Linux Server Owners - Please help!

Wise linux users, I am in need of your help please

I run Win7 on my M17x. I also just got brought on-board to help admin a videogame server (source engine/OB engine) hosted on gameservers.com. I want to start the server over from scratch because we've got too many plugins and junk on there and it's got lag issues/crashing.

Instead of hitting the 'reinstall' button on the login UI for gameservers.com (frankly I'm not a huge fan), I'd like to do it all manually on my system, and then upload it to the ftp myself. The server is a linux based one, I have no idea what distro. Filing a ticket with gameservers is spotty at best, as you can imagine.

Anyways, upon happening scrds.com I discovered this image:




Frankly I did not know a linux server (or specifically, the updatetool they go on to mention) would not function on my windows system, but I guess I should have figured that before I tried it.

I have Linux Mint, Saboyan, and Ultimate Edition (all x64) livecd's lying around for a rainy day. Is today that rainy day? Are any of these OS environments able to do what is required to: 1) connect to the net (install the drivers I need for my wifi card in sig computer); 2) download and execute the commands given there to get the server going?

Once again, I will not be RUNNING the server from my computer, and I do not plan to use the livecd's as a permanent solution, just for this temporary downloading/configuring of the server before I upload it to the FTP to wipe my old one and be the active game server for Day of Defeat: Source.

Yes, someone already told me to do it through gameservers.com, but I do not like/trust them as their mod install buttons are all 8 months+ out of date.

If the answer is yes, could you help me better understand how or where to do this exactly:

Code:

First of all download hldsupdatetool from the VALVe webserver. Make a dir called srcds_l, and save hldsupdatetool in that dir and run it. (Check this out when you have an uncompress error.)

 Command(s):
mkdir srcds_l
cd srcds_l
wget http://www.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.bin
chmod +x hldsupdatetool.bin
./hldsupdatetool.bin
./steam

( source)


I assume I type this into one of those fancy Linux prompts

 

Please don't feel offended, but with your knowledge you should not be running a Linux server that is connected to the internet at all. You will not be able to handle the security issues.

If you want to learn how to manage a server on your notebook I'd suggest to either chose RedHat/CentOS or Debian since they are both stable and easy to handle. Fedora is bleeding edge which requires increased attention and knowledge. SUSE has a mixed release model which can become pretty complicated to handle if you're not willing to pay for a license and Gentoo is rather directed towards experienced users.
None of your Live CDs will provide you with a suitable environment to learn what you need to safely run a server.

If you decide to ignore this advise and run a public server nevertheless please use at least one of the pre-configured options that are provided by gameservers.com! You'll do yourself and probably lots of other people a big favour. If you don't like these options, use the next 6 months for intensive studies on how to run and maintain(!) a Linux server on your own. Then you might be up to that task.

 

OP mentioned they are not running it as a live server, they just want to set up the config locally and upload it to their host.

I'm not sure why you'd do this unless you are really trying to tweak your configs down to the last line - you do realize how much effort it takes? Getting all of your settings right for a multiplayer server is not easy. If you don't have a networking background, you are going to first need to read up on general networking concepts, UDP in specific.

The linux end of stuff is easy, once you get a VM set up you can run all of the installers for your game servers and start tweaking. Yes, those commands go into a command prompt! Better known as a terminal emulator, or terminal for short. Now go read documentation!

 

But wouldn't that mean that he runs a root server and is therefore fully responsible for keeping it secure? That would be what I was concerned about.
But maybe I'm mistaken, game servers are definitely not my field of expertise.

 

Yeah, if this is the case, my only comment would be:

Danger, Will Robinson!

Hosts tend to get pretty pissed off if a box in their racks gets owned and starts spewing spam/other nastiness, and if you don't have any experience as a Linux sysadmin, this is not exactly out of the realm of possibility. I've been there (back when I was a young kid with too much free time), and it's a pretty bad situation to be in -- one that involves much anger, citations of Terms of Service, and cleanup fees.

So if this server is going to be public-facing (i.e. not on a LAN-only connection somewhere), I'd recommend you take some time to learn a good bit about system administration, OR contract with a hosting provider that offers managed hosting. The latter will cost more, but it'll save you the headache of updating, firewall/service configuration, troubleshooting when things break, and handling attacks. (And, at least for some games, if you run a public server you *will* get attacked.)

