This is a short guide(notes) to load up a classic offensive server on linux.

required software/hardware.

• dedicated hardware (a 5 year old laptop only running csco server at home is better then shared vps, don't use vm/shared vps)
• internet cable (wifi for testing or debug only)
• a linux distro (literally anything) and this software:

- rlwrap

- ssh/rsync

- your text edior (vim)

- tmux or screen (optional, but kinda not)

From this point I will asume you have a basic linux install with sudo access

setup linux

We want to create a cstrike user to do everything under to minimize attack surface.

deb:

sudo adduser --gecos "" --disabled-password cstrike

arch:

sudo useradd -m cstrike

then we

sudo su cstrike

We go back to our regular user for sudo commands

optional linux setup

• Use fish as default shell. download fish package first and then do `chsh -s /usr/bin/fish`
• Setup tailscale for easy dns and setup sshkeys. Download tailscale, do `sudo tailscale up --ssh --accept-dns`
• Setup firewall. Not needed but peace of mind if never done linux before. If no firewall use ufw else look it up. Download ufw package, then do

sudo ufw allow 27015 && sudo ufw allow 27005/udp && sudo ufw enable

download classic offensive to machine

either torrent, rsync your local install to the box, or download the zip to the machine,

use leak torrent

aria2c magnet:?xt=urn:btih:feafbb33b98dfa91a85ca34b98cfc392a6024b4e&dn=Classic%20Offensive

use rsync

rsync -raz --progress <ip>:Classic\ Offensive/ .

unofficial cscowebsite download -

wget https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1ZjqilZpDMpGnVFw-Gn_clMLMbB3_8alF&export=download&confirm=t&uuid=751e30cf-964d-43ef-a561-777f940f47a8

wget https://file-eu-par-2.gofile.io/download/web/9656d233-df72-497d-bde4-6d29ed4a3a2e/Classic%20Offensive.zip

unpack zip on linux

unzip Classic\ Offensive.zip

Setup csco

run.sh

The default srcds_run script is hard to modify so we use a small wrapper script

#!/bin/sh
rlwrap --always-readline ./srcds_run -console -tickrate 128 -usercon +exec server.cfg

The reason is that using rlwrap makes using the console a lot nicer when running the server

default map

If you want to change the default map you can change the DEFAULT_MAP var. It can be done with `sed 's/DEFAULT_MAP="de_dust2_csco"/DEFAULT_MAP="awp_india_csco"/' srcds_run` or text edior

server config file

csco/server.cfg

csco does not have any default server.cfg so I needed to write my own.

wget -P csgo/cfg https://ait.place/csco/server.cfg

To make bots not appear at beginning of game

echo bot_kick >> csgo/cfg/gamemode_competitive_server.cfg

Setup sv_setsteamaccount

https://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers

Login to steam

Use 730 as the appid. Comment does not matter.

Open csgo/cfg/server.cfg file and edit `sv_setsteamaccount <GAME_LOGIN_TOKEN>` line

Use tmux (optional)

A quick guide to using tmux. It will make you be able to close the console/ssh connection

start tmux with `tmux`

you can reconnect to tmux with `tmux a`

tmux uses prefix. Ctrl+b by default. Press Ctrl+b, then release Ctrl+b, then press the action you wanna do.

I only really use:

• `Ctrl+b c` for create
• `Ctrl+b n` for next
• `Ctrl+b x` for close
• `Ctrl+b [` for scroll, q for back to line editing
• `Ctrl+b ?` for all keybindings

Open ports

QUICK

Open port 27015 udp and tcp

Open port 27005 udp

Guided

use to see the default gateway.

ip -c=always r

Open the IP in a webbrowser. The IP is your router. Login to your router and look for either "NAT" or "Port-Forwarding".

use to see machine's local ip

ip -c=always a

Open port 27015 udp and tcp

Open port 27005 udp

launch server

just do ./run.sh

tips

change cl_freezetime 6 (default 15) when few players in server.

Created Mon 9 Jun 05:21:37 CEST 2025