SteamCMD: how to install the command line client

SteamCMD is quick to install on Linux and Windows. Simply download the ap­pro­pri­ate in­stal­la­tion package and unpack it to a directory of your choice. Initiate the in­stal­la­tion via steamcmd.exe. In com­bi­na­tion with the ap­pro­pri­ate server hardware, you will generate the perfect basis for hosting dedicated servers of popular Steam games.

SteamCMD is the command line version of the Steam client. The tool is used to download dedicated server ap­pli­ca­tions of popular Steam games quickly and easily for running your own Valheim server or Rust server, for example. Below, we explain how to install the ap­pli­ca­tion on Windows and Linux step by step.

First, create a directory for SteamCMD, for example, under C:\.

Following in­stal­la­tion, you’ll see the Steam input line “steam>”. To shut down the tool properly, type the command “quit” into this line.

If you wish to update the software at some point later, simply restart steamcmd.exe. Each restart of the client is preceded by it checking for updates.

It is rec­om­mend­ed not to run SteamCMD as a root user on Linux devices. Therefore, first you should create a new user named “steam” and add a password for using the command line client. To do this, open the terminal and run the following commands:

Then create and swap to a new des­ig­nat­ed directory for SteamCMD:

If you are using a 64-bit system, run the following commands in order to add the Mul­ti­verse repos­i­to­ry, upgrade the system, and download the SteamCMD in­stal­la­tion file:

Now link the down­loaded file to run the SteamCMD in­stal­la­tion on Linux to the new directory:

Log in with your pre­vi­ous­ly created user account:

Once logged into the Steam directory, begin in­stal­la­tion:

Following suc­cess­ful in­stal­la­tion, you will see the Steam input line “Steam>”. Close the tool with “quit”. During each restart of SteamCMD, i.e., whenever you login using your account details and enter “steamcmd” in the SteamCMD directory, the system is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly updated.

As pre­vi­ous­ly mentioned, SteamCMD is the best place to download dedicated server ap­pli­ca­tions of various Steam games. In this capacity, the command line client is almost in­dis­pens­able when setting up multiple gaming servers. Usually, you just need the ap­pro­pri­ate server hardware and server operating system and in rare cases a valid license for the desired game.

In principle, you could install SteamCMD and the re­spec­tive server on your PC. From a per­for­mance point of view, however, it is advisable to rent resources from a provider. IONOS, for example, offers three server models with different per­for­mance plans to this end. Find out more about them in our summary.

Want to set up a new gaming server for a small group of players, without com­mit­ting to using a server? You can’t go wrong with a Cloud Server from IONOS. The virtual resources are shared with other users and billed by the minute. So, you only pay when the server is actually running.

Have a more precise ideas of the gaming server(s) you need? Want to host via SteamCMD and know how many players there are? Reach for a vServer from IONOS. The hardware of this server model is also vir­tu­al­ized. It is billed at a fixed monthly rate which makes the plan a better option for those running servers all the time.

A dedicated server is rec­om­mend­ed for an ambitious multi-server scenario. In this case, you access powerful hardware reserved ex­clu­sive­ly for you that handles parallel operation of various server instances. Because of high single-core power, the dedicated server is the best choice for hosting gaming servers designed as single-core ap­pli­ca­tions such as a CS:GO server.