How to: Starbound dedicated server on a linux machine

Published on December 05, 2013

Starbound logo

The day it's here! Starbound beta is finally here, and what could be better than having a dedicated server to play with your friends? Let's get this done.

Install SteamCMD

Official documentation: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

Basically you need to download it's shell script to manage steam apps, take special attention to the lib32 section if you're running the server in a 64bit machine.

wget http://media.steampowered.com/client/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz
tar xzf steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Install Starbound on the server

You will need to login with your steam username here to download/update starbound. Your account is not needed to keep the server running.

./steamcmd.sh
# Steam updating and validating stuff
Steam> login your_username_here
# Your password WILL BE VISIBLE. But after a first login
# your credentials will be cached so you don't need to
# expose them everytime you need to use the steamcmd.
Steam> app_update 211820
# This will install starbound, it will take a while
# depending on the server bandwidth.
Steam> app_update 211820 validate
# Validate installation, just in case.
# I do this in two separate steps because -at least for me-
# validating on a fresh install take a lot longer that
# just installing and validating afterwards. Don't sure why.
Steam> quit
# Finished!

Start the server

Go to Steam/SteamApps/common/Starbound/linuxXX/ (where XX is 32 or 64 based on your server architecture).

Launch launch_starbound_client.sh

If you want to use the universe you played on your computer, just upload the universe folder found on your computer to the same folder where the server script is.

Happy gaming!


If you want to approach me directly about this post use the most appropriate channel from the about page.