How to install and host a HumanitZ server

A dedicated HumanitZ server is the perfect solution for in­di­vidu­al ad­ven­tures in the open, zombie-ridden game world. The software can be installed in just a few steps, as soon as you have the right hardware.

What are the re­quire­ments for a HumanitZ server?

In principle, you can host a HumanitZ dedicated server on your private computer. However, it’s advisable to outsource hosting for two reasons. On the one hand, you benefit from the provider’s first-class internet con­nec­tion, which is far superior compared to standard home con­nec­tions. On the other hand, you protect your own hardware and can leave your server running per­man­ently without your personal device having to be left switched on around the clock.

The re­quire­ments for the un­der­ly­ing hardware depend primarily on the number of players who are connected to the HumanitZ server at the same time, re­gard­less of the hosting variant selected. In any case, you should an­ti­cip­ate the following minimum re­quire­ments to get started:

• Processor: min. 2.4 GHz (2 cores)
• Working memory: 2-3 GB RAM
• Hard disk storage: 10 GB

In addition, per­form­ance for the operating system used — the HumanitZ server ap­plic­a­tion is available for Linux and Windows — must be planned for. If you opt for the Microsoft Windows Server 2022 system, for example, you will need an ad­di­tion­al 1.4 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and 36 gigabytes of hard disk space (512 MB and 32 GB without graphical user interface).

How to host a HumanitZ dedicated server incl. options from IONOS

Powerful hardware for your own game server is available from various hosting providers. Among others, IONOS offers three different types of servers, with a guar­an­teed broadband con­nec­tion of up to 1 Gbit/s, which are well suited for hosting a HumanitZ server:

• Cloud server: A cloud server from IONOS gives you maximum flex­ib­il­ity. You get access to vir­tu­al­ised cloud hardware that can be scaled as required at any time. You are billed by the minute, so you only pay for active use.
• vServer/VPS: The vServers from IONOS use a fixed host’s vir­tu­al­ised resources. Unlike a cloud server, you rent a fixed setup here. There’s a flat monthly rate so costs don’t depend on how often you use the server.
• Dedicated server: A dedicated server from IONOS gives you access to high-per­form­ance en­ter­prise hardware that is reserved ex­clus­ively for you. Thanks to per-minute billing, you only pay at the end of the month for the per­form­ance you actually use.

3 HumanitZ server scenarios and the right IONOS package

Do you need a little more help finding the right server package for your purposes? In the table below, we’ve listed three possible scenarios for a HumanitZ dedicated server and assigned the most suitable server from IONOS in each case (using Windows as an example).

How to create a HumanitZ server for Windows step-by-step

In the following sections, we’ve sum­mar­ised the in­stall­a­tion and setup process for a HumanitZ dedicated server. As an example, we use a hosting option from IONOS (Cloud Server, vServer, Dedicated Server) with Windows Server 2022 as the operating system.

Step 1: Establish a remote con­nec­tion to the server

To com­mu­nic­ate with your rented server, you first need remote access, which you can establish in Windows using the ‘Remote Desktop Con­nec­tion’ tool. As an IONOS customer, you will find all the login details in your web-based customer account:

1. Log in to your IONOS customer account via the login page.
2. Go to the Server & Cloud section.
3. Select your rented server.
4. Under Features, you’ll find the IP address of your server and your login data (User and Initial password). Copy or make a note of this in­form­a­tion.
5. Open the Remote Desktop Con­nec­tion ap­plic­a­tion and start the con­nec­tion setup by entering the in­form­a­tion you’ve made a note of.
6. Classify the cer­ti­fic­ate as trust­worthy.

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Step 2: Install SteamCMD

The easiest way to get the server ap­plic­a­tion for HumanitZ is to use the Steam command line client SteamCMD. Use the tool to connect to the public servers of the gaming platform and then use the ap­pro­pri­ate command to start down­load­ing the cor­res­pond­ing files. Install SteamCMD on your rented server as follows:

1. Download the in­stall­a­tion package for Windows using the following SteamCMD download link.
2. Unzip the ZIP file into a directory of your choice, e.g., C:\SteamCMD.
3. Double-click the unzipped file to install SteamCMD.

Step 3: Install the HumanitZ server app

Start the installed command line client by double-clicking the file steamcmd.exe. As soon as the tool is ready for use, you will see the input line Steam>.

The first step is to connect to the public Steam servers. To download the software for the HumanitZ dedicated server, simply use the anonymous login:

login anonymous

Next, create an in­di­vidu­al directory to install the HumanitZ server:

force_install_dir C:\humanitz-server

Finally, use the command app_update in com­bin­a­tion with the SteamDB ID 2728330 (HumanitZ server) to download and install the ‘HZ_SERVER’ ap­plic­a­tion:

app_update 2728330 validate

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After in­stall­a­tion, exit SteamCMD with the quit command.

Step 4: Configure the HumanitZ server

After in­stalling the server, you can define the desired settings for your game session. Open the con­fig­ur­a­tion file GameServerSettings.ini, which can be found in the subfolder .\TSSGame, with any text editor.

In the first lines, you’ll find the ‘Host Settings’, where you can specify the name of your server, assign a password and define the maximum number of players, among other things. This is followed by the ‘World Settings’, i.e., the general setting options for the game world such as dif­fi­culty level, number of zombies or starting season.

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Save and close the file as soon as you have finished cus­tom­ising the con­fig­ur­a­tion.

Step 5: Open ports

In order for your server to be ac­cess­ible online and also appear in the server listing, for example, you must enable the cor­res­pond­ing ports in the firewall settings. In the case of HumanitZ, these are the TCP/UDP ports 7777 (game port) and 27015 (Steam query port). To enable the ports, go to your IONOS customer account again:

1. Go to the login page and log in with your details.
2. Select the Server & Cloud section and then choose your server.
3. Click on the Network option in the menu on the left-hand side.
4. Access the Firewall policies submenu.
5. Under ‘Incoming’, add the rules for the TCP/UDP ports with the numbers 7777 and 27015, one after the other.

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Step 6: Start the server

In the next step, you can finally start your HumanitZ server. The easiest way to do this is with a simple start script that you create directly in the server directory. Here, you give the in­struc­tion that the TSSGameServer.exe should be executed and the progress should be presented in a command prompt window. You can also specify the pre­vi­ously opened ports. Our script entitled start.bat looks like this:

start TSSGameServer.exe -log -port=7777 queryport=27015

Double-click on the script to start the server ap­plic­a­tion. The message Session created! indicates that the start was suc­cess­ful.

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Step 7: Connect to the HumanitZ server you have created

You can now connect to your dedicated server at any time. To do this, start the zombie game as usual via Steam and then carry out the following steps:

1. Click on Mul­ti­play­er.
2. Create the desired game character.
3. Use the search function on the right-hand side of the screen to search for your server. Make sure that the ap­pro­pri­ate filters such as ‘Dedicated’ or ‘Password’ are switched on or off.
4. Al­tern­at­ively, enter the IP address of your server including the :27015 port and click on Connect by IP.

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Once you have selected your starting point, your dedicated mul­ti­play­er ex­per­i­ence can begin!

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