Alien Swarm Dedicated Server

This article or section needs to be updated to include current information regarding the subject.
Remember to check for any notes left by the tagger at this article's talk page.

Running the Dedicated Server from Steam

• Go to the Tools tab in Steam and double click the "Alien Swarm Dedicated Server"
• A window will pop up with some server settings:
  • Type in a Server Name.
  • Type in an RCON password of your choosing.
  • Click Start Server.

Some useful settings to customize once the server is running:

• Under the "Configure" tab, you can set the Default Campaign. When no players are on the server, it will default to this campaign.
• In the "Console" tab you can enter "sv_steamgroup <n>" where N is the ID of your chosen Steam Group. Players belonging to this group will see your dedicated server from the main menu. You can find your ID number by visiting your Steam Group admin page on Steam Community.

Running the Dedicated Server with the HLDSUpdatetool for Windows

NOTE: These steps are for advanced server operators. For more details visit the Source Dedicated Server community site

• Download and install the tool from here: HLDSUpdatetool
• Open a command prompt in the directory where you installed the tool.
• Run hldsupdatetool to ensure you have the lastest version and for a list of commands.
• Create a directory for your server files such as c:\myswarmserver
• Run this command to update the game files (this may take several hours depending on your internet connection):

hldsupdatetool -command update -game alienswarm -dir "c:\myswarmserver"

• Create c:\myswarmserver\swarm\cfg\server.cfg for configuring server settings.
• Open a command prompt in your server directory.
• Run this command to start your server (NOTE: You must start in the lobby map to properly start the Campaign mode):

srcds.exe -console -game swarm +map lobby -maxplayers 4 -autoupdate

There is no Linux version of the Dedicated Server available

If you download the dedicated server files with hldsupdatetool in Linux, it will only give you the Windows version.

Steam library errors

There's currently a couple of files missing from the Steam depot, which can cause this error:

Unable to load Steam support library.
This server will operate in LAN mode only.

A fix is in the works, but a temporary workaround is to copy these files to the gameserver root: d vstdlib_s.dll, tier0_s.dll, steamclient.dll, and Steam.dll

Moving the .dll's does not always give a sollution. Instead dont copy any files and just install the steam client (the one you have on your game pc too) once thats installed (you dont need to be logged into it) the dedicated server works fine too. And will also be visible in steamgroups. For some reason it still depends on the stemaclient.