Important MC info for anybody running a server

[kagato]

Nope, this is nothing April Fools related. For those who haven't been keeping up with MC development, Mojang is finally introducing the option for users to change their character name. The problem is that they are switching to a UUID system, so playernames will mean nothing - permissions, bans, whitelist, etc. will all be rubbish. Personally I don't like the idea - I used to think it would be cool to be able to change my name, but the sheer volume of servers that will get griefed beyond all living hell because mods aren't up-to-date and somebody happens to change their name to one of an admin, is just utterly ridiculous.

Basically, it comes down to this: neglecting to prepare for the switch to UUIDs is the equivalent of running your server in offline mode.

Official PSA info from EvilSeph

 

[Lukeperson6]

Trying to read this and keep a straight face is two completely different tasks.
But either way I thought that bans, whitelists, and permissions would of stayed the same. I heard the suggestion one time that your account stays the same, but it's basically a /nick. That way you really can't actually change your sort of account, just your temporarily name.

 

[kagato]

Potential Server Breakage
Up until this switch to UUIDs, Minecraft has relied on names for many of its core systems (bans, the whitelist, ops, etc.) and plugins have used names for permissions and protections. Once Mojang allow players to change their names at will with Minecraft 1.8, these systems’ accuracy can no longer be relied on. For Minecraft, Mojang have said they'll be handling the transition of bans, whitelist, etc. for the most part, but most Bukkit plugins will need to be updated to use UUIDs to track players instead of names.

Curious as to how Mojang will be handling - keeping a list of all prior nicks for that account name?

 

[StTheo]

They should have a system that keeps track of old names an the uuids associated with them so that those lists can query and update themselves.

 

[TheGurw]

You can't change your name to the existing account name of any other player, even if they aren't using their account name as their display name.


Plugins using permissions and the ban list all will switch (easily) to UUIDs instead, which will be easy to implement since operators will have access to a command to check an individual's UUID.


In short, nothing much changes.

 

[StTheo]

The problem is updating player lists. Say you ban me, then update. How would you know if a new player wasn't me with a new name ? You wouldn't have access to my uuid until I log on with my new name and completely bypass the ban.

 

[Wooty]

The problem is updating player lists. Say you ban me, then update. How would you know if a new player wasn't me with a new name ? You wouldn't have access to my uuid until I log on with my new name and completely bypass the ban.

I would guess that the lookup system will probably be using a snapshot of the names used when the uuid system was created. Or, if they're really sophisticated, the lookup system could take a name and a time, and tell you which uuid matched at that specific timestamp.

 

[TheGurw]

The problem is updating player lists. Say you ban me, then update. How would you know if a new player wasn't me with a new name ? You wouldn't have access to my uuid until I log on with my new name and completely bypass the ban.

Your name is already linked to a player ID. My guess is that ID will be the UUID, and ban lists will reference that ID.