FOR WINDOWS XP


1. Can I run a server and play Half-Life from the same computer?
2. How do I set the name, or "hostname", of my server?
3. How do I take remote control, or "rcon", of a server?
4. Is there a list of Half-Life commands and/or variables?
5. I keep getting these llamas teamkilling or spamming on my server - how do I kick and/or ban them?
6. My server is initially a low ping server, but pings skyrocket the more people join?
7. How do I change maps?
8. I want to run a Linux server - how do I do it?
9. I have a LAN set up and want to run a server for the LAN but don't know how?
10. I have a password set for my server, but how do I remove the password remotely, using rcon?
11. What does SZ_Getspace mean?
12. What does the number and FPS mean on the dedicated server window?
13. How do I make Message Of The Day work?
14. Where can I grab the latest server software and/or server patches?
15. How do I find out what my ip address is?
16. Are there any good server admin message boards or mailing lists?
17. Why do clients keep complaining about receiving the error "Expecting ' { ' , got..." when trying to find my server?
18. I have Windows 2000 and I keep getting this "WSACONNRESET_GetPacket:" error?
19. Can I have more than 20 players on my server?
20. I keep getting an error about my CD Key, similar to "Could not connect to the server - Reason: Disconnected: CD key already in use" - what can I do to play?
21. Do you have a CD Key that you can send me?


FROM TOP:

1. Can I run a server and play Half-Life from the same computer? This is one of the most frequently asked questions of server admins - and the answer is, YES. By default, both the client and server use port 27015 to run, that is why you initially get errors. So, to make it work, you must manually alter the port for either the client or the server. The easiest way to do this is just append the target line of your shortcut with "-port 27016". Linux admins, add that to your command line. However, keep in mind that anyone else connecting to your server is going to have a good amount of lag because your system resources are being split between the client and server.

2. How do I set the name, or "hostname", of my server? This is a very basic setting. In your server.cfg file, just add the line "hostname <NameOfServer>" where <NameOfServer> obviously is the name that you want to give your server. If you didn't initially know how to set the name of your server, then you are probably more of a novice server admin. Not a problem, but you will definitely want to check out the How To Page that fully explains how to get your server up and running.

3. How do I take remote control, or "rcon", of a server? We have written up a detailed description of how rcon works over on the How To Page.

4. Is there a list of Half-Life commands and/or variables? We have a list of CS commands and variables as well as an unabridged list of general Half-Life commands over on the Commands Page.

5. I keep getting these llamas TKing (teamkilling) or spamming on my server - how do I kick and/or ban them? I've written up a nice little section that covers all the bases for kicking/banning players over on the How To Page.

6. My server is initially a low ping server, but pipngs skyrocket the more people join? This can happen for many reasons. But for the most part, I have found, is that many of you server admins just are not honest with yourselves - and let me explain. Some of you are trying to run a server but you just do not have the hardware or Internet connection needed to run one. Sure, it is a lot of fun running servers, but if you don't have the equipment, then it's just not going to work. You can check out Valve's recommended minimum requirements, but to be honest, I think the requirements should be much more strenuous, especially with the mods (because they are more CPU intensive). Many of you others still might have pretty good hardware, and a cable connection, so you pump up your maxplayer limit to 16+. That's just not going to happen, and it's due to the way cable works. It is a WAN (wide-area-network) and your connection is shared. I have found 12 to be the definitive max for a cable server, and that is pushing it. But the bottom line is, be honest with yourself - don't be afraid to admit that you don't have the equipment or that you are trying to push your server too hard. Because you may start off with an empty, low ping server, and a whole bunch of people join (for that low ping issue), and then your server cannot hold them all. Pings rise, their tempers rise cuz they have spent the whole night trying to find and "honest" low ping server, and your server earns a bad rep. Now, another reason has something to do with Gamespy, Pingtool, and other server finders constantly doing UDP port scans, which in effect, kind of floods your server.

7. How do I change maps? There are two commands available to change maps, and it is very important which one you use. The first command, and old school admins from other games will recognize it - "map <mapname>". This does in fact change the map, but it also boots all clients from your server as well. The other command, the one that you should use, is "changelevel <mapname>". This changes the map WITHOUT booting all the players from your server.

