How to setup a dedicated server for Team Fortress 2

Sequel to one of the most popular games of its time, Team Fortress, developed and published by Valve in 1996, Team Fortress 2 is the successor with the same multiplayer first-person shooter game option.

In the following article, we will step by step setup Team Fortress 2 on a Ubuntu 18 server.

Requirement

To install Team Fortress Dedicated Server on Linux, you'll need:

- Server with Ubuntu 18
- Root access
- 8GB
- 20 GB Storage space

Note: Team Fortress 2 uses certain ports that must be open on your server to connect users outside your own local network. UDP 27015 is the main port used by the server browser and allows the client to connect. This port is also used for RCON (Remote connect).

Update Ubuntu 18 for latest libraries

If you have recently performed a fresh Ubuntu installation, you will have to update repositories and install a few requirements.

Output

If you are using 64-bit distribution, you need to install a package named lib32gcc1 or ia32-libs. This is because Steam is compiled for i386 architecture only.

Download and install the SteamCMD Tool

It is recommended you create a separate user (such as "tf2server") to install and run game servers.

Create a user named "tf2server"

Create a directory in which SteamCMD will be installed, eg './hlserver':

Change the current working directory to hlserver:

Download steamcmd_linux.tar.gz :

Use the tar command to uncompress the archive into the working directory:

Download Team Fortress 2 Server

Use this command to download the latest server:

Note: 232250 is Team Fortress 2 App ID

You can update the server in the future by executing this command again.

Creating/Updating server configuration files

Now, change the current working directory to ~/hlserver/tf2/tf/cfg:

Create a file named server.cfg:

Add the following content into your server.cfg (see Windows dedicated server for more information):

Note: You can add a name to your server in this file. This will be displayed when users will look for your server.

Running TF2 server

We will create a shell script which you can run to start your Team Fortress 2 Server, Create a file in './hlserver/tf2.sh' with the following contents:

Name this file 'tf2.sh' to make it executable.

Run ./tf2.sh to launch the server:

This will start the server. You can now invite players to join and play on your server.

We hope you have found this guide helpful and could successfully deploy Team Fortress 2 on your Ubuntu server. Please click on the up-vote button to show your appreciation.