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Setup Guide

You can always find the latest build of slavanap at the slavanap forums Current build is  Double click the setup file to start the installation, you will be asked where you want the program installed i.e. C:/Program Files/SlavaNap most times just accept the recommended install directory. You can leave three of these settings as they are for the moment or change them now, for the Server Ports setting always leave 3456 which is the default. localhost is the name of your server enter it here. Admin Name you can leave it as "Admin" or change it to your surfers nick-name. This is the name the users on your server will see, short names are better. Click "OK" the install is complete. How to get a server name also known as a "DNS" go to "howto: Dns" (new window) When the installation is complete the Main Console window of your server will open. In this example screen shot, it shows at the top ballad.dns2go.com, yours will show your server name. All the figures here are very interesting I know, so spend a little time to have a look around if you want. You'll notice at the top left that there is the figure (1) and bottom left Local 1 / 0 users, Congratulations YOU are the first user of your new server! The user is the "Admin name" you inserted above. So lets go and get you some more users....

Getting Users In order for your server to get known amongst the users you will need to report to a server reporting site like Gotnap, for help with this take a look at "howto: GotNap" Lets get your server ready to start accepting users go to the SlavaNap Console and click Server at the top left, then Settings, then Users. On the right top you will see Maximum Users, this is a bit difficult.. Read on for suggestions A very General Guide would be as follows: 56K Modem – 100 users, 128k ISDN – 300 users, DSL or Cable – 500+ users. It will depend on other parameters such as available bandwidth, operating system and RAM. For further advice it would be best to contact us in the Ballad Chat Channel on-line. Or just play with different settings until your system seems ok, One point though these settings will differ if you are a Stand Alone server or Linked with a Network of servers, and with how many. Don't forget you might think your 56K Modem server is great with 1'000 users always check it as a user, if it takes anything more than 1 second to complete a search then its not good. That is the dreaded Lag which is very frustrating for your users, who you might see leaving quickly and wonder why. Chat Channels The more channels a server has the more Lag it will create and besides who needs all of those channels anyway. Further more the chances of someone using Caps (shouting) or flooding the chat rooms are very small. Recommended settings are 2, 5, 256, 256 in that order, starting at the top, for the text boxes, and leave all the radio buttons unchecked. If you leave them at the default setting that's ok too. Personalise Channels in the main Console click Channels delete most of them no one will use them. Even on Networks with large Chat populations only 2 or 3 channels are used. You can also add a channel in this screen click the Add Channel button enter the channel Name, click Ok and its created. Now right click  on the channel and select Properties to customise it. Play with the setup to get it exactly how you want, put a good Welcome Message and Topic not "Welcome to my Server" be original, If you set the channel to Private or anything other than User level you are shutting out 99.9% of your users! Safer to set it to Level User or Leech and Topic Changeable is cool. Logging Logging this allows you to keep records of various things on your server. We advise you to set them as shown in the screen shot, otherwise you could end up using lots of hard disc space and slowing down your server. Back to top Minimum Share You decide what is the minimum number of files to be shared by users, or minimum Megabytes. Also if they should be banned or not and for how long. This setting can be hard on your system using a lot of bandwidth and CPU. So be careful with the settings and don't use it all the time. Turn it on when you want to get more files or if you see too many users sharing zero files. Sharing There's also the last feature which is to check for duplicate files but this takes a long time and uses a lot of resources. Even the program developer mentions that the server will run faster if its not used, so its not recommended. Back to top   Ofcourse there are more options in the slava console, best is that YOU play around with them, logical thinking gets the furthest. For questions you can always ask in the ballad forum or the slavanap forum!