 

Guys, we have plenty of configs/mods which help keep the server secure. I have the OLD path to look at for specific read/write/# permissions as well. Security isn't changing - I'm taking out a couple ADDONS. So, that is obviously always a concern, but not what this topic was supposed to be about. I merely wanted to know if the version of Linux livecds I had in my backpack were based on the appropriate kernel recommended by the links I posted above. This is merely to double-check our stuff from the baseline. Gameservers handles DDOSing and console logs on their end as well.

Despite debguy's inability to read my post for what it was aiming, I managed to figure out how to use Linux Mint 7 to do what I needed in the terminal. Unfortunately the file repositories (I think that's what it's called?) didn't contain any of the drivers I needed for my graphics card (or the links to the server was dead/deprecated), so I was stuck in 1680 x 1050 resolution (I'm used to my native 1920 x 1250), but the wifi card, terminal, and firefox browser were all configured to go out of the box, which is all I really needed.

Since the server is a linux based one, I just needed a linux machine temporarily to get base stuff off of. I'm copying over all our configs (which took years to tweak) and that kinda' stuff. I'm not mentally handicapped - I obviously wouldn't have tried to run a server from scratch on an OS I looked at occasionally for all of 5 hours in my entire life.


*Edit: I couldn't get to configuring wifi on Sabayon 5.0 with KDE. It wanted a root password, and I obviously didn't know it. I tried root, password, leaving it blank, etc. Any ideas what it is?

 

Ok, my English skills are limited. I have no problems admitting that.
What I read is a post of a guy who obviously has no clue about how Linux works or what it even is because he tries to run Linux binaries on a Windows machine, doesn't recognize the most basic shell commands when he sees them and asks questions about server configs based on gaming Live CDs.
If you think I read that wrong please feel free to correct me!

I'm done here.

 

So what exact video card are you running? Have you googled xorg and the model of your video card? Or just looked for the proprietary drivers if they're available? Then again if you're just working on a server you technically don't even need XWindows to do anything.

Since you seem like a bit of a beginner you might want to see how Ubuntu latest handles your hardware. It's pretty good at keeping up with older stuff as well as stuff that's come out in the last year, so if your laptop isn't brand new it might just work out of the box, or with minimal updates. Google is your friend.

 

Inattention to detail and/or an inability to read has lead you astray and unto a tangent which derailed my simple questioning about whether or not Sabayon 7 or Mint 5 livecds had the adequate drivers out of the box to 1) connect to the net; 2) update a source engine server.

Obviously I coulda' googled it and eventually found out the answer, but alas I figured I'd use my trusty forum since asking real people in real-time is generally more satisfying than 'googling' everything. I never said I knew much about Linux, hence why I came here and asked. Your response has possibly detracted me from asking further questions in the future however.

By the way, I was able to figure out how to get on the net and get the terminal commands going (took a few tries, figured out I could also right click in the directory I was in and run terminal in it from there since I wanted to keep it on my windows drive/session after I restart) to update and verify the server files. What kind of security/mods/experience I have with a server is irrelevant and none of your business. The least you could have done is looked to the questions I asked. Running the server will be done on the linux machine - manipulating the files is perfectly possible in windows and I'm clear-sailing so far, no thanks to you debguy.

Thanks to everyone else for the kinds words and advice.

@ Sxooter - I actually liked Mint and Sabayon so far, so I'm going to get dirty with those a little bit more. Neither one had audio drivers out of the box for my audio card (or rather, my sound just didn't work when I played videos). Mint the wireless DID work beautifully. Sabayon I couldn't figure out how to get the wifi going. No option to configure it, just ad hoc and wired connections. By the way, I was wrong, 'root' did work. I was trying 'Root' as the password. And the comp I was using is the one listed in my sig. As I said, Mint's repositories were old/broken and it would want me to update packages so I could install OTHER packages (like the nvidia xorg driver) and none of that went well.

I really really liked the look and desktop settings/panel of Sabayon. It seemed to run smoother on the CD than my windows installation! I was changing opacity of a video window, resizing it, and moving it to back-end behind another window (something we need to download as 3rd party software shell plugins BTW on windows) and the video didn't skip a frame - that could never happen on my windows system out of the box. It's definitely made a believer out of me. Now if I could JUST get that wireless rolling I'm sure I could get the rest of the things I needed from the web.

BTW, which version of Ubuntu do you recommend for a beginner? I see many different versions of specific distros. I read a thread about a new Ubuntu having major problems? Would like to avoid that obviously.

*Note: it doesn't need to be a server-grade. I did all I needed to linux-wise with the server now, and it's done. I am currently searching for something to replace this bloated windows crap, but can play Steam games/FPS with similar results as my win7. Thus far, my best point of reference is Sabayon 5 with KDE.