8. I want to run a Linux server - how do I do it? Well, I am not quite the Linux guru that I would like to be, but with the contributions of a guru I have available a section for your Linux admins on the How To Page as well as some helpful scripts available on the Files Page. You will also want to check out the Linux portion of this FAQ for basic troubleshooting questions as well as tips.

9. I have a LAN set up and want to run a server for the LAN but don't know how? Use "sv_lan 1" in your server.cfg to enable LAN only dedicated server mode. Also, try either adding "setmaster none" in your config file or else "-nomaster" to the target line of your hlds shortcut to keep your server from trying to connect to the WON authorization servers.

10. I have a password set for my server, but how do I remove the password remotely, using rcon? After properly taking rcon of your server, pull down your console and type: "rcon sv_password "none"".

11. What does SZ_Getspace mean? I get asked this question a lot, mainly because it can be an common sight on your server. Basically what it means, though, is that a client is too slow in receiving the data packets that the server is sending to it.

12. What does the number and FPS mean on the dedicated server window? This number represents the network frames per second rate of data flow. On the old version of the dedicated server software, we were able to change this number (the Tic). As more players join the server, or the more your server bogs down, the lower this number drops. Once it gets to around 25 FPS or below, it's time to optimize your server for better performance, fewer players, etc.

13. How do I make Message Of The Day work? MOTD (Message Of The Day) is a simple concept. If a file called motd.txt does not already exist, create it. Then enter a few lines of text in this file with information such as your server name, your server's information website, and any other messages you want to tell the connecting clients. Each line of text will be centered and yellow when viewed by the clients. As far as I know, it still does not work in the Linux server version, and also does not work with some mods.

14. Where can I grab the latest server software and/or server patches? Although most of these main Half-Life News sites will have a files section, a good place to start that always has the latest and most up-to-date files is on the PlanetHalf-Life Files Page. Or for a full array of all sorts of files, just head straight over to FilePlanet, or WON.net.

15. How do I find out what my ip address is? Well, it depends on what OS (operating system) you use. If you have Win95/98, what we need to do is click your Start button, select Run. Then type "winipcfg" and hit Enter. Then look for your IP Address. If you have NT, click Start —> Run. Type "cmd" in the Run line, and as a suggestion, go to full screen mode. Type "ipconfig/all" and search for your IP Address. If you are a Linux user, at the command prompt, type "ifconfig" and grab your IP.

16. Are there any good server admin message boards or mailing lists? Valve has a few mailing lists just for that purpose - one for hlds, one for linux port, and one just for announcements. This info is posted near the top of the Links Page. WON.net has a good Server Admin message board.

17. Why do clients keep complaining about receiving the error "Expecting ' { ' , got..." when trying to find my server? This is an error on WON's side, due to them updating their servers and such. For a temporary fix, have your clients delete the favsrvs.dat file from your Half-Life directory.

18. I have Windows 2000 and I keep getting this "WSACONNRESET_GetPacket:" error? Unfortunately, there is no workaround for getting rid of this error right now, but there will be a fix for it in the next Half-Life update. Erik from Valve says that it shouldn't cause any actual problems to the server, but may spam that packet message to the server console. (Although I have been told by some server ops that it does indeed crash the server sometimes) Also, add "-noipx" in the hlds shortcut command line - this will reduce the number of times this error occurs.

19. Can I have more than 20 players on my server? Here's the deal - the official CS maps are released with a maximum of 20 player spawn points, so if you start a server with a player max higher than 20, then players will start to get telefragged (meaning they will instantly die upon spawning) So, even though your hardware might be able to handle more than 20, keep it at 20 or else your clients will start to get mad as hell and probably won't return.

20. I keep getting an error about my CD Key whenever I try to play, similar to "Could not connect to the server - Reason: Disconnected: CD key already in use" - what can I do to play? The CD Key is an issue with the Half-Life game itself. It has nothing to do with any particular mod, such as Counter-Strike, and since it is an intricate part of the game, you need to talke to the makers of the game, Valve - there is nothing we can do.

21. Do you have a CD Key that you can send me? Hell no we don't! Get yourself a job, save up some money and go buy your own valid copy of Half-Life from the store. Then you will have your own CD Key which no one else can use (unless you ignorantly give it out).



