Assetto Corsa¶

For this server we're going to approach two different alternatives: running the server directly from the Linux host or running it under a Windows VM. Each of these alternatives have their own pros and cons.

Linux Binary Alternative¶

Running the server directly with the Linux binary saves us a lot of disk space (almost 20GB since you don't need to install the game binaries) but will need to be configured manually through the server configs which can be a bit complicated when there is a lot of custom content and/or you use multiple configs for the server.

Installation¶

To install the Assetto Corsa dedicated server we'll need to start SteamCMD using a platform flag to set our platform as Windows, basically telling SteamCMD to download the Windows version of the packages we want to download.

First we'll change to our steam user and go to where our SteamCMD is located.

sudo -iu steam
cd ~/Steam

We'll run SteamCMD with the following argument:

./steamcmd.sh +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows

We can now login with our username, we'll be prompted for our password and two factor code if enabled.

login <username>

We'll change the installation folder:

force_install_dir /home/steam/assettocorsa

And now we download the required files.

app_update 302550

Once we finish downloading we can exit SteamCMD and go to the folder where Assetto Corsa is installed.

cd ~/assettocorsa

Configuration¶

The configuration of the server is pretty self-explanatory in terms of settings. To change the hostname, the track, the cars, etc.. Edit the following file:

nano cfg/server_cfg.ini

To change the car list:

nano cfg/entry_list.ini

For an easier way to create these configuration files I recommend you to use the Windows version of the server to generate these configs on a GUI window and then transfer the .ini files generated to the server.

Make sure your ports are forwarded and that the firewall isn't blocking any connections Assetto Corsa may need, the server will not start up if it can't contact Assetto Corsa's main server.

We'll add some firewall rules as a sudoer user (the administrator user for example):

sudo ufw allow 8081/tcp
sudo ufw allow 9600/tcp
sudo ufw allow 9600/udp

If you want to add mods to the server, you can get them from here, make sure to place them in the correct folder: ./content/cars or ./content/tracks, keep in mind the clients will also need the mods installed.

Running the Server¶

You can start up the server with:

./acServer

Windows Virtual Machine Alternative¶

The biggest downside of running the server through a Windows VM is the "wasted" disk space, since you need to count the Windows installation and the Assetto Corsa game binaries which both summed take around 40 GB. The great advantage that this has though, is the ease of configuration for custom content and multiple server configurations thanks to the nice server manager GUI. For this reason, I have opted for this option but you can always choose the one you prefer.

Installing the Virtual Machine¶

For the virtual machine we're going to use VirtualBox, I'm assuming you already have it installed but in case you haven't check this section of the guide.

We're going to install Windows 7 Home Basic, we're going to give it 2GB or RAM, 60GB of disk space and access to 2 CPU cores. We're going to do this on the steam user, for this, we'll need to add the steam user to the vboxusers group.

sudo adduser steam vboxusers

Now, we'll change to the steam user.

sudo -iu steam

To set up the VM (make sure to change the settings to your needs):

vboxmanage createvm --name "Assetto-win" --register
vboxmanage modifyvm "Assetto-win" --memory 2048 --acpi on --ioapic on --boot1 dvd --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 enp0s3 --nictype1 82540EM --vram 128 --cpus 2 --vrde on
vboxmanage createhd --filename ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/Assetto-win/assetto-win.vdi --size 100000
vboxmanage storagectl "Assetto-win" --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
vboxmanage storageattach "Assetto-win" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/Assetto-win/assetto-win.vdi
vboxmanage storageattach "Assetto-win" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium ~/Downloads/Windows7.iso
vboxheadless --startvm “Assetto-win”

At this point, the VM should be successfully running, to control it, connect to the host's IP through an RDP connection (such as Microsoft Remote Desktop). Continue with the Windows installation process. Once the installation is complete, we'll install the VirtualBox Guest Additions, in the host, run the following command:

vboxmanage storageattach "Assetto-win" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

The installation drive should show up on My Computer, install it and restart the guest.

Once rebooted and while the guest is running, type the following commands on the host:

vboxmanage controlvm "Assetto-win" setvideomodehint 1280 720 32
vboxmanage storageattach "Assetto-win" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium emptydrive

Installing the Server¶

To install the server we'll need to download SteamCMD and install .NET 4 Framework.

For SteamCMD, we'll create a folder in our main drive C:\steamcmd and we'll add this folder to our path:

1. Open the Start Menu, right click My Computer and select Properties.
2. On the left tab select Advanced system settings and click on Environment Variables....
3. On the Path variable, add the following: ;C:\steamcmd.

Now that SteamCMD is in our Path, we can easily run it through a command line prompt directly with the steamcmd command. We'll use a small bat script to download and update Assetto Corsa. Open up a notepad and save it as update_assetto.bat. Inside the text editor add the following text (make sure to replace your %username% with your actual username):

@echo off
steamcmd +login %username% +force_install_dir c:\assettocorsa +app_update 244210 +quit

Running this script will automatically download the server files. To run the server open up C:\assettocorsa\server\acServerManager.exe and configure your server through the GUI. To add custom content, add it to the C:\assettocorsa\ directory.