Setting Up a Half-Life Server (Linux)

Below is a detailed guide on how to set up a Half-Life server.
The operating system will be Ubuntu/Debian.

All the work of setting up the server is done in a terminal. If it's a remote machine, an SSH connection is enough.
I don't recommend downloading a ready-made Half-Life server, because ready-made servers may contain vulnerabilities that malicious players can use to gain control of the server and wreck it, which is not exactly great. Building your own server isn't much harder than downloading a ready-made one, and on top of that it will give you fewer problems down the road.

HL server requirements:

CPU: 1000 MHz or more
RAM: 128 MB or more
Hard disk space: 1.5 GB or more

If the system is 64-bit, you need the library that supports 32-bit applications
You can install it by entering the command



Installing the server:
You'll need superuser rights to install the server.

Connect via SSH.
If you didn't connect as root, run the following command



Create the directory on the server where our HLDS will live


Server security comes first. Under no circumstances should you run our future server as root. You need to create a new user and give it minimal rights, since the HLDS server doesn't need much: mostly writing logs and reading files.

Add a new group that the user will belong to.

where hldm is the name of the new group. The name doesn't matter; you can pick any name you like.

Add the user hldm

where
--home /opt/hldir - the home directory with the game
--ingroup hldm - the group the user belongs to
--disabled-login hldm - the name of our user

Go to our directory to download the necessary files into it


Download the tool needed to build the server automatically from the Steam website.


Now give our file the rights it needs to run

+x means the file is allowed to execute
-x means the file won't execute

Run our tool:
If the previous command didn't work, you can also use this one; in that case the program will run as the superuser


Once it starts, we'll see the license agreement. Type YES to agree and press ENTER.

A few more files will appear in the game folder. We need the steam file to build the server. Give it the necessary rights.


And run it


You'll see a message roughly like this


Repeat the command


Now you'll see roughly the following:


That's it, the hardest part of setting up a Half-Life server is done. Now all that's left is to download the server itself and run it.

Run the following command

Or


Where dir .
the dot is the directory where steam itself is; if you want to install into a different folder, you need to specify it, for example dir team, dir gungame and so on.
For those installing Counter-Strike or another game rather than Half-Life:
In the -game parameter, specify cstrike instead of valve

Now all the files the server needs to run will be downloaded. How fast this finishes depends on your internet connection.

After the installation, create the folders the server needs to work properly


Give the rights to run the server


Start our server

Be sure to run it as the hldm user; if some rights are missing, for example writing to the logs folder, grant them.
Running the server as root is strongly discouraged.

If you did everything right, you should see something roughly like this:



If errors show up, try checking the following:
The server launch parameters, for example +port 27015; try a different port, maybe 27015 is already in use.

If the program couldn't get the CPU info, run this before each server start
Error:


Fix:



Customizing the server

Install metamod
Install amxxmod
If you need a non-Steam server, you have to install dproto

Don't forget to configure the server.cfg configuration file

Read more about fine-tuning a Half-Life server here