How to install Counter-Strike 1.6 Server

You will need access as root or super user to a GNU/Linux Machine, or have the system admin install screen and wget for you.

In this tutorial, I’m using a Red-Hat based distribution, named CentOS, version 6.3 – 64 bit

These are the steps needed to install a Counter-Strike 1.6 Server:

Install screen and wget

[root@howto ~]# yum -y install screen wget

Create a symlink for uncompress (this is needed by hldsupdatetool.bin)

[root@howto ~]# ln -s /usr/bin/gunzip /usr/bin/uncompress

Make the server start on system boot

[root@howto ~]# echo "su - hlds -c "/home/hlds/start_hlds"" >> /etc/rc.local

Add user “hlds” and set a password for it

[root@howto ~]# useradd hlds
[root@howto ~]# passwd hlds

Switch to hlds user and check current directory afterwards

[root@howto ~]#su - hlds
[hlds@howto ~]$ pwd
/home/hlds

Download hldsupdatetool.bin from steampowered.com

[hlds@howto ~]$ wget http://www.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.bin

Make the file executable and run it

This will extract the steam tools needed to download and install the server

[hlds@howto ~]$ chmod +x hldsupdatetool.bin
[hlds@howto ~]$ ./hldsupdatetool.bin
Enter 'yes' to accept this agreement, 'no' to decline:
Enter 'yes' to accept this agreement, 'no' to decline: yes
extracting steam.tar.Z...done

You may list the files and see the newly extracted files

[hlds@howto ~]$ ls -l
total 11076
-rwxrwxr-x 1 hlds hlds 3513408 Sep  2  2005 hldsupdatetool.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 hlds hlds    3413 Apr  7  2005 readme.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 hlds hlds 7822833 Apr  7  2005 steam

Update Valve

[hlds@howto ~]$ ./steam -command update -game valve -dir .
 0:01     Fetching exclude list
 0:01     Calculating download size
 0:02     No files will be downloaded
 0:02 [80.239.194.134:27030] Disconnecting
 HLDS installation up to date

Update Counter Strike

The command needs to be ran 3 times, each time it performs a different operation, just follow the instructions on screen

[hlds@howto ~]$ ./steam -command update -game cstrike -dir .
Checking bootstrapper version ...
Getting version 45 of Steam HLDS Update Tool
Downloading. . . . . . . . . . . .
Steam Linux Client updated, please retry the command

[hlds@howto ~]$ ./steam -command update -game cstrike -dir .
Checking bootstrapper version ...
Getting version 45 of Steam HLDS Update Tool
Downloading. . . . . . . . . . . .Steam Linux Client updated, please retry the command
CAsyncIOManager: 0 threads terminating.  0 reads, 0 writes, 0 deferrals.
CAsyncIOManager: 21 single object sleeps, 0 multi object sleeps
CAsyncIOManager: 0 single object alertable sleeps, 0 multi object alertable sleeps

[hlds@howto ~]$ ./steam -command update -game cstrike -dir .
... 99.06%  downloading ./valve/valve.rc
99.06%  downloading ./valve/valvecomm.lst
100.00% downloading ./valve/xeno.wad

HLDS installation up to date
CAsyncIOManager: 0 threads terminating.  0 reads, 0 writes, 0 deferrals.
CAsyncIOManager: 74 single object sleeps, 0 multi object sleeps
CAsyncIOManager: 0 single object alertable sleeps, 0 multi object alertable sleeps

Create the startup script and make it executable

Make sure you edit the ip, port, cpu, number of players, sys_ticrate, etc acording to your needs

[hlds@howto ~]$ echo '#!/bin/bash' > /home/hlds/start_hlds
[hlds@howto ~]$ echo "screen -A -mdLS hlds_cstrike -c /home/hlds/.screenrc ./hlds_run -binary ./hlds_i686 -console -debug -game cstrike -port 27015 -pingboost 2 +sys_ticrate 1000 +heapsize 1048576 +sv_maxupdaterate 100 +secure +sport 27014 +ip <code>85.25.243.169</code> +maxplayers 32 +map cs_assault -pidfile hlds.pid +cpu 8 -autoupdate" >> /home/hlds/start_hlds
[hlds@howto ~]$ chmod +x /home/hlds/start_hlds

Make the last adjustments before starting the server

[hlds@howto ~]$ echo "logfile /home/hlds/hlds_screen.log" > /home/hlds/.screenrc
[hlds@howto ~]$ touch /home/hlds/cstrike/listip.cfg
[hlds@howto ~]$ touch /home/hlds/cstrike/banned.cfg
[hlds@howto ~]$ mkdir -p /home/hlds/SAVE
[hlds@howto ~]$ mkdir -p /home/hlds/valve/SAVE
[hlds@howto ~]$ mkdir -p /home/hlds/platform/SAVE

Start the server and check if it is running

[hlds@howto ~]$ ./start_hlds
[hlds@howto ~]$ netstat -tuanlp |grep hlds
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
udp        0      0 85.25.243.169:26900         0.0.0.0:*                               4079/./hlds_i686
udp        0      0 85.25.243.169:27015         0.0.0.0:*                               4079/./hlds_i686

If you want to gain access to console, enter the screen session by issueing

[hlds@howto ~]$ screen -x hlds_cstrike

Exit the screen by pressing CTRL + a + d

If you just want to check the logs in real time use

[hlds@puck233 ~]$ tail -f hlds_screen.log

Exit by pressing CTRL + c

You may now connect to the server with your Counter Strike 1.6 Client

Enjoy your play!