ARK Survival Evolved Linux Server (AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CentOS)

ARK Survival Evolved Setup Guide
AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CentOS

In this we'll be setting up the ARK: Survival Evolved server on a fresh AlmaLinux 8 virtual machine. This guide applies to all AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and CentOS 8. This can also be done using Ubuntu or Debian but you must use their "apt" package manager to install packages instead of "dnf" (a.k.a "yum").

Before we start, update all of your system packages:

dnf update -y

First install the required packages for SteamCMD:

dnf install glibc.i686 libstdc++.i686 tar nano wget -y

Now we need to increase the limit of open files in Linux. We can do this by running the following command:

echo "fs.file-max=200000" >> /etc/sysctl.conf && sysctl -p

Lets add firewall rules to allow ARK to reach the outside world. If your OS doesn't come with firewalld, install it with "dnf install firewalld".

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=27015/udp
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=7777/udp
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=7788/udp
firewall-cmd --reload

Create a systemd startup script for Ark.

nano /lib/systemd/system/ark.service

Paste the following and save the file:

[Unit]
Description=ARK Survival Evolved
[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
StartLimitInterval=60s
StartLimitBurst=3
User=steam
Group=steam
ExecStartPre=/home/steam/steamcmd +login anonymous +force_install_dir /home/ark/server +app_update 376030 +quit
ExecStart=/home/steam/server/ShooterGame/Binaries/Linux/ShooterGameServer TheIsland?listen?SessionName=mumbly -server -log
ExecStop=killall -TERM srcds_linux
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload systemd after saving the file.

systemctl daemon-reload

Now create a new operating system user called 'steam':

useradd -m steam
su - steam

Now we should be logged in as the 'steam' user and inside its home directory. Now download SteamCMD and extract the archive.

wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz
tar -xvf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz
rm -rf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Now you will have the SteamCMD files in your current directory. Run the following command to install the ARK: Survival Evolved dedicated server files.

./steamcmd.sh +login anonymous +force_install_dir /home/steam/arkdedicated +app_update 376030 validate +quit

When you run the above command it may take some time to complete depending on your network connection, as it will download the game files which are approximately 16GB.

Once it's done, lets go back to the root user to enable and start the systemd service.

su -
systemctl enable ark.service
systemctl start ark

To edit your ARK server settings, modify the parameters in the /home/ark/server/ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/GameUserSettings.ini file then restart after any changes.

nano /home/ark/server/ShooterGame/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/GameUserSettings.ini

Thanks for reading.

The ARK developers have released a short guide on how to setup the dedicated server for Linux below, please review their guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/594820656471833280/