Dedicated Server

OpenRA has a separate dedicated server which:

• Is a console program (i.e. does not use a GUI).
• Sets the first client that joins as admin; if the admin leaves, admin rights are assigned to a client who joined the server earlier then any other client.
• Spawns a new instance once a game has finished.

Setup

On Unix (Linux and Mac) take the launch-dedicated.sh shell script and on Windows take the launch-dedicated.cmd script as an example and adapt it to your needs. It enables the dedicated server mode by changing settings via command-line parameters. Please note that the script must be run from the installation/source directory. If you are running the script for an installed version (i.e. not built from source), you need to remove the bin\ directory prefix from the server path in the script and adjust the Engine.EngineDir path.

You can also run OpenRA as a Docker container using the OpenRA Docker files provided by the community.

The Linux AppImages provide a simple method to launch a standalone dedicated server.

You can also run a server on a RaspberryPi.

If you want to setup multiple auto-updating release, playtest or bleed game servers which run in separate screen sessions, have a look at ihptru's script.

Server operators should request access to the Server Hosts team to stay up to date with important changes, and to participate in server-related discussion. Members of this team will also show the OpenRA organization on their GitHub profile, recognizing their contribution to the community.

Forwarding ports

To enable players to connect to your server over the internet, you have to make sure to configure your firewall appropriately. With regular home routers, this usually means enabling port-forwarding. The server uses TCP port 1234 by default. For the necessary steps to enable port-forwarding on your equipment, consult the user manual of your router. Unfortunately there are far too many different router models out there, so we cannot give you any more help than that.

Options

You can:

• Change the mod the dedicated server should run by altering the 'Game.Mod=ra' line. (Possible values include 'cnc', 'ra' and 'd2k')
• Use Server.EnableSingleplayer=true to allow people to play just by themselves against bots on your server.
• Specify a password for your server with Server.Password=PASSWORD
• Create a blacklist containing IP addresses which are forbidden to join the server by using Server.Ban=IP1,IP2,IP3,...,IPn

On Linux, you can find a complete list of server options in the openra.6 man-page.

Looking at launch-dedicated.sh or launch-dedicated.cmd might also give an idea of the possible settings and how they are to be used.

Message of the Day

You can add a message that is displayed when players join your server. Create the file motd.txt in the OpenRA Support Directory:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\OpenRA\motd.txt
• Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/OpenRA/motd.txt
• Linux ~/.config/openra/motd.txt

Problems

Search for dedicated server related bug reports.

AWS EC2 server

https://gist.github.com/bryanwieger/eeba368453ffd6a67eb8aca43a696f2c

See also

Lock server settings