How do I run HL1 redirect servers?

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Edge100x
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How do I run HL1 redirect servers?

Post by Edge100x »

Valve hasn't officially banned them, but HL1 redirect servers are justly reviled by most players. However, we do get a number of requests for these. We don't offer redirect servers directly, but this guide does a rough job of going over how these can be created on an unmanaged VDS.

1. Order and subscribe to an unmanaged VDS sized for your needs at https://www.nfoservers.com/order-virtua ... server.php.

- You'll need about 1 GB of RAM for each 50 redirects that you want to run.
- You don't need to order extra IPs or bandwidth.
- Make sure that "Install game server files" and "HL1 (GoldSrc)-based games" are checked.
- Any OS will work, but if you haven't done this before, Windows Server 2003 x64 is the easiest choice, and this guide will assume it.

2. Log in to the NFO control panel and go to the "Server control" page for the VDS. Using the information there, log in to the server using Remote Desktop.

3. Open up Windows Explorer and navigate to the "c:\Game installs\hldsbase\cstrike" folder.

4. Double-click the "server.cfg" file to open it in Notepad.

a. Remove the lines about the hostname and anything else that you don't want all your redirect servers to share.
b. Find the "mp_timelimit" line and change its value to "0". This will prevent your servers from ever changing maps, which is critical to conserving memory.

5. Add your redirect plugin to the server.

6. Start your first server from the command line.

a. Click Start->Settings->Run
b. Enter "cmd.exe" and hit enter
c. Type the following:

Code: Select all

cd\game installs\hldsbase
hlds.exe -game cstrike +maxplayers 32 +port 27000 -console +hostname "Redirect #1"
7. The server will start and run. Note that it takes almost no time to start. Wait a moment, and then start another, by entering another command like your last one into the prompt:

Code: Select all

hlds.exe -game cstrike +maxplayers 32 +port 27001 -console +hostname "Redirect #1"
8. Continue to start servers, raising the port number by 1 each time and changing the hostname. Pause a few seconds between each one. After the available RAM fills, new servers will start taking slightly longer to create, as Windows starts paging unused memory from existing servers to disk.

9. Stop creating servers when Windows tells you that it runs out of memory/pagefile space, or when they take quite a long time to start -- over maybe 20 seconds.

10. Create a "start_servers.bat" file in the same folder (hldsbase) that contains the lines that you used to start all of these servers, like this:

Code: Select all

hlds.exe -game cstrike +port +maxplayers 32 +port 27000 -console +hostname "Redirect #1"
hlds.exe -game cstrike +maxplayers 32 +port 27001 -console +hostname "Redirect #2"
hlds.exe -game cstrike +maxplayers 32 +port 27002 -console +hostname "Redirect #3"
...
11. If you ran out of pagefile before the system slowed down, you could try to stretch further by raising the pagefile size.

a. Go to Start->Settings->Control panel->System
b. Click the "Advanced" page
c. Under "Performance", click "Settings"
d. Click "Advanced"
e. Under "Virtual memory", click "Change"
f. Change "Initial size" to something large like 8192 MB, and "Maximum size" to match.
g. When it asks, reboot.

It's important that the map never change for any of your servers, as this would cause thrashing that would make the VDS unusable and freeze the other servers. This is why we set mp_timelimit 0. It's also best for all the servers to run the same map, but you could try running some as different maps. If doing this, remove the map line from the "cstrike/autoexec,cfg" file and put it on the command line for servers with "+map xxxxx".
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