CS2 Server Hosting on Your Own KVM VPS

Pick Counter-Strike 2 as the game of our Game Server, choose a plan and pay. We build the VPS (KVM, NVMe, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS); about six minutes after boot the panel is ready, and the server downloads CS2 from Steam. CS2's server is the full game, 69 GB, so that download takes a while. You get:

• A Counter-Strike 2 dedicated server, Valve's own, named "My CS2 Server", in competitive mode on de_dust2 with 12 slots and VAC on. All of these are fields in the panel's Startup tab.
• Pterodactyl, an open-source (MIT) web panel, at an HTTPS address like game-k3x9q2.devoster.app, with a live console, file manager, SFTP on port 2022, two backup slots and schedules. You are its admin and log in with your email and a generated password shown in the Devoster dashboard.
• Port 27015 for the game and 27020 for SourceTV, open on your dedicated IPv4 address. RCON is off until you switch it on in the Startup tab, with a strong password already generated for it.

The server is created but not started: it needs your Steam token first (next section). The software is free; you pay only the VPS plan, with 10% off yearly. The server comes with full root, free nightly backups kept 3 days plus one snapshot, 1 Gbps with unlimited bandwidth and network-level DDoS protection from the datacenter. Already have a Devoster VPS? You can reinstall it with the Game Server from VPS Control at no charge. Other apps are on the One-Click Apps page.

Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike 2 are trademarks of Valve Corporation. Devoster is not affiliated with or endorsed by Valve.

A CS2 server needs a game server login token (GSLT) to accept players from the internet and to be listed. Valve asks owners not to hand their tokens to anyone else, so you make your own, and the server waits for it:

• Sign in to Steam's game server account page. Enter App ID 730 and a memo such as "Devoster CS2", then create the token and copy it.
• In the panel, open the server's Startup tab and paste the token into STEAM_GSLT.
• Press Start on the server's console. The first start checks Steam for updates, then loads the map.

Valve's requirements for the Steam account: CS2 in its library, a registered phone number, not limited (a limited account is one that hasn't spent at least $5 on Steam) and not community banned. One account can create up to 1,000 tokens. The token is tied to your account, so keep the server within Valve's server rules (below).

Players enable the developer console in CS2 (Settings, Game, Enable Developer Console), open it with the ~ key and type connect your-address:27015, using your server's IPv4 address. Set SERVER_PASSWORD in the Startup tab to keep it private; players then type password yourpassword before the connect line. The game type and mode are Startup fields too: competitive by default, and the same two fields switch to casual, wingman or deathmatch.

These are estimates, not guarantees. CS2 runs its game loop on one core, so more players and more plugins need a faster plan rather than a bigger one. Memory isn't the limit: an empty server uses about 0.9 GB. Disk is: CS2 takes 69 GB, which doesn't fit on Starter's 75 GB next to Ubuntu and the panel, and leaves about 25 GB free on Basic for updates. The plan's RAM is fixed for the game, with about 768 MB kept for the panel and Ubuntu.

• Maps: change the start map in the Startup tab, or switch from the console with changelevel de_mirage. Workshop maps load with host_workshop_map and the map's Workshop ID.
• Configs: edit game/csgo/cfg/server.cfg in the file manager or over SFTP for round times, warmup and the rest; it runs on every map load.
• Plugins: community frameworks such as Metamod:Source and CounterStrikeSharp can be uploaded like any other files. They are community projects, so a CS2 update can break them until their authors catch up.
• Game updates: the server updates itself from Steam every time it starts. We also watch Steam: when a new CS2 build ships, the server announces a restart in five minutes and then restarts to update, because players on the new version can't join an old server.
• Daily restart: early each morning, with the same warning. Change or switch it off in the Schedules tab.
• Backups: two backup slots in the panel, kept on the VPS. A backup of the whole 69 GB game won't fit, so when you create one, add game/bin and the game's map and asset folders to its ignored files and keep your configs and plugins; Steam can always download the game again. Nightly VPS backups (kept 3 days) and your snapshot cover the whole server.

Valve's server guidelines forbid giving players skins, knives or other items they don't own, and Valve has banned the tokens of servers that did. Stay clear of plugins that do that: a banned token takes your server off the internet, and the ban is on your Steam account, not on us.

The server is in Utah, USA, our only location. Typical round trips are about 23 ms to Los Angeles, 35 ms to Chicago and 47 ms to New York, under about 70 ms across the continental US and Canada. That is fine for pugs, retakes and community servers; competitive players far from Utah will feel it, and players in Europe will see well over 100 ms. The VPS is unmanaged: you have full root, and the plugins you install and the people you let in are your responsibility. Every player needs their own Steam account with CS2.