Death Before Dishonor! :: Server Setup Guide

The Basics | Hosting | Administration Tools | Getting Traffic | Funding Your Server | Tips and Tricks

     Administration can be a tough job, but with the right tools anyone can easily manage a server.  Here's a list of my favorite tools:

HLSW (Half-Life Server Watcher)
    Don't let the name fool you.  This tool works for 40 games, and pretty much every Half-Life mod I've been able to throw at it.  This little gem allows you to remotely manage and monitor your game server.  With it, you'll be able to view the real-time text chat of your server, send messages to the players, change mod and server settings, and do just about anything else you can do from a client console when you're in-game.

AMXBans
     AMXBans allows you to manage your server bans from a web or in-game interface.  This is a great function for us.  Put simply, before this tool, managing ban reports (posts on our forum that gave the current bans and reasons for them) was a real pain.  With this tool, you can easily manage your server bans, add comments and review bans.  Very good tool if you have more than one admin that has banning privileges.

LogMod
     Another tool from the makers of HLSW.  This is specifically geared toward those that use HLSW to view the real-time chat or log of a server.  It allows up to 25 people to receive to real-time log at the same time.  Without it, you can't have more than one.

VNC
     This one is for those of you that want a dedicated server.  Installing this little bad boy on your server will allow you to see and use the "desktop" interface of the operating system on your server.  I chose RealVNC for it's multi-platform nature, but on your end (client-side), I'd recommend using the Ultr@VNC client.