Dedicated Server Hosting Guide
Welcome, below you will find information on how to host a dedicated server on Linux and Windows.
Linux setup
Install SteamCMD dependencies
$ sudo apt-get install lib32gcc1
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.
$ useradd -m steam Now, we'll swap to the newly created account:
$ su - steam
Or if you aren't currently logged in as root, use:
$ sudo -iu steam
Now, we can install SteamCMD. This installs it in the current directory:
$ curl -sqL "https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz" | tar zxvf -
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:
@ShutdownOnFailedCommand 1 @NoPromptForPassword 1 force_install_dir ./mordhau app_update 629800 validate quit
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:
$ ./steamcmd.sh +login <your_username> <your_password> +runscript update_mordhau.txt
Make sure to replace <your_username> and <your_password> with your steam login information (you should omit the angle brackets). Here you may be asked to enter a code from the Steam Mobile Authenticator. 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.
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):
$ sudo apt-get install -y libfontconfig1 libpangocairo-1.0-0 libnss3 libgconf2-4 libxi6 libxcursor1 libxss1 libxcomposite1 libasound2 libxdamage1 libxtst6 libatk1.0-0 libxrandr2
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 cd mordhau.
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:
[/Script/Mordhau.MordhauGameSession] MaxSlots=16 ServerName= ServerPassword= AdminPassword= Admins= BannedPlayers=
[/Script/Mordhau.MordhauGameMode] MapRotation=SKM_Contraband ... MapRotation=FFA_ThePit
Admins are added via SteamID and allow using console commands without logging in with the admin password
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:
MapRotation=SKM_ContraBand MapRotation=FFA_Camp 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 have any more information regarding this bug and how to fix it, please contact me so I can update the information here.
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:
[/Script/OnlineSubsystemUtils.IpNetDriver] NetServerMaxTickRate=60
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:
./MordhauServer.sh
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:
nohup ./MordhauServer.sh &
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 <pid> where you replace <pid> with the process ID you just found.