Dedicated legacy Linux server: Difference between revisions

''Note: This was adapted and revised from a guide written by Raizo, the original of which can be found here: https://blog.raizo.dev/posts/tf2-classic-linux-server-tutorial/''

* A Linux server running Ubuntu Server^* on an x86_64 CPU. You cannot easily run SRCDS on any other architecture besides an x86_64 CPU. Box64/Box86 may work for ARM processors (e.g. Raspberry Pis) but that's complex, and not covered here.

* A SFTP/SSH client (PuTTY, Termius, FileZilla, MobaXterm)

^*'''Note''': This guide was written for and tested on Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS, however any Debian-based distro should work similarly and fine using this guide.

<!-- Originally from https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Linux_dedicated_server#Reading_this_article -->

This article has been written according to standard Linux terminal documentation syntax, meaning the following:

Some commands are listed in-line with the rest of a paragraph and lack this symbol, in which case you should run the command as whichever account you're currently logged in with.

Pick a directory to install your server into. Industry standard is usually in <code>/opt</code>, but <code>/home</code> may be easier for you. If you want to use a directory in <code>/home</code>, omit the <code>-d</code> option as useradd will create a directory in <code>/home</code> with the user’s username, ours being <code>steam</code>. We’ll pick <code>/opt/tf2classic</code>.

<code>-m</code> creates a home directory for it, <code>-d /opt/tf2classic</code> specifies where our home directory will be, and <code>-s /usr/bin/bash</code> sets the shell to bash.

The SteamCMD package is in the multiverse repos. TF2Classic and SteamCMD require i386 (32-bit) libraries to function. You also need 7-Zip to extract TF2Classic.

Give it a few, and when it’s finished we can run <code>exit</code>.

The fastest way to download TF2Classic is to use TF2CDownloader.

<pre>mv tf2classic /opt/tf2classic/server/</pre>

Generate your server config(s) on [https://cfg.tf/ cfg.tf].

And merge the <code>cfg</code> folder with <code>/opt/tf2classic/server/tf2classic/cfg/</code>.

Valve changed some shared object file names in the SDK and the objects we’re given have not adapted to the new names. Since these are simply renames, we can symlink them.

'''Your server will not start without doing this.'''

</pre>

Change into the server directory with:

If you want it to run even after closing the terminal window, run <code>nohup ./runserver.sh &</code> followed by <code>disown</code>

For easier automation of server restarts, updating, and booting alongside the system, you may use systemd, which is the default init system for most modern Linux distros and cronjobs.

You may create as many services as you have TF2C servers but remember to name the service files uniquely, enable them in <code>systemctl</code>, and add them to the <code>crontab</code>.  

If you don't wish to use the service files above to automatically boot servers, or you need to perform these actions for maintenance: you may issue commands to manually ''start'', ''stop'', ''restart'', or ''update'' the server(s) through systemd.