How to Install Counter-Strike 1.6 Server on Linux

This guide will show you how to setup a Counter-Strike: 1.6 server on Linux. The steps here will work for most Linux distros that support SteamCMD.

First, download SteamCMD.

 mkdir SteamCMD
 cd SteamCMD
 wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Next, obtain the 32-bit system libs. If your system uses yum, you can run the following command.

yum install glibc.i686 libstdc++.i686

Open the ports used by SteamCMD in your system firewall.

iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 27000:27030 --dport 1025:65355 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 4380 --dport 1025:65355 -j ACCEPT

Extract the files of the SteamCMD archive.

tar xvfz steamcmd_linux.tar.gz

Launch SteamCMD; you will see it download and install updates.

./steamcmd.sh

Download the game server software.

login anonymous 

Install CS 1.6 in a folder named "27020". The folder is named as the port that the server will run on. Steam uses the application ID of 90 for CS 1.6.

force_install_dir ./27020/
app_set_config 90 mod cstrike
app_update 90 validate
app_update 90 -beta beta validate

Quit SteamCMD.

exit

Now, try starting your Counter Strike 1.6 server.

cd 27020​
./hlds_run -console -game cstrike +port 27020 +map de_dust2 +maxplayers 32 -pingboost 1

At this point, the server will start and you can connect to it with your game client. Enjoy!