nocturlab/steamcmd repository overview

⁠steamcmd

Steamcmd allow you to create server for games that use the steam api. Basically, it download the game in CLI.

⁠Usage

You can use Docker or Docker Swarm to use this image.

⁠Docker

You first need to create a volume to persiste the game data. In this example, we will install the gmod server.

docker volume create steam_gmod

Now, you have your gmod volume you can start the server by running this command :

docker run -it --rm -v steam_gmod:/steam \
                    -e INSTALL_APPS=4020,232330,220 \
                    --restart always \
                    --name gmod-server
                    --entrypoint /entrypoint.sh \
                    -p 27015:27015 \
           nocturlab/steamcmd \
           /steam/4020/srcds_run -game garrysmod \
                                 -norestart \
                                 -port 27015 \
                                 -console \
                                 -secure \
                                 +maxplayers 16 \
                                 +hostname "My Sandbox Server" \
                                 +gamemode sandbox \
                                 +map gm_construct \
                                 +host_workshop_collection **** \
                                 +authkey **** \
                                 +sv_setsteamaccount ****

To explain what it does, it's pretty simple.

• The -v arg will say where to persiste the directory /steam, this directory will contain the game data downloaded and the server informations
• The -e INSTALL_APPS will be an array of each game that will be installed before launching the main commands.
• The --restart always is to automatically restart the server if it was shutdown.
• The --name gmod-server is to give a name to our container.
• The -p 27015:27015 is to open your computer port to the docker, only this one can be accessed from the outside (security)
• The nocturlab/steamcmd:latest is the docker image hosted in the docker hub repository. This image was build directly using this git repository.
• All after the image name was the custom command you want to run.

• The game was gmod of course.
• The norestart option is because Docker will restart it automaticaly. I think this better.
• The port is to change the port you use.
• The console option is to access to the console from the terminal. You can detach the terminal by pressing CTRL+P + CTRL+Q (Do not release CTRL) To reattach the console, just do docker attach gmod-server.
• The secure option is to use VAC. Use -insecure if you want to disable it instead.

• The maxplayer is the numbers of slot you want.
• The hostname is the server name.
• The gamemode is the gmod gamemode you want to use (darkrp for example).
• The map is the map name you want to load at start.
• The host_workshop_collection is the id of the collection of addons to load.
• The authkey is the steam auth key⁠.
• The sv_setsteamaccount link your steam account to your server, get it here⁠.

⁠Docker-Swarm

The docker swarm work in the same way. But you need to create a stackfile.

To start, you first need to have a swarm cluster running, if not, you can just initialisate one using this command :

docker swarm init

Now, you can create the stackfile, I'll name it steam.yml. It will contain the deployment definition of our containers in the YAML format.

Here the template file you can use :

# file: steam.yml

version: "3.7"
services:
  gmod:
    image: nocturlab/steamcmd
    environment: 
      INSTALL_APPS: 4020,232330,220
    ports:
      - 27015:27015
    volumes:
      - gmod:/steam
    command: /steam/4020/srcds_run -game garrysmod -norestart -port 27015 -console -secure +maxplayers 16 +hostname "My Sandbox Server" +gamemode sandbox +map gm_construct +host_workshop_collection **** +authkey **** +sv_setsteamaccount ****
    stdin_open: true
    tty: true
    deploy:
      replicas: 1

volumes:
  gmod:

You can see the same options as the docker solution.

So refer to that section if you want to know how to configure it.

• stdin_open: true and tty: true allow you to access to the console.
• The volumes: map at the buttom of the file allow you create new storages. Storage as used in services volumes: array.

To run your server, you just have to run this command :

docker stack deploy -c steam.yml steam

The last steam of this command is your stack name. You can customise it but it need to be unique on your cluster.

All ressources created in your stack will be prefix by the stack name, here steam. for example for the volume gmod : steam_gmod

To access and edit your server files, you will find it only in root user (so use sudo -s) and in the directory /var/lib/docker/volumes/steam_gmod/4020/