Finally found this forum and it was a lot of help to me, however. I've got lots of questions since my Linux-based Counter Strike server simply doesn't work the way I want it to.
I realize that some of my questions already may have been answered in other posts so hopefully you won't be too upset about it since I really have been searching the net for hours and hours.
Ok, here we go...
1.) I've got an ADSL-connection with 768kbit/s upstream and 8Mb/s downstream. I realize that the limiting part for how many players there can be on my server is the upstream. Also, I do understand from other posts on this forum that I have to lower sv_maxupdaterate and sv_maxrate if I want that 16 players receive an equal amount of bandwidth and that without lagging. Now, I did that... I lowered sv_maxrate to 4096 and sv_maxupdaterate to 10 (had it at 8, 12, 16, too), however, lots and lots of clients which connect to my server have pings well above 100. Like 120, some even 130. Others have pings of 60 which is completely acceptable, but the majority of all players start out at 100 and above (the ping often goes down to 90 after a while). So... I suspected that the upstream of my ADSL-connection is fluctuing a lot so I did a continous measurement of the upstream during a whole day. Result: Rock solid 95% of my theoretical max upstream is almost always acchieved (93% at least, which means 713kbit/s). Is there anything I can do? I did try -pingboost 1, however that did nothing except increase CPU-usage to appx 20% at all times. Checking stats on my server has 160FPS at all times, has that got something to do with anything?
2.) Lot's of folks talk about the Server Tick Rate. I know that the default is 33, but I do not know what this means? Will decrease/increase the tick rate responsivness? And if this is the case, how do i do it? I failed to find the server cvar for the tick rate.
3.) Very few people ever join my server to play. This isn't surprising as the server yet has to become more popular in my town's gaming community, however, I do see an extraordinary amount of "Bad/No/Old Challenge"-messages in the server console. Most of them on network ports which are closed in the firewall. Is bad/no/old challenge meaning that people attempt to connect, but can't? If this is the case, do I have to open more firewall ports?
4.) Back to the firewall issue. My firewall is configured pretty much at a paranoide level. The server only has very limited access to the Internet (basically only port 27011 for the master server connection as well as ICMP/DNS/HTTP connections are allowed outbound). Also, until yesterday I only opened port 27015 UDP inbound. After searching the internet (there is lots of unreliable information about which ports srcds actually uses) I also opened all of these ports: 27000 thru 27015 UDP, 27020 thru 27039 TCP, 27040 thru 27041 TCP, 1200 UDP and 27015 TCP. Didn't make much difference in how many people connect and how high their pings are, but it was worth a try. However, I am wondering which ports are ACTUALLY needed for a srcds server to operate correctly (both inbound and outbound).
5.) I read lots and lots about cmdrate and other settings which help tune the server, however, I failed to find reliable information whether these settings do any good on a source dedicated server and how I calculate appropriate values for these settings.
6.) Is it possible to start srcds as another user than root? I changed permissions so that another user than root actually can execute/access the srcds folder and all folders recursively. However, I do fail to start the server with that user. Does srcds_run require to be executed as super-user?
I DO realize this is a huge posts with lots and lots of questions, I hope you guys can help.
THANKS a lot in advance,
Daniel (aka Snittarn)
I realize that some of my questions already may have been answered in other posts so hopefully you won't be too upset about it since I really have been searching the net for hours and hours.
Ok, here we go...
1.) I've got an ADSL-connection with 768kbit/s upstream and 8Mb/s downstream. I realize that the limiting part for how many players there can be on my server is the upstream. Also, I do understand from other posts on this forum that I have to lower sv_maxupdaterate and sv_maxrate if I want that 16 players receive an equal amount of bandwidth and that without lagging. Now, I did that... I lowered sv_maxrate to 4096 and sv_maxupdaterate to 10 (had it at 8, 12, 16, too), however, lots and lots of clients which connect to my server have pings well above 100. Like 120, some even 130. Others have pings of 60 which is completely acceptable, but the majority of all players start out at 100 and above (the ping often goes down to 90 after a while). So... I suspected that the upstream of my ADSL-connection is fluctuing a lot so I did a continous measurement of the upstream during a whole day. Result: Rock solid 95% of my theoretical max upstream is almost always acchieved (93% at least, which means 713kbit/s). Is there anything I can do? I did try -pingboost 1, however that did nothing except increase CPU-usage to appx 20% at all times. Checking stats on my server has 160FPS at all times, has that got something to do with anything?
2.) Lot's of folks talk about the Server Tick Rate. I know that the default is 33, but I do not know what this means? Will decrease/increase the tick rate responsivness? And if this is the case, how do i do it? I failed to find the server cvar for the tick rate.
3.) Very few people ever join my server to play. This isn't surprising as the server yet has to become more popular in my town's gaming community, however, I do see an extraordinary amount of "Bad/No/Old Challenge"-messages in the server console. Most of them on network ports which are closed in the firewall. Is bad/no/old challenge meaning that people attempt to connect, but can't? If this is the case, do I have to open more firewall ports?
4.) Back to the firewall issue. My firewall is configured pretty much at a paranoide level. The server only has very limited access to the Internet (basically only port 27011 for the master server connection as well as ICMP/DNS/HTTP connections are allowed outbound). Also, until yesterday I only opened port 27015 UDP inbound. After searching the internet (there is lots of unreliable information about which ports srcds actually uses) I also opened all of these ports: 27000 thru 27015 UDP, 27020 thru 27039 TCP, 27040 thru 27041 TCP, 1200 UDP and 27015 TCP. Didn't make much difference in how many people connect and how high their pings are, but it was worth a try. However, I am wondering which ports are ACTUALLY needed for a srcds server to operate correctly (both inbound and outbound).
5.) I read lots and lots about cmdrate and other settings which help tune the server, however, I failed to find reliable information whether these settings do any good on a source dedicated server and how I calculate appropriate values for these settings.
6.) Is it possible to start srcds as another user than root? I changed permissions so that another user than root actually can execute/access the srcds folder and all folders recursively. However, I do fail to start the server with that user. Does srcds_run require to be executed as super-user?
I DO realize this is a huge posts with lots and lots of questions, I hope you guys can help.
THANKS a lot in advance,
Daniel (aka Snittarn)
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