[JmactheAttack]

To preface my question, I am currently in the process of setting up roughly 15 CS:GO servers on a single Win2012 dedicated server and I'm currently using a single CS:GO server install with individual batch scripts per server to run everything. All of the servers get most of their configurations from one master "server.cfg" while each server has its own "server##.cfg" for individual settings like the hostname and such. All of the servers are going to be used for 5v5 competitive PUGs and will basically have the same configurations and SM plugins.

My question: is it a good idea to run all of these servers under one srcds installation or should each server have it's own installation? Can someone provide me any insight into what problems I may run into with this type of setup?

So far everything is going well, but I haven't really been able to do any real live testing yet. I figure that issues may come up if multiple game server instances are trying to read and write to the same file, but I'm wondering if it is really a concern. If you have any other "best practices" to share, please do. Also, I am testing out seDirector, but I've had the same freezing issues that everyone else is having, so I may have to wait for an update or scrap it entirely.

-Jmac

[Maxximou5]

You've already brought up the major point, that is the read and write on files that are being accessed at the same time. As it will make updating a pain in the ass (if updates continue to roll out each two weeks), you have to shutdown every server before you can update, but on that end you only need to update once, so that's easy. You can separate the sm installs so that you don't run into conflicts with log writing in SM, and each server can have a log folder just as server### you can have log### folder. You could also look into using FireDaemon to keep everything on alert for you if seDirector doesn't pan out.

[Potato Uno]

Just dupe the server install 15 times. Even if people come up with ways to avoid problems by using one server installation, an unforseen problem can potentially bite you in the ass.

Make 15 copies and install 15 servers, then run all 15 at once. It will cost you disk space but you will not have issues with shared installations and whatnot.

Perhaps you may be interested in looking at symlinking (symbolic linking) for maps at least if you want to save some space.

[Maxximou5]

Pretty sure the idea is that he doesn't have a lot of disk space, otherwise it would just make sense to dupe everything.

Ya, if you want do symlinking with vpk's and maps, those things right there take up the enormity that is space.

[JmactheAttack]

Space really wasn't the reason for why I was initially setting up my servers with 1 install directory, it's just the only way I initially thought to do it. It looks like my new course of action is to just setup each game server in a unique install directory. Also, thanks for the Firedaemon recommendation. I haven't used that program for several years and completely forgot about it's existence and I think I might even have a license for that buried in an email account somewhere.

I guess what I'll do now is just create one server and completely configure everything on it, including all the various sourcemod plugin configs and then just copy-paste the folder into a scheme that looks like this:

C:\ServerFiles\csgo1
""\csgo2
""\csgo3
etc

Then in each of the individual cfg folders I'll still have my master server.cfg and individual server#.cfg that has the hostname and whatever minor changes that make each server unique. The batch scripts will start with the server#.cfg files since the master server.cfg is assumed and automatically used.

Now to figure out how to automatically update everything... I think I already found a good script for that, but Valve certainly doesn't seem to want to make it easy.

[Potato Uno]

Just query the steam API for a new update version every 10 minutes or so (no API key required for it).

If you want to hold off from updating the server until all the players are gone (empty server), you will need a server-side plugin to report (in some way) the number of players connected.