Steam Networking (Peer-to-Peer) for TF2 Dedicated Server

Just like clients, the TF2 DS can also be configured to host a P2P server. This can be useful if you want to host a server with SourceMod installed.

Details, requirements and caveats

Servers using Steam Networking's P2P behave like normal servers, except they're assigned a fake IP on startup. The IP is printed to the console after the "Connection to Steam servers successful" message:

Connection to Steam servers successful.
   Public IP to Steam is [...].
Assigned anonymous gameserver Steam ID [A:1:...:...].
VAC secure mode is activated.
FakeIP allocation succeeded: 169.254.134.215:57528, 57529

This is the IP people wanting to join will need to use to join your server. P2P servers are shown on the server browser, so make sure to set a password to prevent randoms from joining.
FastDL works normally when joining a P2P server, so if you have a FastDL web server, you can use it.

You will need an up-to-date TF2 Dedicated Server. This guide assumes you store your server's launch arguments in a "srcds.bat" file.

Caveats:

• The assigned fake IP and port changes every time the server starts or a hard level change (using "map" instead of "changelevel") is made
  
• Players won't be able to add your server to their Favorites
  
• RCON won't work ("Unable to connect to remote server")

Enabling P2P

Open your srcds.bat file and add the following parameter to your srcds.exe launch command:

+sv_use_steam_networking 1

Example: if you have a launch command that looks like this:

srcds_win64.exe -console -game tf +map ctf_2fort +maxplayers 32

you can add the parameter to the end, like this:

srcds_win64.exe -console -game tf +map ctf_2fort +maxplayers 32 +sv_use_steam_networking 1

You will know early on if it's working if the message "Requesting FakeIP as per -enablefakeip" is printed to the console while the server is starting.

[Santana]

Trying to make a dedicate server through this way indeed works however why does my ping for me being the host is even high, this did not happen when i did it through the client, any tips?

[yesnt]

I'm not aware of such thing existing - not even using a GSLT makes the IP persistent. The closest solution I can think of is setting a tag unique to your server, but that requires people to remember that tag

[sage | eu.tf2pickup.es]

is there any way to get a "permanent identifier" even when using fake IP? ive read somewhere else that there was something you could do but cant remember where

[yesnt]

if you're connected, your friends can join through the Friends tab. you can also share the fake IP with them

[Bloodfire]

Can friends join such server?