 

Go into whatever linux distro you installed and post a dump of the output of lspci and lsusb into a reply.

That will help us address your hardware compatibility and any drivers (kernel modules) or userspace tools you might need to get rolling.

 

Code:

mint@mint ~/Desktop $ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0c45:63e9 Microdia 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. MX-1000 Cordless Mouse Receiver
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 187c:0512  
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 413c:8158 Dell Computer Corp. 
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 413c:8157 Dell Computer Corp. 
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp. 
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
mint@mint ~/Desktop $ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Host Bridge (rev b1)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Memory Controller (rev b1)
00:03.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 LPC Bridge (rev b2)
00:03.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Memory Controller (rev b1)
00:03.2 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP79 SMBus (rev b1)
00:03.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Memory Controller (rev b1)
00:03.5 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Co-processor (rev b1)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b1)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev b1)
00:06.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b1)
00:06.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev b1)
00:08.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP79 High Definition Audio (rev b1)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Bridge (rev b1)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 Ethernet (rev b1)
00:0b.0 SATA controller: nVidia Corporation MCP79 AHCI Controller (rev b1)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:16.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:17.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
00:18.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP79 PCI Express Bridge (rev b1)
01:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
01:07.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
01:07.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
01:07.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
01:07.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0618 (rev a2)
06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
mint@mint ~/Desktop $ 

 

Why are you messing around with Mint 7 and ..Mint5?! Both are unsupported, obsolete relics. Spend ~1.5 hours to download the torrent of version 11 based on the 3.0 kernel and MUCH more up to date and numerous repositories & drivers than what you're currently seeing.
Releases-Linuxmint.com

 

Sorry if I misspoke - Mint 7 with Gloria and Sabayon 5 with KDE. Both were recommended to me around December of '09 for this laptop based on hardware/gaming needs. It would have been good to know that info at the start of the thread haha.

As I said, I dig the Sabayon/KDE look/performance. If it can play TF2 and OB games better than my windows, I'm jumping ship immediately. I don't care if I have to start everything from a terminal, just so long as there's a guide to get it working smoothly in the end, point me to it and I'm there, please. Paint.net compatibility would be good too, since that's my photo-editor of choice.

I believe my system is more than good enough for a virtual machine too, yeah? Maybe I'll look into a good one so I can still run native windows apps (like photoshop). Any chance of gaming through a virtual machine or is that pushing the limits (specs in sig)?

 

@hank^
You should be fine running vm's. I sometimes have several going at once (WinXP, Debain) on my Linux host machine and it's only using a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo. Only thing is if you're doing that with Win7 as your host, keep an eye on your RAM with just 4gigs total. You should have Virtualbox in the Sabayon repos, or get the most recent version from Oracle's website.

As for games, that's not Linux's strong point. I don't really do games either so others will have to comment on the games you are asking about. Your paint program seems simple enough, it should be fine in a Windows VM. I run Photoshop CS5 this way but I myself have had limited success with gaming in Linux for other people's setups so I admit that it's an area which is either impossibly frustrating or flawless after a few tweaks, if any! Also check out Wine.

 

TF2 in Linux: WineHQ - Team Fortress 2 Steam

As an aside to VM's, make sure VT-x in enabled in your BIOS to fully utilize your QX9300.

 

Yes it looks like Gentoo (for Sabayon right?) is supported in WINE. THANK GOD. What do you think about its page for my game of choice? Is that going to be fixed by now you think, the few errors?

By the way, I found a torrent that contains Ubuntu 10, OpenSuse and Fedora. I believe all livecd's. Will they be accurate representations of the full installation or should I just take the plunge?

 

I wouldn't dl a torrent of any distro unless it comes from the source.

Each distro vendor has its own official torrents. Usually they are the fastest way to download an ISO.

There is a good aggregator here: http://linuxtracker.org/

To be safe, make sure the tracker listed for the torrent is from the distro itself. There are exceptions, some distros don't run their own trackers. In general you should try to confirm this on the distro website before you trust any source.

 

Honestly, I'd stick with one distro and get to know it. Mint 11 and Ubuntu 10.04 are both easy, solid places to start. Debian is the most secure distro out there right now, highly recommended from a server standpoint.

Or.... if you're really feeling bold...
Welcome to Linux From Scratch!

 

I think every distro I've ever downloaded has an md5 tag for it and the torrents I've downloaded them with from the distro's website have always been super fast. No reason whatsoever to chance a corrupt, malicious or otherwise iso from a random place in Wonderland.

