Noob Server Questions. Come on, you'll know the answers!

[X-ray Doc]

I recently started holding small LAN parties in my home with 5-8 gamers.  I'd like to run dedicated HL2 and CS:Source servers.

1. Should I just use the "Source Dedicated Server" that shows up under "Tools" in Steam or should I start using the Stand-alone Source Server that you can download?
2. Can you add additional maps to either of these two server options?  I want to play maps other than the standard seven.
3. Is the configuration of both of these servers done with console commands?  How do you make console changes permanent for the next time you play?

Thanks!  

[Drocona]

1. I higly suggest the standalone, better performance and more possibilities. (here's my guide: http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=HL2Guides.Detail&id=4&game=3)

2. yes you can copy the maps you have to the maps folder of the server and add the exact name to the maplist.txt and mapcycle.txt in the main mod folder.(explained in my guide)

3. main configuration is done with the so called server.cfg, this file doesn't exist and you ahve to make it yourself (I have included a good server.cfg with anything you need for a normal/advanced server in my guide). These will load every mapchange, so you don't have to set them all via console commands.
Besides this configuration there are command line variables, you can add these to a shortcut pointed at srcds.exe. (all explained in my guide)

[X-ray Doc]

Drocona, thanks for the excellent guide.  Using your guide I have now successfully set up a dedicated CSS server on my LAN.  I have a few questions though:

1. Since I only intend to run this on my LAN, I guess I should set sv_lan to "1"?  In doing so, will that setting override or supersede other commands in the cfg file?
2. On a 100 Mbps LAN is there any reason why I shouldn't just set tick rate to 100 and the sv_maxrate to 30000?  If I understand my bandwidth correctly, I believe your calculation for sv_maxrate with 16 players comes out to 800,000.  I'm not sure if the tick rate setting is more dependent on the server machine specs or the network bandwidth.
3. I'd also like to set up a similar server for HL2 Deathmatch.  Do I do this by just modifying the commands after the updatetool executable?
4. Can I let the updatetool download the files into the C:\SRCDS folder or should I create and specify a totally separate folder for my HL2 DM server?
5. Do you know where I might be able to obtain a generic HL2 DM server.cfg file?  I assume that some of the lines in your CSS cfg file probably don't apply to HL2 DM.

Thanks again for the help!  I've never done this before.

[Drocona]

1. Yes, you can safely set it to LAN, it won't override anything from your config.

2. on 100mbps you can easily set the tickrate to 100, in the end that's what 100 tickrate is made for. You will see the CPU will be the limiting factor in this case, but overall 100tick uses 3/4x more bandwidth as 33tick and the CPU might even be higher, generally 3/4x more as usual.

3. Yes, if you look up the readme you can see the command to set for installing HL2 DM.

4. Yes, it will actually install much faster that way (base files are already installed because of the cstrike server) and it still gets its own folder called hl2mp I believe, so you can have a dedicated config for that. You can also run multiple servers from one install if you like.

5. There are some examples in this thread, note that there are cssource and other mod cfg's in there too so you'll have to read a bit on what mod they are. http://forums.srcds.com/viewtopic/10