Difference between revisions of "Dedicated Server Setup"

Revision as of 17:39, 31 October 2013

Overview

This article covers the bare minimum for server setup. Additional guides are recommmended!

What is a "listen" server?

A listen server is run through the game's software, it's functionality that's built in.

This is ideal if you need to host a temporary server for friends to join within your city or province/state.

Jump to the article: Listen_Server_Setup

What is a "dedicated" server?

A dedicated server is technicaly a server that is availiable all the time, day or night, 24/7, 365. To do this it has a dedicated machine to use.

Special hardware should be used to run a dedicated server the right way. However, since it's just another piece of software you could use a spare computer.

Jump to the article: Dedicated_Server_Setup

Connectivity

Note:This article details port forwarding in a basic manor. If you’re familiar, you can skip it.

To get things started, we should talk about what these "external" and "internal" IP addresses are, and how they affect you.

You will probably have a DHCP server in your house/apartment. Most of the time this will be your router, but in some cases it could be something else. DHCP is a system that allows the router (or other device) to pass out internal IP addresses to other devices (such as your computer, laptop or tablet) that connect to it. Inside your network, all the devices talk to each other by using these internal addresses. Only devices inside your network can talk to others with these addresses - as they are reserved for use in LAN networks.

Note:You can tell a LAN network ip from a public one as LAN IPs tend to start with 192.168

If your friend wanted to connect to your NMRiH server, they may see it having the ip 192.168.1.2. This is what you see too, but your friend will scream and kick at not being able to connect. Just like you, your friend will be using these internal addresses as well. The problem here is that they correspond to computers/devices on their network, so when they try to connect, their router will only search on their network for a device that has the 192.168.1.2 address. In order to solve this problem, this is where external ip addresses come in.

Your router is assigned a public (external) IP address by your ISP's modem so it can communicate to computers around the word. This public address is also used when someone wants to give you data (websites, game servers, etc.). You can tell your router to pass on information it gets on a "port" to a computer inside the network. This is done by specifying the IP of the machine on the network, and what port to send it to. The common term for this is called "Port Forwarding", as it forwards the port(s) to another computer/device. This article won't go into detail about how to do that, but a great place to start is http://www.portforward.com, which will show you how to port forward.

To play on the server you only need to have 27015 (UDP) open/forwarded. The server doesn't use TCP traffic on this port for gameplay and thus is recommended that you do not forward it.

Note:While port forwarding is a quick and easy way to do this, it can be easily "messed up".

Now remember reading before about DHCP? It will come back to haunt you sadly. Since there is a limited amount of internal IP addresses, the router will try free up internal IP address for use. It will do this by removing unused addresses. These include computers/devices that are not on. So if you happen to turn the computer off that hosts the server and another device connects, it is likely to take that address your computer had and thus breaking the port forwarding you did. In order to prevent this from happening, you will have to set a static IP for the machine (technically the machine's ethernet interface).

That should now all be clear, you may be wondering where to get your external/public IP from. There are many sites that show you it - even Google "What is my IP address". After obtaining it, send it to your friends.

Now, many will argue at why you only need 27015 (UDP) open. Why not 27015 (TCP) with all those other ports as well? The remote console (RCON) for the server runs on 27015 (TCP) and can lead to security issues and Denial of Service attacks (DoS). You should only allow the TCP traffic in if you know what you're doing. Other ports shown in other guides are not needed, and thus don't need to be opened.

Setting up a Dedicated Server

Dedicated servers are preferred if you want to ensure you get the best performance and flexibility. Most of the time, it's installed on a separate machine/computer where both it and the server are made available 24/7 (hence the term dedicated).

Note:You cannot use a steam account in SteamCMD and the Steam Client concurrently. You should register a separate account for the exclusive use with SteamCMD.

Windows

This section will outline setup and administration for the latest generation of Windows. Versions Server 2003, XP and lesser will not directly follow these steps.

You will require the core SteamCMD files. You can find them here: http://media.steampowered.com/client/steamcmd_win32.zip

Extract the files to a directory other then the steam client. Now open a command prompt to that directory and run steamcmd.

