for escaped Unicode sequences
4. Begin processing the content normally, based on the Type ID.

Type ID values

Server refers to the Renegade X server and client refers to the RCON client. Type IDs

Client -> Server

If not yet authenticated, the server will only accept Authenticate messages.

Type ID	Description
a	Authenticate
s	Subscribe
u	Unsubscribe
c	Command
d	DevBot specific (reserved)

Server -> Client

Type ID	Description
v	RCON and game version information
a	Authentication success
e	Error
r	Command response
c	Command execution finished
l	Log
d	DevBot specific

Example Implementation

An actively maintained and fully functional RCON client implementation can be found on Agent's GitHub here. Jupiter Bot is entirely ISC licensed, and you are free to reference, modify, and redistribute any code from it.

Version

The version provides information about the server in the following format. Each element is separated by the Delimiter (STX/0x02).

RCON Version Number	Game Version Number	Game Version String
004	5230	Open Beta 5.23

The zeroes preceding the RCON version number are to maintain compatibility with previous version of RCON where there was not a delimiter between the version number and the game version string, and may be removed in the future. The RCON version number is base 10.

Authentication

The TypeID for authentication is 'a'. The message portion from the client is just the RCON/admin password for the server. The message portion from the server is the RCON client's connection ID, so that the RCON client can identify its own command executions from other clients. The sequence for authenticating is as follows:

1. Client connects to Server
2. Server sends version information
3. Client sends authentication request
4. Server replies with authentication success or an error

Once the client is authenticated, they may subscribe to the log stream and execute commands.

Subscribe & Unsubscribe

The message elements for both of these Type IDs are empty and ignored. Subscribe marks the stream to receive RCON logs, and Unsubscribe marks the stream to not receive RCON logs. The default state in unsubscribed; therefore, you will need to Subscribe after successful authentication in order to receive any log messages.

Commands

In addition to the following RCON commands, RCON clients can also execute console commands. Console commands do not return any useful output. Some RCON commands are not available when bIsCompetitive is true.

The message format for commands is the command; if there are any parameters to pass to the command's execution, you need to add a space character (0x20), followed by the string representing the parameters. Required parameters are marked as <Parameter>, and optional parameters are marked as [Parameter].

Player can be a portion of a player's name, a player's full name, pid<player's ID>, or Player<player's ID>.

Command	Parameters	Available with bIsCompetitive	Response	Description
Help	[Command]	True	List of commands if parameters is not empty, command-specific message otherwise	Provides a list of commands if no parameters are specified, a description of the specified command otherwise
Kick	<Player> [Reason]	True	Nothing on success, error otherwise	Forcefully kicks a player from the server, and displays a kick message if specified
Kill	<Player>	False	Nothing on success, error otherwise	Kills a player's pawn

Logs

Most game events are logged, including everything from players joining/leaving to mines being placed/disarmed. Some logs are disabled when bIsCompetitive is true.

Format

Logs follow the following format:

1. Token 0 is the primary header
2. Token 1 is the secondary header
3. Tokens beyond 1 depend entirely upon the primary and secondary headers

The '|' character in the following tables notates represents the Delimiter (STX/0x02). String constants in the parameters are surrounded by double quotes. Sections surrounded in [ Brackets ] indicate that these parameters may not always appear.

PLAYER

Player state changes and warnings are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Enter;	"from" | IP Address | "hwid" | "" | "nosteam" / <"steamid" | Steam ID>	A player entered the server; hwid may later be removed
TeamJoin;	"joined" | Team [ | "left" | Old Team ]	A player joined a team
HWID;	HWID	Reports a player's HWID
Exit;	Player	A player left the server
Kick;	"for" | Reason	A player was kicked
NameChange;	"to:" | New Name	A player's name changed
ChangeID;	New ID | "from" | Old ID	A player's Player ID changed
Rank;	Rank	A player's leaderboard Rank has been assigned
Dev;	"true" / "false"	A player has been marked as a Developer
Command;	Command	A player executed an RCON command
SpeedHack;	Player	A player has thrown a SpeedHack warning

