Brett's Blog

Well, it’s been a good 12 hours since Left 4 Dead 2 was officially released! I’ve been having quite the fun time playing on the various servers I’ve setup for the community and ReplayIRC. A few of our servers are in the top 1000 and top 100 list! Makes me feel good that this game is quite popular, but yet at the same time i feel that there isn’t enough servers to go around currently because all of our servers in versus mode is FULL since launch. Anyhow, I have something that might be useful for server admins – mainly ones on linux/unix flavors. This tutorial is assuming that you’ve made a NEW account for the game – We named our user, l4d2.

1. wget http://storefront.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.bin
2. chmod 755 hldsupdatetool.bin
3. ./hldsupdatetool.bin
4. type ‘yes’ at the prompt.
5. ./steam
6. It’ll probably update and want you to type it again, so type ./steam once more.
7. Once updated, type: ./steam -command update -game left4dead2 -dir ~
   • Where ~ means your home root directory.
8. Once installed which can take a while, you will need to edit/create a server configuration. See below for some basics.
9. Once configured, (tip: use screen command) go to the left4dead directory of where you installed the server files to and type: ./srcds_linux -console -game left4dead2 +ip “IP.IP.IP.IP” +hostport 27015 +map c5m1_waterfront.bsp +exec server.cfg
10. Whalaa! Your server should be up and running.

Now for the ReplayIRC Server Configuration. I hope this will be useful for you server admins. The CONFIG FILES have to go into the ~/left4dead2/cfg directory, named server.cfg. It’s a good idea afterwords to remove the excessive comments that I’ve added in.

hostname "ReplayIRC.com Server"
rcon_password "set_this_or_be_damned"
sv_contact "some@email.tld"
sv_clearhinthistory 0
//Essentially 100 "tick"rate for these sv_* settings.
sv_minrate 15000
sv_maxrate 30000
sv_mincmdrate 66
sv_maxcmdrate 101
//MOTD
motd_enabled 1
motdfile "motd.txt"
hostfile "host.txt"
//Logging
log 1
log_level 99 //Absolute verbose logging, set lower if you don't like spam.
sv_log_onefile 0
sv_log_logfile 1
sv_logbans 1
sv_logecho 1
//
//boring stuff
//
sv_downloadurl "" //Leaving this as blank - no use, yet.
// sv_gametypes sets the game types that you want your server to run.
// survival, versus, coop, there's a few others out there.
// To set multiple types, set a comma,in,between,the,settings.
// See bulleted list below this mono-text format.
// Note: mp_gamemode does not appear to be in l4d2 unlike l4d1.
sv_gametypes "versus"
sv_lan 0 //Lan(1) or Internet(0)
//Steam group number to assign to server.
// Used for steam groups in game from steamcommunity.com
sv_steamgroup #######
//1 = Do not connect to the Match Making Service, 0 does.
// Keep at 0 if you want to be public.
sv_steamgroup_exclusive 0
//Allow connections without creating lobby. If set to 1,
// this would disallow outside connects.
sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0
//Region - This sets the lobby in which your server will be part of.
// You will want to set this to the closest location to your server
// eastcoast:0, westcoast:1, south america:2, europe:3, asia:4,
// australia:5, middle east:6, africa:7, world:255
sv_region 0
//Allow use of cheats: 0 Off, 1 On
sv_cheats 0
//All talk - Allow both teams to use audio chat to speak with each other
// 0 Off, 1 On
sv_alltalk 0

Notes:

• If you get: “sh: uncompress: command not found” after typing yes for ./hldsupdatetool.bin, as root type: ln -s /usr/bin/gunzip /usr/bin/uncompress – You will need to have gunzip installed for the command to work.
• Much of the games configuration variables are the same as the original left4dead. So if you’ve previously administered that game, this should be a walk in the park.
  
• Server variables for game types: versus, survival, coop, scavenge (i think). There’s another one, but i haven’t found it yet.
  

Final thoughts: The server for linux still has a ways to go, hopefully future updates will be better than what is currently supplied. Happy zombie hunting!!

Comments are welcome, however I’m not any sort of guru when it comes to Source Dedicated Servers…

Made a few updates to it tonight( November 19, 2009 at 14:53), some changes were found and applied.