I'm looking at dedicated servers to host some Garry's Mod servers on. I'm kind of new to dedicated servers. I have successfully ran one running CentOS that was running a Minecraft server, so I'm not a complete stranger to dedi servers.
I have a question on what OS to use. I've done some searching, but I can't get a straight answer.
Windows 2008 or 2003?
32bit or 64bit?
Web (Some people said it was more optimized) or Standard?
If Windows 2008, use R2?
I am looking at just 4GB of ram. Should I get more to run multiple servers?
I've been looking at Limestone Networks, as the last servers I've had from them were excellent. Is there a better host out there that I should check out?
Thanks!
Do you absolutely [b]insist[/b] on using Windows Server? Because the resource overhead from a *NIX based (Linux) system is less than that of a Windows system, and bash, POSIX and everything else is far more powerful than what I can find in Windows without third party shit.
If you [b]need[/b] to use Windows for whatever reason though, there is no reason not to get 64-bit as 32-bit Windows applications run in 64-bit perfectly fine, with few exceptions (and those exceptions all have native 64-bit binaries anyway).
"Web or Standard" is lost on me.
4 GB should be fine to run Minecraft and two or three GMod servers (GMod doesn't really take up all that much anyway)
The reason I wanted to go with Windows is because it would be easier for me to manage. I'm somewhat lost on linux systems.
And by web or standard, I mean the Web edition or Standard edition.
I'm not going to run Minecraft, I'm just saying I have before.
If I do go with Linux, what OS would you recommend? I've used CentOS before.
srcds on linux have problems with physics and a few more problems, so unless you wanna dig around and apply patches/outdated shit to make it work, go with windows.
Is that physics .so still not fixed?
[QUOTE=MOOcow102;35451565]The reason I wanted to go with Windows is because it would be easier for me to manage. I'm somewhat lost on linux systems.
And by web or standard, I mean the Web edition or Standard edition.
I'm not going to run Minecraft, I'm just saying I have before.
If I do go with Linux, what OS would you recommend? I've used CentOS before.[/QUOTE]
CentOS or Debian are probably your best options.
If you want something you can drop a bomb on and it'll stay stable, I'd go with Scientific Linux (it's CentOS except it's actually being developed, it's maintained by CERN, and being actively used by CERN, so it's not going to die off.)
Otherwise, if you want more recent packages, Debian.
If you want to be an idiot, Arch Linux.
[QUOTE=nikomo;35454349]If you want something you can drop a bomb on and it'll stay stable, I'd go with Scientific Linux (it's CentOS except it's actually being developed, it's maintained by CERN, and being actively used by CERN, so it's not going to die off.)[/QUOTE]
So I looked that up, and
[quote]Error response
Error code 500.
Message: Internal Server Error.[/quote]
ahahahahahaha
[QUOTE=Catdaemon;35454384]So I looked that up, and
ahahahahahaha[/QUOTE]
Because 100% uptime is possible right
Child.
[QUOTE=nikomo;35454610]Because 100% uptime is possible right
Child.[/QUOTE]
[quote]If you want something you can drop a bomb on and it'll stay stable[/quote]
Amoeba.
The best setup I have found is to run SRCDS as a service in a Windows server 2008 core installation(the one that doesn't include a GUI and stuff like that). The overhead is much lower than a Standard installation. It doesn't really matter though, any edition of Windows server will work. If you are going to have less than 3.5 gigs of RAM, I would go with a 32bit Operating System, the 64bit version seems to consume more for somer eason. Don't be afriad to look at Linux too, when you get it working perfectly it's on-par with Windows. There are just a few quirks you have to work out, which was mentioned above.
In reality though, if you have the specs, overhead doesn't matter. And you won't run into issues with stability between Windows or Linux, the instability exists within SRCDS itself, especially running Garrysmod.
For Minecraft, I haven't personally tried it myself, but I've heard that using a seperate hard drive for the executables and data is a good idea. I think it's a good idea for SRCDS too, but I've done both.
Connection is really the most important part. All the RAM and CPU in the world doesn't matter if you don't have connection the support the players. Especially when running multiple servers. I have ran servers on ancient computers, and they never reached full resource utilization, it was always the connection that would lag it to hell.
Would 100mbps be fast enough?
I'd suggest not using a Linux server, Source still doesn't like Linux. It's not very stable.
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;35459549]I'd suggest not using a Linux server, Source still doesn't like Linux. It's not very stable.[/QUOTE]
Most games using Source like Linux, GMod does not.
There's a rather big difference.
[QUOTE=_Chewgum;35451754]srcds on linux have problems with physics and a few more problems, so unless you wanna dig around and apply patches/outdated shit to make it work, go with windows.[/QUOTE]
Physics works fine on Linux servers, it just eats up more CPU time than on Windows servers. If you have a beefy enough server (ie. anything C2D or above) then it's really nothing to worry about unless you plan on having a massive server.
