Setup Longvinter Dedicated Server on Almalinux 8

This will show you how to setup a Longvinter dedicated server on Almalinux 8. In this guide we will be using one of our 4GB RAM VPS running Almalinux 8 to set it up.

View the terminal recording below to watch the fill setup process in this guide, you can pause the recording and copy/paste from the recording. Otherwise, scroll down for the full guide and all commands.

Text guide starts here.

If you have a new OS install, it’s always recommended to update your currently installed packages.

The Longvinter dedicated server requires a few packages to be installed for it to run, lets install them and some others that we need.

Now create a new user called "steamcmd" with the home directory "/home/steam".

Set a password for this new user.

Add the new user to the wheel group for sudo privileges.

Add user to /etc/sudoers manually, we will use the nano text editor.

Look for the line about half way down the file with "root ALL=(ALL) ALL" and add the following directly below it:

steamcmd ALL=(ALL) ALL

Now save changes. (CTRL + X, then Y)

If you have a firewall active (iptables or firewalld) and blocks traffic by default you will need to open the required ports.

iptables:
sudo iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 7777 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 27016 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 27016 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 27015 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 27015 -j ACCEPT

firewalld:
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=7777/udp
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=27015/udp
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=27015/tcp
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=27016/udp
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=27016/tcp
firewall-cmd --reload

Now login as the steamcmd user.

Download steamcmd and extract it.

Run steamcmd once to install an app update and exit.

Copy the Steam SDK to the right place.

Go back to the steamcmd user home folder and install the Longvinter server.

This will clone (download) the Longvinter linux server github repo which holds the server files.

Now give permission for this folder to execute commands with.

Now we can customize the server settings by editing/creating the Game.ini.

If it’s empty add the following:

[/Game/Blueprints/Server/GI_AdvancedSessions.GI_AdvancedSessions_C]
ServerName=Unnamed Island
MaxPlayers=32
ServerMOTD=Welcome to Longvinter Island!
Password=
CommunityWebsite=www.longvinter.com

[/Game/Blueprints/Server/GM_Longvinter.GM_Longvinter_C]
AdminSteamID=76561198965966997
PVP=true
TentDecay=true
MaxTents=2

Make any changes you want then save.

Start the server after editing the settings you want to change.

You can start the server automatically with systemd (recommended)

If you use the systemd start scripts copied from the previous two commands, you can use the following systemd commands to manage the server.

Start server:
sudo systemctl start longvinter.service
Stop server:
sudo systemctl stop longvinter.service
Restart server:
sudo systemctl restart longvinter.service
Enable server to start at boot:
sudo systemctl enable longvinter.service
Check status of server:
sudo systemctl status longvinter.service
See real-time server log:
sudo journalctl -u longvinter -f
Get ID of server, needed to connect from the client (requires initialization first, run this from the longvinter-linux-server directory):

You can update your server with the following, make sure it is stopped first.

You can use their included script to create backups of your save.

Reference: https://docs-server.longvinter.com/linux/setup-vanilla/