Warning! Windows might give you an "Error: Steam needs to be online to update. Please confirm your network connection and try again." or "Error: Download failed: http error 0" error if Internet Explorer is being anal.

This is usually fixed by checking "Automatically detect settings" in IE (Internet Explorer) through the lan settings in the Internet option menu.

1. Open Internet Explorer (IE)

2. Click on Tools > Internet Options

3. Click on the "Connections Tab"

4. At the Bottom, you should see "Local Area Network (LAN) Settings".

5. Check the first box "Automatically detect settings"

6. Hit ok, and apply. Try running the SteamCMD again, if it still doesn't work. try lowering your "Internet Security level zone" to medium or lower. You can find that in the "Security" tab in "Internet Options".

SteamCMD will update if required each time it exicuted. Now, login with anonymous to download the base 2013 multiplayer source sdk files.

login anonymous

force_install_dir .\nmrih_ds\

app_update 244310

Now for the key NMRiH files. You can not login with anonymous to install the files. You must login with a steam account, so far any will do (no reports otherwise).

login YOUR_USERNAME

force_install_dir .\nmrih_ds\

app_update 224260

Now you should be able to navigate to the srcds.exe file and use: srcds.exe -console -game nmrih +map nms_deadend

Linux

This section will outline setup and administration for common distros of Linux. Additional dependencies maybe required on your system. Consult your distro's documentation/support if you are unsure.

Note:If you are using a 64-bit build of your distro you require 32-bit libraries. See this page.

Warning! RHEL or Red Hat based linux distros do not support the GlibC version in use with the exception of Fedora. This should be resolved with a 7.0 version of RHEL distros.

At the terminal use: wget http://media.steampowered.com/client/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Extract the file with tar, tar -xvzf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Navigate to the directory, and use ./steamcmd.sh to run the shell script.

SteamCMD will update if required each time it run.

Now for the key NMRiH files. You can not login with anonymous to install the files. You must login with a steam account, so far any will do (no reports state otherwise).

login YOUR_USERNAME

force_install_dir ./nmrih_ds/

app_update 224260

Now you should be able to navigate to the srcds_nmrih file (./nmrih_ds/srcds/srcds_nmirh) and use: ./srcds_nmrih. You also have the option of using the old srcds_run script, placed in ./nmrih_ds/srcds/srcds_run and running it with ./srcds_run -console -game nmrih +map nms_deadend

ReactOS

While this operating system is in alpha stage, some steps maybe affected as the OS goes through gradual builds.

You will require the core SteamCMD files. You can find them here: http://media.steampowered.com/client/steamcmd_win32.zip

Extract the files to a directory other then the steam client. Now open a command prompt to that directory and run steamcmd.

SteamCMD will update if required each time it exicuted. Now, login with anonymous to download the base 2013 multiplayer source sdk files.

login anonymous

force_install_dir .\nmrih_ds\

app_update 244310

Now for the key NMRiH files. You can not login with anonymous to install the files. You must login with a steam account, so far any will do (no reports otherwise).

login YOUR_USERNAME

force_install_dir .\nmrih_ds\

app_update 224260

Now you should be able to navigate to the srcds.exe file and use: srcds.exe -console -game nmrih +map nms_deadend

MetaMod & SourceMod

Note:This part is optional. However, it does add utilities for server administration.

Since as of 1.07 NMRIH is now on the SDK 2013 engine, current stable builds of both don't support the new engine. Support was recently added for this engine a week or two ago (as of 10/31/2013).

MetaMod:Source

You must use a 1.10.1 dev branch. Snapshot 870 seems to work: http://www.metamodsource.net/mmsdrop/1.10/mmsource-1.10.1-hg870-windows.zip

SourceMod

You must use a 1.6.0 dev branch. Snapshot 4164 seems to work: http://www.sourcemod.net/smdrop/1.6/sourcemod-1.6.0-hg4164-windows.zip

Note:SourceMod 1.6 does come with gamedata for NMRiH.

Server Commands

You can use these commands on listen servers as well as dedicated servers. Enter the command/cvar you want to use, and the value (if it requires one).

sv_votekick_timer 10

While on a listen server, open the developer console with the ~ key.