GAME

Game events are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Deployed;	Example	Example
Disarmed;	Example	Example
Exploded;	Example	Example
ProjectileExploded;	Example	Example
Captured;	Example	Example
Neutralized;	Example	Example
Purchase;	Example	Example
Spawn;	Example	Example
Crate;	Example	Example
Death;	Example	Example
Stolen;	Example	Example
Destroyed;	Example	Example
Donated;	Example	Example
OverMine;	Example	Example
MatchEnd;	Example	Example

CHAT

Chat messages are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Say;	"said:" | Message	A player said something in public chat
TeamSay;	"said:" | Message	A player said something in team chat
Radio;	"said:" | Message	A player used a radio command
AdminSay;	"said:" | Message	A player said something in the admin chat
ReportSay;	"said:" | Message	A player said something to the administrators
HostSay;	Message	Host said something in public chat

VOTE

Votes are covered by this header. Team Type is either "GDI", "Nod", or "Global". It is theoretically possible for Team Type to be empty.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Called;	Vote Type | "by" | Player [ | Parameters... ]	A vote has been started; see the table below for a list of parameters
Results;	Vote Type | "pass" / "fail" | "Yes=" Total yes votes | "No=" Total no votes	A vote has ended with the following results
Cancelled;	Vote Type	A vote was forcefully cancelled

Vote Type	Called; Parameters	Description
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_AddBots	"GDI" / "Nod" / "Both" | "amount" | Number of bots | "skill" | Skill Level	Adds bots
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_ChangeMap		Forcefully ends the game on success
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_Kick	Player	Kicks a player from the server
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_MineBan	Player	Restricts a player from mining
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_RemoveBots	"GDI" / "Nod" / "Both" | "amount" | Number of bots	Removes bots
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_RetsartMap		Forcefully ends the game and restarts the level
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_Surrender		Forcefully ends the game as a loss for the team
Rx_VoteMenuChoice_Survey	Message	A survey with a user-specifiable message

MAP

Changes to the level's state are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Changing;	"nonseamless" / "seamless"	Server is changing levels
Loaded;	Map	Server finished loading a level
Start;	Map	Match started

DEMO

Demo recording state changes are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Record;	Player> / <"admin command by" | Player> / "rcon command"	A demo recording has started
RecordStop;		A demo recording has stopped

ADMIN

Events related to a player's administrator or moderator permissions are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Rcon;	"executed:" | Command	A player executed an RCON command
Login;	"as" | Type = "moderator" / "administrator"	A player logged into administrative permissions
Logout;	"as" | Type = "moderator" / "administrator"	A player logged out from administrative permissions
Granted;	"as" | Type = "moderator" / "administrator"	A player was granted administrative permissions

RCON

RCON events are covered by this header.

Secondary Header	Parameters	Description
Command;	"executed:" | Command	An RCON client executed a command
Subscribed;	User	An RCON client subscribed to RCON logs
Unsubscribed;	User	An RCON client unsubscribed from RCON logs
Blocked;	Reason	An RCON client was blocked from connecting
Connected;	User	An RCON client connected
Authenticated;	User	An RCON client authenticated
Banned;	"reason" | Reason	An RCON client was banned
InvalidPassword;	User	An RCON client attempted to login with an incorrect password
Dropped;	"reason" | Reason	An RCON client was dropped
Disconnected;	User	An RCON client disconnected
StoppedListen;	Reason	No further RCON clients can connect
ResumedListen;	Reason	Additional RCON clients can now connect
Warning;	Warning Message	An RCON-related warning string

ERROR

This header is currently unused, but was used in previous versions of RCON and may be used again in the future.

Trivia

• RCON v3 used a non-breaking space (nbsp/0xA0) was the token deliminator despite it not being in the standard ASCII range. This lead to inconsistent results between servers, and was therefore replaced with the Start of Text character (STX/0x02) in RCON v4. In order to retain in-game readability of RCON output, the deliminator is replaced with a space before being displayed.