Dedicated Server Hosting Guide

Welcome, below you will find information on how to host a dedicated server on Linux and Windows.

Before you start you will need ports 7777, 27015, and 15000 forwarded. There are many port forwarding guides available on the Internet so we will not be going over that process.

To run multiple instances on same server you can use -PORT, -QUERYPORT, -GAMEINI, -ENGINEINI and -Beaconport parameters to specify different ports & config files for different server instances, just remember to use full path when referring to those files.

example:

Linux Setup Video:
Below you will find a video that shows you exactly how to setup a Dedicated Mordhau Server using Linux, You need no experience with Linux to set this up just to follow this video below:

YouTube Link To Mordhau Linux Server Setup

Docker
If your server is running Docker, you can simply use: docker run -d --net=host --name=mordhau-dedicated cm2network/mordhau

The container will automatically update the game on startup, so if there is a game update just restart the container.

The config is located here: /home/steam/mordhau-dedicated/Mordhau/Saved/Config/LinuxServer

If you want to launch another instance you can increment the environment variables, using -e (--env): docker run -d --net=host -e SERVER_PORT=7778 -e SERVER_QUERYPORT=27016 -e SERVER_BEACONPORT=15001 --name=mordhau2-dedicated cm2network/mordhau

You can find the associated Docker Hub page here: https://hub.docker.com/r/cm2network/mordhau/

Install SteamCMD dependencies
As the root user, create a separate user as follows under which we will run the server. We do this as a security precaution: you should never run the server as root.

Now, we'll swap to the newly created account:

Or if you aren't currently logged in as root, use:

Now, we can install SteamCMD. This installs it in the current directory:

SteamCMD allows us to download and install the server and any updates that we may need at a later date. We'll create a simple SteamCMD script that we can run whenever we want to update our server. Create a file in the current directory with the following contents; I named mine update_mordhau.txt:

As you can see, the command app_update 629800 is the one that installs the server executable, with 629800 being the Steam app ID we want to install (Mordhau Dedicated Server). We also ask SteamCMD to install Mordhau to the mordhau folder in the current directory.

Running the script for the first time will cause SteamCMD to download the contents of the server application to your computer entirely. Any subsequent runs of this script will simply check for an update and install it if available. We can run it with:

You can also login with your steam credentials but Mordhau supports anonymous access so we prefer this.

If you want to login with steam do the following:

Replace anonymous with  <"your_password">  (you should omit the angle brackets). The Steam Guard code should be all lower-case.

Note that if you used a package manager to install SteamCMD, you may need to use simply steamcmd instead of ./steamcmd.sh.

This should initiate a fairly large download, so this may take a few minutes or hours depending on the network bandwidth of the server. Just remember to run the above command when you want to update your server to a new Mordhau patch.

See the SteamCMD documentation for more information on how to use SteamCMD.

If you want to install multiple servers onto a single machine you can make another update_mordhau.txt file and name it update_mordhau2.txt and then in the contents of the new update_mordhau2.txt change the install directory from ./mordhau to ./mordhau2 and save it. When you run the steamcmd to download the contents again make sure to use:

This should install an entire new directory of mordhau files that can be configured for a second server. To start the second server on a different port use the start up script:

Install Game Server Dependencies
At this point you should have all the required files to run the server in the mordhau folder. Unfortunately, we still need to install a few more things before we can start the server. If you try and run the server at this point, you'll get some errors relating to libraries not being found. We need to install these dependencies manually, so let's go ahead and do that. Note that the following is very distro-specific: you'll have to use your own intuition for which package is correct if you aren't using a distro that uses apt (or maybe search the comments for a list of library names for your specific package manager).

Using apt, you can run the following (you'll need root access for this, temporarily):

Configuring and Running the Server
Finally, we can now start thinking about how we want to configure the server. First, '''navigate to the folder where Mordhau is installed. If you've been following along, this will mean simply running '''.

In the root of the mordhau folder, there should be a file called MordhauServer.sh - this is the script that actually runs the server. We need to run this first to generate some .ini files we need later. We can execute it with:

Press CTRL+C to stop the server when it's finished loading up.

Now the .ini files are ready to edit.

If you type ls, you will see a few folders. The server configuration files are stored in Mordhau/Saved/Config/LinuxServer. If you navigate there and see what files are there (cd Mordhau/Saved/Config/LinuxServer && ls) you will see a few .ini files. The one we will want to edit the most is Game.ini. So let's open up that file in your favourite command line text editor (you could also download the file, edit it on your host machine and upload it back - but editing it in place is much simpler). nano is one such simple text editor, so simply run: nano Game.ini.

You should see something like this:

Admins are added via SteamID64 (Example: 76521138065219059) and allow using console commands without logging in with the admin password. Multiple admins require multiple "Admins=" lines. You can find your SteamID64 here: steamid.io

BannedPlayers is a list of blacklisted players that cannot join your server. You can add entries manually (with a similar syntax to the way you add admins).

