I recently decided that I wanted to set up a dedicated server running Team Fortress 2, the very entertaining multiplayer first-person shooter game by Valve. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to install and configure a server that runs exactly the way I want.
All Valve multiplayer games run off of the same base server software, Source Dedicated Server (SRCDS). They build a version for Windows, Linux and Mac so you can run it on whatever system you happen to have available. In my case I had Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, which is a great operating system for any server.
This article will give you a walk though guide for installing and configuring srcds on Ubuntu. I am writing specifically about TF2 here, but much of this information will apply to other Source games such as Counter Strike: Source, Left 4 Dead, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
