SteamPlay/Proton & steamcmd for dedicated servers

[Seraphin]

Hi everyone

Already asked in the "Help and Tips" section with almost no response, except the suggestion to ask here in this section. So here I go:

Already tried to set up a virtual machine with Linux Mint. Steam Client, Proton to run a windows based dedicated server on linux. Looks good so far. It's just that is a lot of overhead to run a whole virtual machine, instead of an container.

So I wonder if there is a way to use Proton with steamcmd for running windows based dedicated servers.

Any advice or alternatives?

Best regards

[CravenCoyote]

I'm a bit confused on what you're asking here, could you elaborate a bit?

From what I gather:

You have had success using Linux Mint to create a Windows VM, and then hosting a dedicated gaming server via that VM, but you're not happy with the resource usage.

And your question is:
Is there is a way to run a Windows based dedicated gaming server via Linux (perhaps using Proton for compatibility)?

Is that right?

[Seraphin]

Ok, so I try to be more specific:

I'm using Linux as the hypervisor (Proxmox, Debian based).

I'm already running a virtual machine (KVM) with Xubuntu on this hypervisor (it was Linux Mint before, I already switched to Xubuntu for a less ressource demanding system as virtual host)

On this virtual machine I installed the regular STEAM (GUI) client, and I'm already running a "windows only" dedicated game server via Proton 6.3 succesfully.

Instead of the virtual machine, I like to use a container (LXC) without a graphical user interface. Therefore I need to use steamcmd instead of the graphical STEAM client.

So I need to know, if there is a way to use Proton-Libraries for running native windows dedicated game servers in Linux. And if there is a way, how to ...

I've already got some experience with running native linux dedicated game servers via steamcmd in a container.

Reason for steamcmd is even less demanding ressources, but also for anonymous logins for installing/running dedicated game servers.

Best regards

[CravenCoyote]

I'll be honest and say that much of this goes beyond my level of understanding but I'll try and make some suggestions that may or may not work for you.

Arch Linux should be able to give you a very minimal resource footprint where you'll be installing only what you need and nothing else - no DE or WM included by default. If you wanted a DE, there are lots to choose from and some are designed to use as little resources as possible. For SteamCMD, there are instructions here (Arch included): https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD#Linux (though I suspect you've already read this page).

You might even be able to get something like this running via TCL, or Tiny Core Linux.

You may also wish to consider looking at Qubes OS. I'm not sure just how demanding it is, but it is designed to be able to handle multiple VMs with security in mind.

Sorry I can't suggest much further than that, but perhaps there's something there you can at least look into a bit further

[Omega]

KVMs already have very little overhead, you can get 99% of your native performance in a KVM.

Running your game server in a container should be relative straight forward. Only problem being Proton, as far as I am aware Proton can not be used in combination with SteamCMD, and I can find no documentation which suggests this is an option.

I think the best solution here would be to get the Windows version of SteamCMD, install it under WINE and then install/run your game server like normal. This could be done either native or in a container, I see little benefit in using a container here.

[Seraphin]

Thank you both for your responses.

Tried to set up a virtual machine with TinyLinuxCore ... didn't get to used too, but nevermind. I decided to start a fresh one using Ubuntu-Server and installed LXDE. Don't care for resources of KVM itself, but I like to avoid additional resources by the virtualized OS. But I hope Ubuntu server with LXDE should give a rather bareboned system too.

Additionally I recognized, that you are able to log in anonymously in the regular GUI STEAM client too, but you can't use Proton then. If logged in with a proper account, Proton is available though. So need to properly login to run the server (at least for non official supported games), while being disconnected from STEAM client after I run the game on my regular computer. Dedicated game server keeps running though.

Guess this will work out for a non-public home server for the start, but I may take a look into WINE again later.

Don't have to many hopes into running Proton with steamcmd anymore, as it's not even possible to use it logged in anonymously. Would be an easy way to run windows games in linux still, sadly it seems to be not that usable for dedicated servers (yet). May be the reason why there aren't any howto's to be found on the internet.

Thanks again for your answers.

[Talby]

Try the steamcmd docker image?

https://registry.hub.docker.com/r/steamcmd/steamcmd/#!

[Seraphin]

Originally posted by Talby:

Try the steamcmd docker image?

Thanks for your answer, running steamcmd isn't the problem though. Already set up steamcmd in linux for linux native game servers successfully for a while now.

Your docker link looks like to be a standard steamcmd installation too.

edit:
Found out there is a dedicated linux forum for Steam, so last try to get an definitive answer there. It's called "Steam for linux", I'm wondering why it's not listed in the overview though.
:-D