FOR LINUX


1. I want to run a Linux server - how do I do it?
2. Where can I pick up the latest Linux build of the Half-Life server?
3. My server complains that it cannot find a file - now what?
4. I have an SMP machine but hlds_l only uses one processor?
5. I've got FreeBSD 3.0 or later - does hlds_l work in emulation mode?
6. Can I use linux's IP aliasing functions with hlds_l?
7. Why does my server take forever (i.e., 180 seconds) to start?
8. I get errors about and unresolved symbol __bzero - huh?
9. My server complains that it cannot find readline.so - what do I do?
10. How do I get the MOTD (Message Of The Day) to work?


1. I want to run a Linux server - how do I do it? Well, I am not quite the Linux guru that I would like to be, but with the contributions of a guru I have available a section for your Linux admins on the How To Page as well as some helpful scripts available on the Files Page.

2. Where can I pick up the latest Linux build of the Half-Life server? There are different versions of the Half-Life server: The Full Linux version, the v3013 to v3014 Update, and the v1010 to v3014 Update.

3. My server complains that it cannot find a file - now what? This arises from the fact that Valve has linked against the latest glibc C libs (as found on all modern distros). The problem here comes from the fact that some older distros (RedHat older than 4.2, Slackware older than 4.0, SuSe older than 6.0, and Debian older than 2.0) do not have glibc libs installed by default - hence the server cannot run.

You can check that all the libs are found by the server by running "ldd ./hlds_l" from the server directory.

There are two different fixes: 1) You can upgrade your distro to the latest one (I would recommend this in the case of RedHat 4.2 or older as that is extremely old). 2) You can install the glibc compatibility libs, but the only one I am familiar with for this issue is Slackware (the distro of my choice).

To install the libs for Slackware, download: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware-4.0/contrib/glibc-2.0.7pre6.tgz and run as root: "/sbin/installpkg /path/to/glibc-2.0.7pre6.tgz".

4. I have an SMP machine but hlds_l only uses one processor? Correct - at the present time hlds_l is single threaded, so it can only be run on one CPU at a time. However, Mike from Valve is talking about getting SMP support put into the server, but the timeframe for this has not been set.
You can still benefit from 2 (or more) CPUs in an HL server in the sense that all non-halflife tasks, such as networking, I/O, etc., can be done by the second CPU, or else you can run multiple servers (just be sure you have enough memory to support multiple servers).

5. I've got FreeBSD 3.0 or later - does hlds_l work in emulation mode? We got the word from Patrick Tullmann that hlds_l version 1012 worked fine on his FreeBSD 3.0.0 machine under emulation. We are told (by him) that "it just works" when asked how to get it to work, but he says that he is happy to answer ayd FreeBSD+Halflife questions that you want to send him.

6. Can I use linux's IP aliasing functions with hlds_l? As of v1010b yes, you can. Just add "+ip <ipaddress>" to the command line to bind to the server to a particular ip address.

7. Why does my server take forever (i.e., 180 seconds) to start? If you are not on an internet connected LAN and your server takes forever to start, add the following lines to your "/etc/hosts":

<ip address> half-life.east.won.net
<ip address> half-life.west.won.net

Where the <ip address> is the ip addy of your half-life server.

8. I get errors about and unresolved symbol __bzero - huh? This error comes from the fact that the 3013 server was compiled on RedHat 6.0 and the libc-2.1 that redhat uses is not backwards compatable. The quick fix is to download the update to from 3013 to 3014 (only about 350k) from http://www.toolcity.net/~cyco/half-life/hlds_l30133014.tar.gz.

9. My server complains that it cannot find readline.so - what do I do? This was a mistake on the part of Valve (now corrected). What the error means is that a standard programing lib (used to parse command line options given to programs) that is normally statically linked into the binary (and hence unneeded when the binary was run) was dynamically linked instead. The missing file error arises from the fact that only RedHat appers to install the readline.so lib and so any Slackware, SuSE or other distro users have problems unless they compile the library themselves. The fix is to upgrade to the latest (v3014 at the time of writing) server where this problem has been fixed.

10. How do I get the MOTD (Message Of The Day) to work? Woohoo! Props to Valve for finally fixing this isue! Ok, to get your MOTD working, create a normal text file in your cstrike directory called motd.txt and place all of your important text inside. When you type text in the MOTD, just keep it left aligned by default, and it will automatically center the text when a client sees it. Be sure to include contact information (email address or server site URL) so people can send you comments or concerns as well as check out your server information and stats, if you provide them. Also, you might want to include min and max rates on your server so clients can optimize their game to your server.