Step 1: Installing the prerequisites

In order to set up our Half Life 2 server, we’ll need to install SteamCMD (Steam’s game server client) and it’s requirements.

On a 32 bit CentOS installation:

yum install glibc libstdc++

On a 64 bit CentOS installation:

yum install glibc.i686 libstdc++.i686

That’s all SteamCMD requires (the libraries required to compile C++ code and execute it).

Lastly, for this step, we’ll install a Linux utility called screen which allows us to keep the game server running even after we disconnect from our SSH prompt.

yum install screen

Step 2: Setting up SteamCMD

Moving on – for security purposes, we will be creating another user to run the gameserver. Execute the following:

useradd -m gameserver

Before we drop our root privileges, we need to open up some base ports to allow players to connect.

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 27015 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 27020 -j ACCEPT
service iptables save
service iptables restart

Now, log in as your new user account: gameserver.

su gameserver

The next step will be downloading the libraries needed for SteamCMD:

mkdir SteamCMD
cd SteamCMD
wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

And extract the archive:

tar xvf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Now that SteamCMD is installed, we can move forward to installing the game server.

Step 3: Installing and configuring Half Life 2

Execute ./steamcmd.sh:

./steamcmd.sh

Executing the above command will allow Steam to self-update. One updated, you will see the Steam > prompt. You will then log in to the Steam Server:

login anonymous

Next, install the halflife2 server:

force_install_dir ./halflife2
app_update 238430 validate
exit

The above command will install Half Life 2’s server file to the directory specified above within your SteamCMD Directory.

The next step would be to configure the server:

cd halflife2

And open up your text editor to cfg/server.cfg:

nano cfg/server.cfg

Add the following:

// Half Life 2 configuration
hostname "Half Life 2 Server"

Change the contents between the double quotes to your desired host name.

The next and final step would be to start the server:

Step 4: Running the Half Life 2 game server

Follow the steps below to start the server:

cd /home/gameserver/SteamCMD/halflife2/ 
screen
./srcds_run -game hl2mp +port 27020 +map dm_lockdown +maxplayers 8 -autoupdate

This concludes our tutorial. Thank you for reading.