Server Manual

Getting started

It is much easier than it looks to get a server up and running for your internet or LAN buddies: follow this wiki article and you will hopefully be on your way to hosting your own MTA:SA Server in no time!

Installing the server

The dedicated server application is available in different flavours depending on the platform of the server.

Linux installation

There are different ways of getting a Linux server up and running:

• Building the server on GNU/Linux
• Getting a precompiled package

Windows installation

Installation of the MTA:SA server on Windows is easy as pie.

• Go to the download page and download the installer.
• Once the installer is downloaded, open it.
• Select a folder where you want to install the server.
• Click Install.
• Done!

For a full explanation of acl.xml (access control list) read: Access Control List

Configuring your server

The Multi Theft Auto dedicated server is initially configurable through it's console window, from within the game, and from a webbrowser. In order to make use of the two last options, it is necessary to add at least one administrator user to your configuration file.

General configuration

All general configuration options can be found in the 'mods/deathmatch/mtaserver.conf' file and can be opened by any regular text editor.

This file is fairly straightforward; every variable has a description of what to do with it and how to change it.

Port forwarding

If you run your server on your own private computer, and you have an router between the internet and your computer. You need to forward 3 ports.

First of all open the file 'mods/deathmatch/mtaserver.conf' and search for the next lines:

<serverport>22004</serverport> 
<httpport>22005</httpport>

The ports are needed to setup the server right. We explain later how to set them, but first if you want your server to list in the server browser there is an other port we need, and that is the ase port. (quick example for how to turn ase on or of):

<ase>1</ase> <!-- 0 = off, 1 = on -->

Now we going to forward the ports in router, which is not needed if you already have all ports open, or if you don't have a router with a firewall. If so, skip this part.

If you don't know how port forwarding works in your router, go to: http://portforward.com/, find your router there, and follow the instructions there.

In almost every router you can set the port type: UDP or TCP. The following list will explain which port type is needed for what:

Main server port: UDP

HTTP Port: TCP

ASE Port: UDP (this is needed if you want your server to appear in the server list)

The ASE port is also simply to get:

ASE port = Main Server port + 123

So, if you have the main server port set to 22003, then the ASE port will be 22126.

Good luck!

Adding administrators

It is strongly recommended to add at least one administrator to your server in order to make use of the built-in webserver to easily maintain and configure your server. This administrator will then also be able to log-in from within the game and control the server.

To add an administrator to your server, follow these steps:

1. Make sure your server is stopped; if your server is still running, all changes you make will be overwritten
2. Open the file 'mods/deathmatch/'accounts.xml' with any text editor
3. Add a new account into the file by using the XML-syntax below, we use the username "BennyLava" with password "123password" for illustration purposes

   <accounts>
     ...
     <account name="BennyLava" password="123password" />
   </accounts>
   

4. Save and close the file
5. Open the file 'mods/deathmatch/'acl.xml' with any text editor
6. Add the account to the Admin group by using the XML-syntax below

   <ACL>
     ...
     <group name="Admin">
       <acl name="Admin"/>
       ...
       <object name="user.BennyLava" />
     </group>
     ...
   </ACL>
   

   You can actually add your user to any group you want. Each group is linked to an ACL (Access Control List). Each ACL contains a series of specific allowed or denied rights. These groups exist so different users can be assigned different rights. The Admin group points to the Admin ACL, which is empty (thus allowing all possible commands). The Everyone group points to the Default ACL that puts a series of restrictions on the available commands (to disallow regular players from using admin commands).

7. You're done! You can add as many administrators or users as you want this way, take a look at some of the other groups and ACLs for example. The ACL is also accessible through the Lua scripting engine.
   It is recommended to take a look at the web interface, we will explain how to do this below.

Note: There are also ways to add accounts and edit rights for the server while it's running. "addaccount <user> <password>" is an internal command to add accounts, but you will have to use the web interface to add these accounts to specific groups/ACLs!

Using the web interface

The dedicated server comes with a few Lua resources that provide a nice little web interface to your server. This can be used to easily maintain your server, as it allows you to add users, start/stop resources, and more.

