HOW TO: rFactor2 Dedicated Server on Linux

trichens

trichens

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Hi.
I've been playing about with getting the rFactor2 Dedicated Server running on a PC with a Linux OS, and the notes accessible via the link below are the results of lots of testing.
Using Linux like this means that if you have a spare "old" PC lying around your can host your own server without needing a Windows licence.

This includes details of install of Zorin Linux, SteamCMD, rfactor2 Server, Log Analyser and some basic configuration.
At the moment this hasn't been tested with Paid For content - just that available as the default S397 and Steam Workshop mods.

Not tested on a cloud based system (yet!) but in theory that should be possible if the port forwarding can be configured.

I'd be interested on any feedback

EDIT: See revised notes in following post
 
Last edited:
Updated the notes to include using Paid For DLC which seems to work OK - at least for me.
Included some screengrabs in this version.

Have removed files from previous location and added to this post.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone that tries this and of their success - or not :)
 

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trichens said:
Updated the notes to include using Paid For DLC which seems to work OK - at least for me.
Included some screengrabs in this version.

Have removed files from previous location and added to this post.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone that tries this and of their success - or not :)
Click to expand...
Hi mate, great content! thanks!

I want to do it in a proxmox VM, and i want to auto-start the rfactor2 server with the OS restart, it is possible?
 
Thanks @dusnake.
Ummmm... interestingly I did try a Proxmox setup with a VM running Zorin as I thought that would be a nice thing to be able to do.

After getting the initial Zorin system working I changed the hardware config - different and more CPUs and more RAM.
Installed Proxmox and a Zorin VM but I found the rF2 server wouldn't run.
This was due to an issue with WINE on the VM throwing errors which I didn't follow up to resolve.
So reverted back to the original hardare config and all was OK.
Not bothered to go back to investigate the Proxmox setup TBH

I don't see why a cron job when the VM startup runs shouldn't be able to start the Dedicated Server but I've only ever used it's GUI interface.
 
trichens said:
Thanks @dusnake.
Ummmm... interestingly I did try a Proxmox setup with a VM running Zorin as I thought that would be a nice thing to be able to do.

After getting the initial Zorin system working I changed the hardware config - different and more CPUs and more RAM.
Installed Proxmox and a Zorin VM but I found the rF2 server wouldn't run.
This was due to an issue with WINE on the VM throwing errors which I didn't follow up to resolve.
So reverted back to the original hardare config and all was OK.
Not bothered to go back to investigate the Proxmox setup TBH

I don't see why a cron job when the VM startup runs shouldn't be able to start the Dedicated Server but I've only ever used it's GUI interface.
Click to expand...
But.. there are any way to start the server via command line?
 
Not tried it.
It appears to get all the params through the JSON files so in theory it may be possible...
You could use a tool like AutoIt to simulate the button presses, but I'd imagine you'd have to automatically log into the Linux desktop to get the GUI interface to work...

I can see another project here... :)
 
trichens said:
Thanks @dusnake.
Ummmm... interestingly I did try a Proxmox setup with a VM running Zorin as I thought that would be a nice thing to be able to do.

After getting the initial Zorin system working I changed the hardware config - different and more CPUs and more RAM.
Installed Proxmox and a Zorin VM but I found the rF2 server wouldn't run.
This was due to an issue with WINE on the VM throwing errors which I didn't follow up to resolve.
So reverted back to the original hardare config and all was OK.
Not bothered to go back to investigate the Proxmox setup TBH

I don't see why a cron job when the VM startup runs shouldn't be able to start the Dedicated Server but I've only ever used it's GUI interface.
Click to expand...

I follow your pdf instructions and i run the rfactor 2 server in proxmox without problems
 
Congratulations... I'm glad it works for you. I'll have to retest it myself now
:D:D:D

I'm guessing that I have some hardware that causes a problem.
I was using a Dell R410 with dual Xeon 5500 processors and 128GB RAM
Works OK with just one Xeon and 64GB RAM and no Proxmox
 
I decided to give this a try on an extra mini PC I have. I tried setting up a dedi sever on a different mini PC with Windows 11 and also with Windows 10, but I always end up with a matcher status of "Not Connected to Steam." I thought maybe it was a Windows issue.

With that said, I was able to get the dedi server running in Zorin. However, the matcher status is "not connected to steam" but I am still able to connect using my browser to connect to the server. So, it's working, but just not showing up in the in-game server list. This at least proves to me that it's not a Windows OS issue I'm running into.

I also wanted to see how much more efficient the resource usage would be. CPU and RAM use are about the same between Windows and Zorin. However, the obvious major gain is disk space. Zorin is using roughly 50% less disk space which will be beneficial to people with smaller hard drives (especially if you want to keep race logs for a while).

Anyway, thank you for the guide. If you would appreciate some feedback, I ran into a couple issues/moments of confusion.

1. I was not able to change directory to the new user I created (first step on page 2). I assume I could modify permissions to make that work, but I didn't want to mess with that. I skipped this step for the time being.

2. The step that tells you to install the vcred packages via the GUI isn't very clear. So, I went to the terminal and changed directory to their location. Then I ran "wine vcredist_2012_x64.exe" (for each one) and that worked. I was just a little confused by this step at first.

Other than that, I think the guide is pretty great overall. I may try to do the rf2 analyzer install at some point, but I think I'm going to set this project aside as it did not resolve my "not connected to steam" issue.
 
FYI, I made RF2_Server_Helper gui for linux with python and tkinter to installing and managing the server and content.
I'm not sure where to post the download but I posted it on the discord-linux-unofficial channel. It's sort of messy code but completely functional and all gui point and click etc.

FYI you should able to start the server either in a python script or bash and start as a service or systemd etc.
I don't see why not.
 
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