Also, Sabayon, Mint 11and Ubuntu 11 use the three major desktop environments out now. They will (especially Ubuntu) be quite different from each other and each will have its own personality of what works, what it likes and so on. (..and then there's Gnome 3.) In the torrent you mention, the latest versions of Ubuntu, Opensuse and Fedora all use different desktops as well. So to avoid midnight fits of rage and/or alcoholic tendencies, you should just stick with Sabayon if you like it so much. For a simple server, it's way overkill but it's a very well done distro with a lot of other capabilities. You can always remove KDE and install Gnome, XFCE or something else if you choose later on. And as for Wine, all major distros will either have it in the repository (including anything mentioned in this thread so far) or will be able to run it from the download at Wine's website.

 

For your laptop depending on what linux you are used to get that same linux version.
For new linux users for gaming I would stick to redhat / fedora / ubuntu types or get the supergamingcd that is about 11gb with games already installed.

Sabayonlinux is now easy and would run on your laptop with lots of support and people to help but might need some extra help with the games side of it. Just boot the livecd and see if it works. They are cursed with the gnome3 disaster but have several alternatives.

For your server see what hardware it has then see if you can dual boot type install what you want as this way you can chroot into the newer linux and fix what needs to be fixed, firewalls / security is a big problem and whatever you run on there that is not from the hosting company will be used against you in court because you are the cause or escape goat of their problems even if your new linux is 01m times more secure you are guilty until proven innocent. This is normal.

Not sure if you want to be blamed for 1 snow flake falling in Alaska and it melting into another snow flake in Alaska and so is causing your hosting company to fall apart. Not worth the legal issues.

Getting newer program, see if a similar to whatever redhat / fedora runs on your server has a newer package somewhere or install a few files to be able to source compile it on your server and then hope it works. You might need to do several elaborate actions to get it working.

Please keep in mind the server you have if not dedicated hardware then they would limit you on cpu and other usage and then you might find out it is some virtual server sharing the actual hardware with other users. Been there done that, not pleasant.

Easiest is still to get a 2nd internet connection to your house + decent pc or server hardware and host it yourself, much cheaper most of the time and then you can do what you want and apply several tweaks for best gaming experience. After a while when you need to go bigger then take this same concept and have it hosted on your hardware.

What can $200pm get you at home (2nd internet + hardware + electricity usage) vs remotely with their hosting limitations.

 

MD5 is basically useless for verifying the authenticity of ISOs.

 

SHA256 is also common but an MD5 from developers is better than lulz from Piratebay.

 

I want to kiss you right now. This is what I was looking for. I'm reading the page and drooling. My philosophy is trying to step into it slowly is going to take longer and give me less than sticking me with a blank kernel and making me learn to compile everything from scratch. I think if I learn how to do the worst first, I can have more fun later.

And as I said before, I really only needed the linux OS for that one step. I can edit/manipulate the files (many are dual-compatible) on my windows machine just fine, just needed to download the MAIN folder's files in a linux environment since the updatetool will only update in one OS or the other. So at this point, I'm sticking with a distro just for my own screwing around with.

I do not understand your premise at all. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but this is what I garnered:

1) Find out the hardware specs;
2) Use this info to choose a distro -> install it;
3) Somehow firewalls/security are related to this and you're suggesting I should not install any mods/third-party files to the server despite the fact that all games older than 1 year old essentially RUN on third-party software to keep the games relevant, manage admins, and hold up their own security protocols?
4) I'm going to be sued upon doing something that has already been DONE to the server for the last 6 years?
5) Somehow my version of Linux on MY computer (unless you're suggesting I could somehow remotely connect to a gameservers.com server, gain access to it, and install an OS on its FTP...or even want to, which I don't) is going to get me sued because I used it to browse or edit the server which we pay for to begin with?????


Once again, I'm not being combative, I just want to leave out any assumptions here. Have you admined a videogame server before? Specifically anything on Steam/OB related?

 

I would recommend learning the system utilities and the shell first, then moving your way down the stack, eventually to the kernel. Find a friendly distro and learn the basics.

Learning the kernel before you learn how to use the OS is a bass ackwards approach. There is nothing to be gained from that direction unless you are a compsci major interested in OS design. If we carry that logic further you might as well start with the intel whitepapers and learn about the voltage tolerances of your motherboard before plugging it in.

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch01.en.html

http://tille.garrels.be/training/bash/pr01.html

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/