Next, we see the MapRotation fields. When one map ends, the server loads the next entry in the MapRotation field. For example, if I just wanted Contraband Skirmish and Camp FFA (in that order), I'd write:

The map prefixes should be self-explanatory: SKM is Skirmish, FFA is FFA/Deathmatch, TDM is Team Deathmatch, etc.

Note that some people have reported issues with the Admins and MapRotation fields on the Windows dedicated server, saying that they simply don't work. If this is the case for you, try putting a '+' before each line that starts with Admins= or MapRotation= - this has fixed the issue for many.

If you want to change the tickrate of your server (default is 30, 60 or 120 may improve gameplay), you need to edit the Engine.ini file in the same folder. Add the following:

Running the server
Having configured everything we want to configure, we can finally run the server. In the root of the mordhau folder, there should be a file called MordhauServer.sh - this is the script that actually runs the server. We can execute it with:

After 15s or so, your server should be up and running. The problem with this method is that it's tied to the current command line session - as soon as you close your SSH connection, the server will close too. We need to run it in the background, using this command:

Instead of displaying the output directly to your screen, this will write the server log to a file in the current directory named nohup.out. Type man nohup for more details on this behaviour. Alternatively you can use systemd to run your server in the background. See this link for more information.

When you want to shut down the server, you'll need to type ps -a (or ps -ax if you don't see it) and look for the process ID of the game server. Then, close it with kill where you replace with the process ID you just found.

Systemd
If you want an easy and more clean way to stop, start and get status output of the Mordhau server you can create a systemd service. This is by no means an advanced systemd script. It only stops and starts the server and doesn't do anything else like updating for example).

Use your favorite editor.

Paste the following into the file:

You should edit the variables to reflect your own setup/user.

You can edit the log output to whatever you want.

Now use the following commands to start the server:

You can also let it start on boot:

To get the status:

If you want a more advanced Systemd script that auto-updates, validates and auto-restarts on crash you can use the following:

Don't forget to edit the variables to reflect your own server files.

If you want to run multiple servers you should append the following to ExecStart:

Just +1 the ports from default.

Monitoring your server (to integrate with monitoring tools like Nagios or control panels)
quakestat can be used to monitor your Mordhau server.

use  to see all options.

Installing via SteamCMD
Download SteamCMD for Windows: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd.zip

At the moment our most comprehensive tutorial is a Video

Installing via Steam tools
1. With Steam open, right click on your library and open up "tools"

2. Navigate to "MORDHAU Dedicated Server" and click install

3. Once you have the server files navigate to the location below or wherever you chose to install the server files.

4.Create a shortcut of "MordhauServer.exe"

5. Right click your new shortcut and select properties

6. Edit the target field and add -log to the end of it so a console window is displayed upon launch.

You will have to run the server once before it generates configuration files for you to edit.

Installing via WindowsGSM
There is multiple tools for game server management built into this software. Along with the option to run and import other games servers all into one control panel.


 * 1) Download WindowsGSM from https://windowsgsm.com/.
 * 2) Install the dependencies needed .NET Framework 4.7.2 and Visual C++ 2015 32bit and 64bit version.
 * 3) Put WindowsGSM into a folder and start the application.
 * 4) In the top left click the "Servers" Drop down and pick Install a Server. Select the Mordhau Dedicated Server and then put a name for the WindowsGSM dashboard to display for the server ( this is not your actual servers name) and press install.
 * 5) At this point you can follow the rest of this page to configure and set up your server to what you want. Start the server at least once to generate the files and then stop it to start configuring.

Tweaks and configurations
Below you will find how to set the default game mode upon launching the server as well as changing the game modes available which is bound to the map rotation pool.

Adjusting duration & score
Edited in Game.ini

Setting a default map
The default map is chosen by ServerDefaultMap variable in /Mordhau/Saved/Config/*Server/Engine.ini, below are couple of examples for different vanilla maps:

For Frontlines:
It is also possible to configure a modded map into your rotation in the same way as shown above. Adding the mapname twice such as  is not necessary. You will need to configure the exact path to the map in this variable, and this is different than the configuration used to put it in map rotation below, which only requires the map name without the path.

Setting map rotation
For Map Rotation you add your maplist into /Mordhau/Saved/Config/*Server/Game.ini, under [/Script/Mordhau.MordhauGameMode]

Console commands
Usage - "AdminLogin password" - Logs user in as server admin

Usage - "AddAdmin SteamName" - Adds a user with steam name SteamName to your admin list. They must be in the server to use steamname. The command also accepts steamIDs regardless.

Usage - "RemoveAdmin SteamName" - see AddAdmin above, same conditions apply.

