[Guide]CS Source dedicated server using[Mani]

[oldhiphop]

This is a tutorial on how to create nice servers. SOURCE ONLY.

Hardware requirements:

1. 1.5 mbps connection or higher (the higher the better. You can use lower but then even people from across the street will get huge pings and your server won't support many people.)

 

2. Good processor and Hard Drive (the faster they are the faster the maps will load on the server).

 

Hardware recommendations:

 

1. Good video card if you plan to play on the same computer the server is on (which even then is not a very good idea.) At least with a good video card your processor won't have to do too much graphical calculations which of course will make your server faster and more reliable.

 

2. If you are running custom maps it will be useful to have a separate storage with maps on some powerful domain so that the maps are not downloaded from the server. Otherwise every time somebody is downloading everybody's ping is gonna skyrocket. :-\

 

Creating a server.

If you are New and don't know where to start then start reading here.

 

First of all u need to have a LEGAL copy of HL2. With it will come Counter-Strike Source. From Steam you will be able to download and install "dedicated server". You can find it in the play games menu.

That was the easy part because Steam does everything for u. All you got to do is keep on clicking "next".

If you checked the corresponding checkbox in the installaion you should get an icon for dedicated server on you desktop. Now double click it and wait until the dedicated server set up menu comes up.

Make everything the way you want it. For extra nOObs an example:

 

Game: Counter-Strike Source

Server Name: Stupid Noobs; We are recruiting (this is going to be displayed as your servers name in the game)

Map: de_dust (the map that your server starts on.)

Network: Internet (you can change it in the game with sv_lan 1 or 0)

Max. Players: 4 (what's the maximum of players allowed on your server)

UDP Port: 27015 (usually leave it like it is.)

RCON Password: noob (the password that will let you acces your server through console as an admin while playing on it)

 

Click Start Server and wait for it to start up.

 

 

Tweaking your server and enjoying your RCON admin rights.

Those who already have dedicated server and want to modify it or make it better start reading here.

 

Basic description of dedicated server.

 

The reason why i am using dedicated server for this tut is first of all because it is made for new and second of all it is very simple to use and thus simple to explain.;D However dedicated server has some negatives over the more professional server software srcds which is run from command promt. First of all dedicated server takes up more RAM. It is also believed to be slightly slower and are impossible to program to start on Windows start up. So if you feel that srcds will be a better choice for you than go look for some other tuts now. >

 

Dedicated server gives you some useful options like graphed statistics, easy server CVAR (variables) configurations, and easy ways of kicking and banning players by looking at the player list and just clicking "Kick" or "Ban". Most stuff in the Dedicated server is self explanatory so im only going to explain the console. If you don't get it then this is simply not for you. ;D

 

After you make an internet server you should see "Connection to Steam servers succesful" and "VAC beta secure mode is activated". If you get the message "failed to connect to Steam servers" than something is wrong (your internet may be down, or your steam service is screwing up, etc.) and that means that you server won't show up in the internet games for other players.

The console is where you type all the commands for your server. For example if you would like to change gravity you would type sv_gravity and then your value (800 for normal gravity, lower makes it smaller), or you could type add_bot to add a bot to the game. I will add a list of most useful server commands later.

 

 

Using RCON

 

To make your life easier I will teach you the harder way. ;D

You can log on with your RCON password every time you play on your server or you can follow my instruction and make sure that you RCON password is logged on every time you turn on CS:S automatically.

 

So go to this directory: C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\nOOb\counter-strike source\cstrike\cfg substituting nOOb with your steam name.

Now look for autoexec.cfg. If you find it open it with notepad; if its not there open a blank notepad text document.

Type this on a separate line:

rcon_password "noob" (if noob is your password :P ).

 

Save the file as autoexec.cfg into the above given directory.

Now open Counter-Strike:Source (doesn't matter on the same computer as your server or no)

Find your server (if its on your own computer or a computer connected to yours you should be able to find it in LAN games. If you don't, then find it by your internal IP). Join the game and open console.

Tip: to access console go to options -> Keyboard -> Advanced -> make sure that "enable developers console" is checked. Now you can access console by hitting ~

In the console you can use the same commands as you would use on your server console except you need to add rcon in front of them.

Example: rcon bot_add (this will add a bot)

rcon kick |sn|ass (kick the player named |sn|ass)

rcon kick |sn| (kick all the players whose names start with |sn| - stupid noob clan)

etc.

more complete command list coming soon.

 

 

Creating and Setting Server.cfg

 

You probably won't like the default settings of your server and you will get tired of changing them everytime your tuen it on and every time a different map is loaded. So you would want to make a file which would contain all those settings and execute them every time a new level is loaded or the server is turned on. That's when you will be using server.cfg. It is a wonderful file that lets you input the commands you want to be executed by default. ;D It is located in the folder C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\n00b\source dedicated server\cstrike\cfg where n00b will be substituted by your steam account name. If you don't have it, just open notepad and start typing all the CVARs that you want to be executed and their values. Then save it as a server.cfg in the above location. Of course i will give you an example:

 

// in the code whatever lines start like this one are ignored by the engine so you can write notes to yourself like this. ;D

sv_lan 0

// means that by default you server would not be a lan server. If you want it otherwise, change 0 to 1.

// it will be similar to this with many other commands: 0 means disable, 1 means enable.

sv_region 0

// defines the region where the server is located.

// 1=US West coast, 2= South America, 3=Europe, 4=Asia, 5=Australia, 6=Middle East, 7=Africa and 255=world.

hostname Stupid Noob Clan Server; We are recruiting.

// server name

exec banned_users.cfg

// execute a file contating data about your bans.

 

 

Well these 3 that i gave you are just a basic example of different types of CVARs and CONVARs. (forgot what that stands for because that's not really important.)

