HLSW For Linux




HLSW for Linux (Ubuntu)

Quick answer:

sudo apt-get install xqf



*Note: You may have to enable extra repositories in Synaptic, Adept, or Aptitude. Fedora guys might be able to use "yum."

HLSW (Half-Life Server Watcher) is a program for remotely managing a Half-Life game server using the Quake II rcon protocol/command set. This allows a server administrator to administer a Quake or Half-Life server without having Quake or Half-Life installed on a workstation. (useful on a laptop or non-gaming machine).

XQF is a program that offers similar rcon control from Linux. The "apt-get" command above will automatically install XQF on Ubuntu. It will install two packages:
> qstat
> xqf

The download is small (586kB, less than 1MB!).

Once installed, a short-cut should appear under "Games" in your Linux desktop menu. Alternately, you can launch xqf by typing "xqf" at a command prompt or console window.

Background of HLSW:

So lets say for example, you want to do routine maintenance on a game server, such as take the game server offline so that game parameters can be changed, or perhaps the disk needs to be scanned for errors. In order to find out if the server's empty, or to notify those players with a message you are about to take it down, you'd normally have to launch the game, connect to your own server just to find out if players are ready to leave.

HLSW for Windows is a free (not GPL) tool for administering game servers. It's great for beginners, and admins, and provides a single-interface for connecting to many different game types.

Unfortunately, HLSW does not make a version for Linux.

XQF allows you to manage a game server (in my instance Half-Life) without physically connecting to it from a Linux desktop. It is a GUI (graphical user interface) program that allows you to click and manage a Half-Life server remotely much like HLSW does. It's also GPL, which means you are free to redistribute the program and make modifications to its source code.

In the below side-by-side comparison, you'll notice XQF is almost a clone of HLSW:



The above XQF logo "XQF.png" works great as a med/hi-res icon for your linux shortcut. Hope this saves you some time in your struggles!

-Tres

Comments

Unknown said…
Thanks! Exactly what i was looking for.
April 23, 2009 at 8:04 AM
Tres Finocchiaro said…
Glad I could be of help. What game do you use HLSW for?

-Tres
April 23, 2009 at 8:47 AM
Unknown said…
It dont work for Counter-Strike:source servers :/

Don't get the playerlist and cant send rcon commands to my servers
April 29, 2009 at 6:03 AM
Tres Finocchiaro said…
Sorry to mislead you then.

Half-Life 1 uses a modified version of the Quake 2 engine. Its likely that the proprietary Source engine won't work with XQF.

If this functionality exists in HLSW, contact the XQF developers with the feature request, or try to get a version of HLSW running in wine.

-Tres
April 29, 2009 at 6:55 AM
Wolycan said…
o matter what i try i cant seem to gewt xqf to launch urban terror 9 stand alone )
and all it keeps saying is quake 3 not found, ive tried all i can find online, ang suggestions?
June 11, 2009 at 1:09 PM
Tres Finocchiaro said…
Frank,

I don't know much about XQF yet, but I might be able to help. Is Urban Terror 9 a native Linux game or do you have it installed in Wine?

-Tres
June 11, 2009 at 2:51 PM
Wolycan said…
urban terror 4.1 is a native game, urbanterror.net is where its from, and i even got the xqf version with the custom cvars so it can be done, but i uninstalled it, the rcon works, and the masterservers and player tracking is fine, but its looking doe a baseq3 directory and other errors and i cant get it to accept the launch file and directory to launch the game ioUrbanTerror.i386 is the file it needs to launch for 32bit and ioUrbanTerror.x86_64 for the 64bit and it wont do either
June 11, 2009 at 3:51 PM
Tres Finocchiaro said…
Frank, I've installed Urban Terror. What type of work is it to get XQF to list UrbanTerror as a game type?

I looked for servers online and it found none, so I don't have an IP address to add to XQF.

-Tres
June 12, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Wolycan said…
ok, the servers show under quake 3 arena, and game type is q3ut4, the problem is it will not launch thru the program, as it says quake 3 not found, and when you add in the location of the launched, it does not accept it.
June 12, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Tres Finocchiaro said…
Yeah Frank, I'm seeing the same thing. I think most people are putting a .q3a folder in their home, but that generally means you have the original Q3 engine installed (or a demo of it at least).

I think XQF needs to supply an updates that makes it compatible with ioQuake games.

Sorry I couldn't help you more!

-Tres
June 12, 2009 at 1:59 PM
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