Usage - "AdminList" - Dumps the SteamIDs of all configured admins to the console

Usage - "m.ShowServerStats 1" - Shows players connected and server tick rate

Usage - "PlayerList" - Displays all the connected players session ID-SteamID-Username e.g. 88 - 12345566780 - PlayerOne

Usage - "Kick username/SteamID/session ID" - Kicks player from server - Note you can wrap a player name in quotations if they have a space in their name or just use their session ID number from playerlist

Usage - "Ban username/SteamID/session ID duration reason" - Bans player from server - Note you can wrap a player name in quotations if they have a space in their name or just use their session ID number from playerlist

Usage - "Addbots 5" - Adds desired number of AI bots to the server. It does not seem to be possible to add them to the enemy team in horde mode.

Usage - "Removebots 5" - Removes desired number of AI bots from the server

Usage - "slomo 0.5" - Changes the game speed to half.

Usage - "ToggleDamage" - Disables damage dealing to other players and bots (though not to things like destructible doors). Execute it again to re-enable damage.

Usage - "ToggleStamina" - Disables stamina draining from taking damage, missing attacks for everyone and maxes their stamina bars.

RCON commands
Usage - "Listen ". Subscribes your RCON client to receive data on various broadcast types. Valid broadcast types are:


 * all - subscribes to all the below events.
 * login - subscribes to player join/leave events.
 * chat - subscribes to the chat feed to be notified of new chat messages.
 * matchstate - subscribes to the match's state to be notified of when a match ends or begins.
 * killfeed - subscribes to the kill feed to be notified of kills.
 * scorefeed - subscribes to the score feed to be notified of changes in player score.
 * custom - subscribes to the custom feed. For use by modders.

Lists the broadcast types your RCON client is currently listening for.

Lists all server admins.

Lists all banned players.

Lists all muted players.

Lists all players currently connected to the server. This provides each player's PlayfabID, profile name, ping and team. This command also tells you how many bots are connected to the server.

Lists all maps in the server's map rotation. This provides each map's index in the array as well as it's name.

Usage - "AddMap  ". Example: "AddMap FFA_ThePit 8 true". If is set to true, your server's Game.ini file will be modified so that the added map persists through server restarts.

Usage - "RemoveMap ". Example: "RemoveMap FFA_ThePit false". If is set to true, your server's Game.ini file be modified so that the added map persists through server restarts.

Usage - "AddAdmin ". This command grants admin rights to the specified player.

Usage - "RemoveAdmin". This command revokes admin rights to the specified player.

Usage - "AddBots [team]". This command adds bots to the server. Team is an optional parameter.

Usage - "RemoveBots [team]". This command removes bots from the server. Team is an optional parameter.

Usage - "Say ". Broadcasts a message to all players on the server.

Usage - ?

This command is for passing custom data back and forth. This is only really useful for modders.

This command is for triggering events*. This is only really useful for modders.

Usage - "SpawnServerActor  ". This command spawns in server actors, mainly useful for modders.

Usage - "Kick  ". This command kicks a player from the server for the given reason.

Usage - "Ban  ". This command bans a player from the server for the given reason. Duration is in minutes. A duration of 0 indicated a permanent ban.

Usage - "Unban ". This command unbans a currently banned player.

Usage - "Mute  ". This command mutes a player for the duration provided. Duration is in minutes. A duration of 0 indicated a permanent mute.

Usage - "Unmute ". This command unmutes a currently muted player.

This command displays a string version of the scoreboard.

This command displays server info including the hostname, server name, version, game mode and map.

This command displays server stats including the minimum tick rate, the maximum tickrate, the average tick rate, InBytesPerSecond and OutBytesPerSecond.

Usage - "WriteToConsole ". This command writes a custom message to the server's console and log. Useful for custom logging.

Usage - "ChangeTeam  ". This command changes a player's team.

Usage - "ModifyIniVar    ". This command updates a variable within the provided file (engine for Engine.ini or game for Game.ini). Supported types are: bool, int, float, string, text, vector2d, vector, rotator, color.

This command displays how many seconds are remaining in the current match.

Usage - "ExtendMatchDuration ". This command adds the provided number of seconds to the match's timer.

Usage - "SetMotd ". This command changes the webpage shown to players when they join the server.

Usage - "TeleportPlayer  ". This command teleports a player to the given location on the map.

Usage - "KillPlayer <Player name|PlayFabID>". This command kills the given player.

Usage - "GetTeamDamage <Player name|PlayfabID>". This command displays the amount of team damage a dealt as well as the percentage of their total damage output which has been team damage.

Usage - "RenamePlayer <Player name|PlayfabID> ". This command changes a player's display name to a new name. Please do not abuse this command.

Usage - "ChatLog <amount of messages to retrieve>". This command retrieves the provided amount of messages from the chat log.

Usage - "ChangeLevel <Map name>". Can be used to change the map.

Restart play on the current map you’re on.

This command shuts down the server.

References and information sources

 * Linux setup guide by Vin¢