uo-login

name	uo-login
description	Start the ClassicUO headless client daemon, log in, load map data, and load POI data. Use whenever the user asks to run/start/log in to the headless UO client, or before any goto/pos/canwalk/tiles/items/closest/findpoi command that needs the map or POI data loaded.

Logging in and initializing the map

The headless client lives in headless/. It runs as a background daemon controlled through two files:

• Commands go in: echo 'cmd' >> /tmp/cuocmd
• Output streams to: /tmp/cuolog (tail -f /tmp/cuolog)

1. Check for an existing daemon first

Never blindly start a second daemon — two processes fighting over the same socket/command files causes confusing interleaved output.

ps aux | grep -i "cuoheadless\|dotnet run" | grep -v grep

If one is running and you just need to send commands, skip straight to step 3. If you need a clean session (e.g. after a code change was rebuilt), kill it first:

kill <pid1> <pid2>   # both the `dotnet run` and `dotnet exec cuoheadless.dll` pids

2. Start the daemon

Credentials and connection settings live in headless/.env (host, port, user, pass, version, server/char auto-select index, UO_MAP_DIR). Don't hardcode credentials on the command line — the daemon reads .env itself.

cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"
[ -d headless ] && cd headless   # no-op if headless/ is already the repo root
rm -f /tmp/cuocmd /tmp/cuolog     # clear stale state from a previous session
nohup dotnet run -- --daemon > /tmp/cuostdout.log 2>&1 &
disown
sleep 9
tail -30 /tmp/cuolog

Login (server select, character select) is automatic if UO_SERVER / UO_CHAR are set in .env. Watch the log for Entered the world! — that confirms the character is in-game. A couple of dismissable gumps (server news/MOTD, a "client out of date" notice) show up right after login and are auto-dismissed by the client; no action needed.

3. Load the map

Almost nothing spatial works until the map is loaded — goto, pos, canwalk, tiles, items, line-of-sight, and pathfinding all depend on it. Load it once per daemon session:

echo "loadmap" >> /tmp/cuocmd
sleep 5   # statics loading takes a few seconds — don't send spatial commands before "Map ready."

Confirm with:

echo "pos" >> /tmp/cuocmd
sleep 1
tail -5 /tmp/cuolog

You should see Position: (x, y, z) ... — if instead you see Map not loaded. Run: loadmap, the load didn't finish or wasn't sent.

4. Load POI data (optional)

poi/*.json are optional points-of-interest files (banks, healers, moongates, shops, dungeon features, etc.) that power the closest <category> and findpoi <text> commands — see the uo-navigation skill for how those are used. This data may not exist on a given checkout; load it the same way every session regardless, since it's harmless (and quick) when absent:

echo "loadpoi" >> /tmp/cuocmd
sleep 1
tail -3 /tmp/cuolog

With no argument this reads UO_POI_DIR from .env, falling back to ./poi relative to the client. Look for either:

[POI] Loaded 755 POIs (68 categories) from 2 file(s) in /path/to/poi

or, if the directory/files just aren't present — not an error, just means closest/findpoi won't have data to search:

[POI] POI directory not found (optional, skipping): /path/to/poi

Gotchas

• The daemon prints a LOT of chatter (gump layouts, animations) interleaved with command output — tail -N right after sending a command, don't try to parse the whole log.
• grep -c on /tmp/cuolog can silently return 0 matches even when lines are clearly present in tail output — the file contains non-UTF8 bytes (arrow glyphs in animation-related log lines) that make plain grep treat it as binary in some locales. Use grep -a to force text mode when counting/searching.
• If you rebuilt the code (dotnet build), you must kill and restart the daemon — it's running the old binary until restarted.