Scientific Linux mirrors:
64bit: [url]http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scientific/6x/x86_64/iso/[/url]
32bit: [url]http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scientific/6x/i386/iso/[/url]
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;35459549]I'd suggest not using a Linux server, Source still doesn't like Linux. It's not very stable.[/QUOTE]
Garry doesn't like Linux, that's why he spent so long time on maintaining Gmod Server files only for windows.
Funny enough any other Source game works better under Linux than windows.
I've only ever had two problems on Linux-based GMod:
- Jeep spawning crashes (though this seems to be fixed now)
- Garry being stupid and not including important files (also semi-fixed)
I have never had physics problems, I've never had to apply "outdated shit", 99% of the time the only time I have to touch the fucking thing is when some idiot starts prop spamming.
So either these problems were fixed a long time ago and you're just not aware of it, or whoever said these problems existed in the first place is a fucking liar. My guess is it's a combination of the two - I really doubt Garry even bothers to look at the physics code, let alone modify it.
[QUOTE=lavacano;35479138]I've only ever had two problems on Linux-based GMod:
- Jeep spawning crashes (though this seems to be fixed now)
- Garry being stupid and not including important files (also semi-fixed)
I have never had physics problems, I've never had to apply "outdated shit", 99% of the time the only time I have to touch the fucking thing is when some idiot starts prop spamming.
So either these problems were fixed a long time ago and you're just not aware of it, or whoever said these problems existed in the first place is a fucking liar. My guess is it's a combination of the two - I really doubt Garry even bothers to look at the physics code, let alone modify it.[/QUOTE]
There's also case sensitivity issues with addons. Even many of the big ones have this (wiremod for instance, although it works for the most part).
[QUOTE=matte3560;35480135]There's also case sensitivity issues with addons. Even many of the big ones have this (wiremod for instance, although it works for the most part).[/QUOTE]
That's because of the case-sensitive nature of Linux file system, while NTFS used by Windows isn't.
I just created a JFS partition with a parameter so it wasn't case-sensitive and moved the source server installation to that partition.
Jobs done.
Or a slightly different way that still uses JFS:
[url]http://bananatree.im/wiki/wiki.garrysmod.com/index3761.html?title=Move_your_linux_server_installation_to_a_JFS_partition[/url]
Ubuntu. Just do it man!
[QUOTE=matte3560;35480135]There's also case sensitivity issues with addons. Even many of the big ones have this (wiremod for instance, although it works for the most part).[/QUOTE]
case shouldn't even be an issue in filenames
everyone should use lowercase with underscores rather than camel case
[QUOTE=matte3560;35480135]There's also case sensitivity issues with addons. Even many of the big ones have this (wiremod for instance, although it works for the most part).[/QUOTE]
Well that's more the addon author's fault for not being consistent with their casing. With the exception of teams making addons, if an author can't be fucked to be consistent with their file casing then they probably made a shit addon anyway.
[editline]8th April 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=swift and shift;35482960]everyone should use lowercase with underscores rather than camel case[/QUOTE]
I prefer camelcaseWithLowercaseFirstLetter, myself. Occasionally I'll go straight camelcase on something but at least I'm consistent with it (if I type something as "PieceOfShit", I'll ALWAYS type it as "PieceOfShit", never "PIECEOFSHIT", never "pieceofshit", and never "pieceOfShit")
Personally i use Debian for all my servers apart from Garry's Mod (Webhost, Minecraft, TF2). I kept running into crashing issues and issues with Wiremod's Advanced Duplicator (pasting frozen props causes massive lag). What I ended up doing was setting up Xen, and running Windows server 2008 in a VM purely for Garry's Mod. It's not the most efficient solution, but if you can get the VM up and running it's certainly the least painful. That is, if you want to use Linux. If you don't you might as well host on Windows, for simplicity's sake.
Thanks for all the help.
I'm going to go with Windows.
I'm debating on whether to go with Limestone or Hivelocity. Hivelocity is cheaper but I've never used a server from them. Are they any good?
[QUOTE=matte3560;35484574]Personally i use Debian for all my servers apart from Garry's Mod (Webhost, Minecraft, TF2). I kept running into crashing issues and issues with Wiremod's Advanced Duplicator (pasting frozen props causes massive lag). What I ended up doing was setting up Xen, and running Windows server 2008 in a VM purely for Garry's Mod. It's not the most efficient solution, but if you can get the VM up and running it's certainly the least painful. That is, if you want to use Linux. If you don't you might as well host on Windows, for simplicity's sake.[/QUOTE]
Virtualbox and Windows XP/2003 is the most resource efficient if you must use a VM to run a Gmod server. SRCDS used to run on Windows 2000, which was even better; But Valve made sure that doesn't work anymore.
[QUOTE=bohb;35489690]resource efficient[/quote]
[quote]VM to run a Gmod server[/QUOTE]
lol
[QUOTE=bohb;35489690]Virtualbox and Windows XP/2003 is the most resource efficient if you must use a VM to run a Gmod server. SRCDS used to run on Windows 2000, which was even better; But Valve made sure that doesn't work anymore.[/QUOTE]
Xen is actually faster than Virtualbox. You might be right about the XP thing though, although I'd use something like nLite to shrink the installation and remove uneeded services and other crap first.
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