Plenty of people have asked me questions about hosting a Quake Live server over the years. There are many different ways to set up a QL server with multiple instances running. This is not a tutorial. This is how I set up and organize my servers.

VPS, Linux and Software

I rent two Linux servers from two different providers in Chicago, NFOservers.com and VPSserver.com. On rare occasions a service may have technical issues that make one service unplayable. Its nice to have a backup.

• Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS on NFO
• Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS on VPSserver.

Both are two core machines that I can run 4 or 5 QL servers on each with several additional game type servers ready to start at a moments notice. Do I need that many? Not really, but running 5 is the same work as running 1.

I use putty to ssh into the server and winscp for file management. There are much better options. I should look into them one day.

Server.cfg and Launch Script.

For each QL server, I use a unique server.cfg in the homepath.

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Many admins keep one generic server.cfg and make a really long launch script with all the settings in it. I prefer to use and individual server.cfg with a simple two line launch script for each one. All of the highlighted sh files are launch scripts for different servers I created over the years for our clan servers or tournaments. There are a bunch more on the other vps.

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Supervisor

When I first started running QL servers, I used the linux utility called screen to make multiple instances of QL servers. Every time the server crashed, I would have to ssh into the vps to restart it manually.

Supervisor is a really good process control utility to automate the process and make administration easier. This is what I use now.

For each launch script I have in the qlds folder, I put an entry in the supervisord.conf. You will notice some of them are commented out since they were moved to the other vps or were for past tournaments.

I also use the built in webpage option in supervisor. I can manage the servers from a web browser on my desktop or phone. I can restart, shut down or spin up a new server at anytime without having to ssh into the vps. Notice I have 8 different servers available to run but only have 4 actually running. If people want to play Attack and Defend, I can shut down a server and start up warpAD in seconds.

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RCON

One of the best tools for QL admin is the Quake Live Remote Console. You can quickly check statuses, monitor without running QL and issue server commands. It supports having multiple servers and custom command buttons.

Redis Desktop Manager

Another tool is the Redis Desktop Manager . It allows me to dig into the minqlx database, via the windows desktop, to look up information or if needed, make changes. A password is set up in the redis.conf file and the QL server.cfg. Again, this is not a tutorial. There are other setting to make in the redis.conf to get this to work. Read the documentation. Redis has poor security and is very fast. My best advice is to make a very long random password and/or use a whitelist for access. I’m probably too paranoid.

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Minqlx

Most servers these days use the minqlx bot for server admin. I keep all of my minqlx settings separated with clear documentation in my server.cfg.

Security and fail2ban

I use fail2ban and set up a 4 hour “jail” time for security. There are probably better security options, but this is a low value server.

Your VPS needs some security. If you open your auth.log located in /var/log. You will see many attempts to log into root from different IP addresses. The majority are from China. These attempts go on 24 hours a day. Why? because they do not know what your server is. If they get access and find nothing of value, they will still use your server to try and bruteforce other servers.