This article will handle as many aspects as possible about hosting a Garry's Mod server on Linux.

This article has been written for Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu, ChromiumOS, Mint...) so you may need to do some conversion on other distributions

If you want a more automated solution with many built-in tools, easy support for multiple servers, etc, just use https://linuxgsm.com/lgsm/gmodserver/ instead

Requirements

Make sure you meet the following requirements before you begin:

• A user to run the server as ('steam' is recommended, with home directory /home/steam)
• Enough disk space for the content you wish to install
• An open command-line terminal running as the user 'steam' (su - steam) or an SSH session with steam as logged in user.
• Experience with basic Linux command-line usage.

Installing SteamCMD

SteamCMD is needed to download and update the Garry's Mod server files. Follow the Valve Developer Wiki for recommendations on how to install SteamCMD.

64-bit Systems

If you get "*/linux32/steamcmd: No such file or directory" error, this is most likely because you do not have the required 32-bit libraries. Go here for more information on how to fix this: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD#32-bit_libraries_on_64-bit_Linux_systems

Installing Garry's Mod

The following script will download the latest version of Garry's Mod for you with a single command.

First, lets go to our home directory.

Then, we need to download the script:

Before we can run this file, we need to give it 'execute' rights. This is done with the following command:

Before we can run it correctly, we need to convert it from dos format to unix format:

If you installed steamcmd from the repository, the script needs to be updated:

Change the beginning of line 25:

Line 25 should now look like this:

Press ctrl+O to save and then ctrl+X to quit nano.

Now, lets update the server

The server will now download the necessary content. Steam will show you the percentage of progress it is making with the download.

If you receive an error such as /home/steam/update_gmod.sh: line 25: ./bin/steamcmd.sh: No such file or directory open ./update_gmod.sh in an editor and change the line under "# Call SteamCMD with the app ID we provided and tell it to install" to the following:

Adding content

Of course, we want to be able to use stuff from Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and other supported games. Using the script above, this is simple process.

However, since we want to save on download time, we are going to put all this content in a separate folder, so if we have 5 servers, we only need to update the content once if a content update gets released.

Now we are going to modify the script mentioned above. Add the following line where it says "Add any additional servers here". Here, we add Team Fortress 2.

Now, when we run update_gmod.sh the script will verify (and, if required, update) Garry's Mod (since we downloaded it in the step above) and then install Team Fortress 2 in ~/content/tf2.

For a list of IDs for the servers, you can have a look at the Valve Developer Community page. Remember that you can theoretically download any game here using its ID, but with these dedicated servers you don't need to login using your steam account.

Starting the server

To start the server, we run the file called srcds_run, which is located in the root directory of each server. The command below starts the server with 12 slots on gm_flatgrass.

The script (srcds_run) will keep the server alive, should it crash, but it won't restart when you restart linux and if you close the terminal the server will close. We will fix this later on in this article.

Please see Steam Game Server Accounts for help with sv_setsteamaccount. This is mandatory.

Optionally you can add +host_workshop_collection <collectionID> to your command line to automatically install workshop addons onto your dedicated server. Please see Workshop for Dedicated Servers for help with workshop for dedicated servers.

Updating the server

To update the server, or to update the content, we simply call our download script. You need to make sure your servers are off, or else the update will fail.

Update our scripts by just calling this (from the home directory)

Keeping the server alive after a reboot

To keep the server alive we use crontab. We add an entry to crontab which will call srcds_run when the server has loaded.

Open crontab

Now, add the following line at the end

Now save the file. Usually crontab opens in nano so the commands would, again, be ctrl+o, enter, ctrl+x.

Now, after you reboot the linux server, the Garry's Mod Server will auto start.

Additional notes

Of course, there are better ways of keeping your server alive, but they can become quite complex in no-time so they are not discussed here. If you want to know more, Google around or ask on Facepunch.

Troubleshooting

32-bit binaries

If you're running a 64-bit version of Linux, you need 32 bit binaries, since SteamCMD is only available as 32 bit.

If you get the error message

then you are most likely running 64 a bit system and missing 32 bit libraries.

To do so, you need to install ia32-libs. To do so, run the following bit of code:

The package is big (~200MB isn't uncommon) and has a lot of dependancies so it may take some time.

For other linux distrubutions, see the Valve wiki article

'GLIBC_2.15' not found

If you get the error message

You most likely have outdated GLIBC libraries and will need to update them.

This has happened because you chose to use a different distribution (or version of a distribution) than the one Valve used to create the tools. Those tools are expecting components from that Linux distribution. (See 'Notice' above!)

To deal with this without updating to Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit or later, run the following bit of code:

For CentOS you need to install the EPEL Repo and dpkg first:

Alternatively you could switch to:

• Ubuntu Server 12.04+
• CentOS 7 These distros have been confirmed working and are the most supported.

Addons Not Working

As you are getting your server up and running you may notice some issues with particular addons not working. This problem seems to be affecting legacy addons with folders containing capitals. To fix this issue it may be required to change all directories to lowercase names and all Lua code pointing to these directories accordingly.

WARNING: Failed to load 32-bit libtinfo.so.5 or libncurses.so.5.

If you get the error message

Then you most likely dont have a lib32tinfo5 equivelant installed, the way to install this differs between distros.

Arch Linux

1. install the package group multilib-devel when asked what to install use the default provided value all this is a unlisted build dependency for the next step.
2. install the aur package lib32-ncurses5-compat-libs
   After these steps using the arrow keys on the server console should work