(note: the Hotline Server has been offline for about 8 years now! This page is only here as a reminder of what out there before Napster, Kazaa, Soulseek, or Bittorrent)

What the hell is a Hotline Server?

For those of you that haven't discovered the wonders of Hotline yet, Hotline is a similar to FTP, only much better. It is a simple set of programs (the Client and the Server) that allow you to set up a server on your own home computer through standard modem and phone lines (or better connections) and allow users to download specified files from your computer.

To download the files from someone else's server, you'll first need to download the Hotline Client software for your operating system from Hotline Software's web page. Don't worry, it's a simple little application that runs in about one megabyte of RAM, not another monolithic RAM hog like Netscape.

Now, just connect to the internet, start the Client, and click on "Connect". In the Server box, type in "oderus.dyn.ml.org" (*more on that address below). For Login type "BalSac" (case sensitive), and for Password type "Cuttlefish". Now you can read and post to the server's News file, Chat with others that are signed on to the server, or download files.

On the server, I have over 400 MB of GWAR pictures, movies, and MP3'z, including several rare and live tracks. There's also aobut a gig of other heavy metal and punk MP3'z on the hard drive and rotating CD-ROMS.

I usually have the server up from around 11:30 pm CST until 6:00 am CST the following morning on most weekdays. It's sometimes up on weekends, too, if I'm around. Unfortunately I don't have a T3 connection in my apartment, so it's just set up on a 56k modem. Because of this fact I have limited the maximum number of simulataneous downloads to 4 at a time, which is still pretty slow. Speaking of that- if you're new to Hotline, learn to queue. Most servers will automatically kick you off without warning if you try to download several files at once- hogging all the server's bandwidth for yourself. To avoid this, click on the "Options" button and click the "Queue file downloads" button. This way you will download the files one at a time, not all at once.

Oh yeah, about that oderus.dyn.ml.org address... It only works if I have manually updated it when I started the server. If dyn.ml.org is not working (which happens often) or if I've been disconnected and my server bot automatically reconnected me, the address will not be updated. What you have to do then is click on "Options" and set the tracker to mp3only.trencher.com, hotline.tracker.group.org, or power.mac.net.au. Then click on "Tracker" and search through all the listed servers until you find Rock N Fuckin Roll. (If you don't find it, then I'm probably not online). Hold down the Option key (Mac users) or Alt key (Windows) and double click on the Rock N Fuckin Roll server and it will bring up the Connect window where you can log in as I listed above.

Download away!