The web interface resources are enabled by default and are served through the built-in HTTP web server. To make sure the built-in HTTP web server runs on a port you like (22005 by default), follow these steps:

1. Make sure your server is stopped
2. Open the file mods/deathmatch/mtaserver.conf with any text editor
3. Verify that the HTTP server is enabled:

   	<httpserver>1</httpserver>
   

4. Change the HTTP server port to your liking:

   	<httpport>22005</httpport>
   

5. Save and close the configuration file
6. Start your server
7. If you happened to have changed the start-up resources in your configuration file, make sure the following resources are started:
   1. resourcebrowser
   2. resourcemanager
   3. webadmin
   4. webmap
   These are automatically started in the default configuration file, in case you just installed your server.
8. Open a web browser (Internet Explorer 6 or 7 are NOT supported: use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera or others) and navigate to the HTTP server URL: http://server:port/. For example, If you are running a local server on HTTP port 22005, use http://127.0.0.1:22005/.
9. Enter the username and password of the administrator you added in the previous section.

You should now be able to maintain your server from the web interface.

Configuring an external web server

The built-in web server is also used to serve files that are required by resources running on your server to any player that is connected to your server. For example, if you are running a game script with a scripted graphical user interface, or custom models, these need to be transferred to every connected player in order to function properly. This is done by either the built-in web server, or an external web server (that is usually a bit faster) but needs to be set up separately.

For performance or consistency reasons during the game, you could choose to make use of such an external web server if you have one set up. The external web server needs to be accessible for the public, so any client will be able to download the necessary client-side files in order to join and play on your server.

To enable downloading off an external web server, you should configure the httpdownload and httpdownloadurl tags in your server configuration:

<httpdownload>1</httpdownload>	
<httpdownloadurl>http://www.myserver.tld/directory/here</httpdownloadurl>

Since all the default resources provided with the dedicated server are zipped, and are normally automatically extracted by the built-in web server, you now have to provide a way for the clients to download the unextracted files to their computers. The unextracted files are always available in the <SERVER>/mods/deathmatch/resourcecache directory.

1. Launch the dedicated server once and exit again. This will extract the zip files into the <SERVER>/mods/deathmatch/resourcecache directory.
2. Go into the directory above and copy the resources to your external web server's public directory, this can be done in several ways:
   • If you don't care about your server-side files being publically available: create a symbolic link (Linux), a junction (Windows) or just plain copy the contents of the resourcecache directory to your public web server directory.
   • If you don't want your server files to be publically available through your web server: go into the resourcecache directory and manually copy the folders over to your public web server directory, removing any server-side files (they are not necessary for the client-side downloading) you do not want to be hosting on your web server.
     
     A quick way of securing your server-side files is currently not available. We will investigate into developing a tool that automatically copies only the necessary client-side files for all resources on your server.

Note 1: Please try to avoid any special characters (e.g. ~, !) in your download URLs.
Note 2: Please do not use a trailing slash in your download URL (e.g. hxxp://www.myserver.tld/directory rather than hxxp://www.myserver.tld/directory/)

Starting your server

Begin by making sure that you have finished all configuration of your server, starting your server is the last stage so everything must be ready!

To start your server double click on MTA Server.exe, make sure you allow it through any firewalls and forward ports where nessessary.

Installing/Updating resources on your server

Resources can come in two formats, either a ZIP format or just a normal folder with the script files inside it. The MTA:SA server supports both these methods.

1. Move or copy the new resource to your <SERVER>\mods\deathmatch\resources folder.
2. In the server window type in the command "refresh" (without the quotes), this will re-scan the resources folder and update the live resources where necessary.

Uninstalling resources

Resources can easily be removed from your server if you no longer want them.

1. Delete the ZIP file or the folder of the resource you wish to uninstall
2. In the server window type in the command "refresh" (without the quotes), this will re-scan the resources folder and update the live resources where necessary.

Administrating your server

You can start resources by typing the command "start resourcename" in the server console, or stop ones with "stop resourcename".

It's also possible to execute these and other admin commands from the ingame console (which you can bring up with the ` key or F8); for this to work, you first need to log in with the command "login username password". Additionally, you can press the p key to bring up the admin panel: this is a graphical interface which allows you to easily kick or ban misbehaving players, among others.

For further commands, type "help" in a console.

Starting a map/gamemode

See the commands section of the documentation for mapmanager for more information.

Useful Notes

1. You may also update the resources while ingame as long as you have the correct access levels by typing "refresh" in the clients console or "/refresh" in the chat window. This may cause a second of lag if you have many resources.
2. In the above instructions, <SERVER> is the path to your server's main directory. In most cases this is C:\Program Files\MTA San Andreas\server
3. You can choose a different config file for the server to use by passing it in the command line after a --config argument, e.g. mtaserver.exe --config anotherconfig.cfg.
4. Do not be alarmed by the warning regarding the parsing of the settings.xml file. This happens because your server installation is still clean and unused.

Need further help?

Why not pop over to our Forums or join us on IRC (irc.multitheftauto.com #mta - MIRC)