SteamCMD application
SteamCMD is a command-line version of Steam created by Valve Corporation. It was created to do server sided tasks like hosting game servers as servers usually don’t have a GUI. These are the things you can do in SteamCMD:
1. Setting a particular directory for game server application files
You can set up a particular directory for downloading game files in SteamCMD. This way, multiple game server files are put in one common place. You can do this by using the following command in SteamCMD without logging in:
force_install_dir /path/to/intended/dir
The above command won’t work if you have logged in to steamCMD. Hence you need to log out of steamCMD to execute this command.
2. Logging in
You can log in to SteamCMD either anonymously or with your Steam account. A Steam account is required in those scenarios when the game server you are trying to install is a paid application. Below is the command for logging in SteamCMD:
login <username>
To log in anonymously, you can do the following:
login anonymous
3. Downloading game files to the required directory
You can download game files of the required game by using app_id. App_id is a unique id used by each game on SteamCMD to differentiate between them. Given below is the command for downloading game files of a game in SteamCMD:
app_update <app_id> validate
This command not only downloads game server files for the first time but can also update them if required.
How To Use Docker for Gaming Servers with SteamCMD?
Pre-requisite: Docker
Docker is an open-source software that is used to containerize applications. Containerization makes the deployment of applications easy. Today we will deploy a SteamCMD game server using docker. Deploying game servers using docker will make it easy to deploy our game servers on a new server which may be present anywhere around the world.
Here, we will use a droplet rented from the digital ocean for hosting our SteamCMD game server. Using a cloud provider for hosting purposes is relatively easier and cheaper than hosting anything on your own PC. Hence, you are recommended to use a cloud provider for hosting this game server. These are the recommended specifications for hosting a CS: GO game server (this may vary from game to game):
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