Remember you can use ANY counter-strike:source commands in server.cfg. Also if you are planning to go on into the next section (installing mani) then you should add the followind to you server.cfg:

 

exec mani_server.cfg

 

 

Fun part. Adding mods. (Mani)

 

First of all download Mani Admin plugin here: http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com/forums/portal.php

Also you can always find complete instructions on Mani installation and set up here: http://manihelp.cjb.net/ or here: http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com/man...#_Toc106036721 if you don't like the way I explain it.

 

Even though there are a lot of other tutorials on this out there I am getting the most questions on this like:

I got Mani but I don't know what to do. :'( Or:

I installed everything properly but i can't get my rank and votes to work. :'( :'( Or:

How do I log on as an admin :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( > > > :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

So i got tired fomr all this crying and made 1 more tutorial and am trying to keep it as simple as possible.

 

After Downloading Mani, extract the zip into this derictory: C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\noob\source dedicated server\cstrike. As earlier substitue noob with your steam name.

Your mani is now functional just not the way you want it. So now you have to set it up. In C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\noob\source dedicated server\cstrike\cfg\mani_admin_plugin you will find a bunch of text files. Lets go over them 1 by 1.

 

 

Adminlist.txt and Admingroups.txt

 

Each file has an explanation of its own I am just going to tell you how to get started. First of all you need to make yourseld admin. And of course you would want to give yourself all the rights and authority. There are 3 ways of adding an admin - by IP address, by SteamID, and by password. I have found the 3rd one to be the most reliable because IP changes and SteamID is not secure enough (it might be a public computer that one of your fellow admins is working from).

To add a person (including yourself) by password open adminlist.txt, scroll down ignoring everything else (notice it all starts with // and thus can be ignored) and add this

;;"|sn|ass";noob as a new line and save the txt file.

With this added whoever has an in game screen name (the one that other players see when you play) |sn|ass will be able to get his admin rights by typing

setinfo _password noob in the game console.

I hope your nick name is not ass and your password is not noob so change those to whatever you want them to be. ;D

Make sure that when you type "setinfo _password yourpassword" there is a space between setinfo and _password and one more space after that:

setinfo space _password space yourpassword

I am stressing a lot of attention on this because a lot of people get it wrong and can't log in as admins to their server.

If you did everything correctly then now you should be able to access admin menu by typing "admin" without quotations in the console. Or you could make life easier and put this in the console:

bind "P" admin

This would bind the key P to the command admin so everytime you press P and admin menu will pop-up. (you can use any key you want for that).

 

If for some unknow reason it doesn't work, or your friends can't remember what to type then you can always add admins by IP and SteamID.

That's rather simple to do:

;IP address

Substitute IP address with the desired IP and leave NO space between ; and IP.

 

SteamID

Just substitute SteamID with your steamID.

 

You can always restrict the admin rights. The details are explained in the file itself by Mani.

 

 

Tweaking Your Mani

 

Now that you have control over your server you want everything to go right.

Here you would need to configure mani_server.cfg

It is a big text file and you should open it with notepad. Each line has a command followed by the explanation. So configuring it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Just download it and put it instead of the mani_server.cfg that you currently have. I configured this file to hide all the admin actions (so that if you noclip your friend nobody would know) and enable all votes except vote_ban because that's mean. I also set up all the ranks and adverts to work.

 

But this mani_server.cfg doesn't do all. There are other files that you would want to configure.

 

 

Adverts

 

Adverts are the colorful writings that appear on the black background in the upper right on most of the mani servers. You can configure the mani_server.cfg to either show them in the chat window and in the upper right or just in the upper right or don't show them at all. You can also configure the time period between the adverts in seconds. I recommend not making them appear too often because they will annoy the players who are trying to use the radar. The follwing lines in the mani_server.cfg define the adverts options.

 

mani_adverts 1 // Adverts 1 = on, 0 = off

mani_time_between_adverts 120 // Time between adverts displayed

 

mani_adverts_top_left 1 // Allow adverts in top left corner of screen

mani_adverts_chat_area 0 // Allow adverts in chat area of screen

 

The following lines define the default color of adverts. However you have the options of specifying color individually for each message in the adverts.txt file. (detail follow)

 

// Sets colour of adverts, here I've set it to blue

mani_advert_col_red 0 // Red component colour of adverts (255 = max)

mani_advert_col_green 0 // Green component colour of adverts (255 = max)

mani_advert_col_blue 255 // Blue component colour of adverts (255 = max)

 

But this by itself wouldn't do you much good because you haven't wrote the messages you want to be displayed as your adverts. So go to C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\n00b\source dedicated server\cstrike\cfg\mani_admin_plugin (substitute n00b with your account name) and look for adverts.txt. Then of course open it in notepad or any other text editor. And simply follow this format in setting up your adverts:

 

{color} Message

For color you can use {RED}, {BLUE}, {GREEN}, {MAGENTA}, {BROWN}, {GREY}, {CYAN}, {YELLOW}, {ORANGE}, {WHITE}, {PINK}.

 

Example:

 

{RED} This is the official Stupid N00bs clan server

{ORANGE} |sn|n00b is the Admin

{RED} We are now recruiting

{PINK} We are the weakest clan ever.

{GREEN}Current map is {CURRENTMAP}

{GREEN}Next map is {NEXTMAP}

{RED} FF is on.

{BLUE}Mani Admin Plugin

{WHITE}Server Tick Rate {TICKRATE}

{GREEN}ENJOY

 

 

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[Morian]

Very good guide oldhiphop and very exlainable! +1 from me ;) Keep up!

[oldhiphop]

thank you m8 i didnt waiting that i will take karma;)  I keep it up:D