# uname -a

It is not recommended anymore to use HLDSUpdateTool to set up and update your Counter Strike server, it will give you a deprecated version of the server since Valve has moved his games to SteamPipe.

I will explain in this short tutorial how to set up your Counter Strike server using the new Valve bootstrap: SteamCMD.

Step 1: Your server

I am making the assumption that you have a dedicated server (virtual or not), with shell and root access. If you don't have root access, I assume that you have at least shell access, possibility to open ports, and 32bit libraries installed.

Step 2: Prepare install

Follow this if you have root access, otherwise continue to step 3.

• Install 32bit libraries:

  • For Debian/Ubuntu:
    dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get install ia32-libs

  • For Fedora/RHEL/CentOS:
    yum install glibc.i686 libstdc++.i686

  • For Arch:
    Enable Multilib and then type:
    pacman -S lib32-gcc-libs

• Make a new user and "su" it:
  adduser --disabled-login steam
su steam
cd /home/steam

• You should NEVER run a server with root user, every time you want tot start your server, do a "su steam" or log in with this user before. If you want to log in with the steam user, remove the --disabled-login from command line when creating it.

Step 4: Download and install SteamCMD

• Create a new directory and use it as your current directory:
  mkdir steamcmd && cd steamcmd

• Get the SteamCMD binary:
  wget http://media.steampowered.com/client/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

• Extract the tarball:
  tar -xzf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

• Run the steamcmd binary, it will update:
  ./steamcmd.sh

Step 5: Download the Counter Strike server

The command line will force the installation directory in a separate directory. It prevents messing with SteamCMD directories when you configure and start the game server.

For Counter Strike Source:
./steamcmd.sh +login anonymous +force_install_dir ../css_server/ +app_update 232330 validate +quit

For Counter Strike Condition Zero:
./steamcmd.sh +login anonymous +force_install_dir ../cscz_server/ +app_update 90 +app_set_config 90 mod czero validate +quit

For Counter Strike Global Offensive:
./steamcmd.sh +login anonymous +force_install_dir ../csgo_server/ +app_update 740 validate +quit

Of course, you can change the name of the installation directory. Just don't forget the ../ before the folder name to install it in the upper directory, otherwise you will mess your SteamCMD installation with game files.

Use the same command to update your server when needed.

Step 6: Configure your server

I can't learn you anything here: just place your server.cfg, mods, and maps accordingly in the installation folder.

Step 7: Start your server

• Get back to the steam user home directory
  cd /home/steam

• Start the server:

  • For Counter Strike Source:
    ./css_server/srcds_run -steam_dir steamcmd/ -steamcmd_script steamcmd/steamcmd.sh -console -game cstrike +map de_dust2 -maxplayers 20

  • For Counter Strike Condition Zero:
    ./cscz_server/srcds_run -steam_dir steamcmd/ -steamcmd_script steamcmd/steamcmd.sh -console -game czero +map de_aztec -maxplayers 20

  • For Counter Strike Global Offensive:
    ./css_server/srcds_run -steam_dir steamcmd/ -steamcmd_script steamcmd/steamcmd.sh -console -game csgo -usercon +game_type 0 +game_mode 0 +mapgroup mg_bomb +map de_dust

    See Valve documentation for other game modes.

Please adapt the command line if you changed the name of installation directory.

Step 8: Enjoy !

Again, nothing much to say, just enter your server IP address in the game.

Just one more thing: if you didn't had root access during the installation, you may have to forward ("open") ports to let your server be accessible by anyone.

You want to configure “once and for all” HTTPs for all domains and sub-domains handled by your webserver, and you don’t want to redeclare the certificate in each VirtualHost. Here is the trick.

I run Debian. In a default Apache installation, the directory /etc/sites-enabled contains a file named 000-default which declares a default VirtualHost for HTTP.

You have to know that when Apache loads an entire directory of configuration files, the files are read in alphabetical order. So if you want to declare something before something else, you can cheat on its name in the loaded configuration. It is exactly what 000-default does.

In /etc/apache2/sites-available, you have a file named default-ssl. Edit this file to fit your needs (path to certificate, etc). Note that this certificate will be the same for all the domains hosted on your server. It’s what we want : only one configuration. If you are hosting multiple domains on the same server, the certificate will probably be invalid for at least one of your domains, and you should use mod_macro instead of a global HTTPs configuration.

Now, enable the website the common way : a2ensite default-ssl. Don’t restart Apache yet.

Rename the file default-ssl created in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ to 000-default-ssl.

Configure your other VirtualHost with a *:80 section and a *:443 section, as usual but without specifying certificate and SSL informations for VirtualHosts on *:443.

If you restart Apache, you will notice something like this :

_default_ virtualhost overlap on port 443

To get rid of these warnings, just add to your ports.conf, in the right section :

NameVirtualHost *:443
Listen 443 http

When you finally restart Apache, every VirtualHost declared as *:443 will use the certificate defined in 000-default-ssl without mentioning it.