Ok since there's so many people who don't know how to set up a server, I wrote a guide which breaks it down into nice easy steps.
Step 1
Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users must have administrator privaledges to install software. Therefore you'll need to check if you are an administrator, or you'll need to contact the administrator to install the software for you. To check, simply go to Control Panel -> User Accounts. From here you should see if you are an administrator.
As you can see in the screenshot, I am a computer administrator. Users who are setting up a server on platforms lower than Windows 2000 can skip step 1.
Step 2
Download the server software. Browse to http://www.multitheftauto.com/ and go to "Archive." From here you can find the software.
Easy as pie.
Step 3
Look for the server installer, not the client. For Windows users, download the package illustrated in the screenshot below.
The Gonnaplay mirror is your best bet since most of the others don't work.
When this popup appears asking you what you want to do, choose Save and save it straight to the desktop.
Step 4
Extracting the server setup program. Once the download is complete, double click the ZIP file on your desktop. Depending on which archiving software you are using, it should give you an option to extract the file. In my example, I'm using WinRAR. It is similar for most other software, just extract it straight to the desktop.
Once the EXE has been extracted, you can delete the ZIP file since it's no longer needed.
Step 6
The setup. Run the EXE file on your desktop and you should be presented with a wizard which looks like this:
When you are presented with this screen, click on Next. Once you have read the EULA, accept it and you will come to the next screen.
Choose Full Installation from the dropdown box and click on Next. Once that is done, you need to specify a path for the install.
As you can see above, I'm using the default path which is already entered. You're probably best off if you leave this and let it install to the defualt directory, but if you specifically need to install it to another folder/drive, then you may browse and select the location.
Complete the installation and move onto the next step.
Step 7
Browse to the directory you installed the server. By defualt, it should be as follows:
C:\Program Files\Multi Theft Auto
Once you are here, the folder should look (something) like this. Don't worry if you don't have all the files you see in my screenshot, this is normal.
Step 8
Configuring the server. There are 2 ways to configure the server, either using the Server Config Tool. I would suggest using this as it has a GUI and is very simple to use. Double click on MTAServerConfigTool.exe and it should run. Note: you may encounter an error like the one below:
To get rid of this, simply delete MTAServerConfigTool.exe.manifest and it should sort the problem out. Run the Config Tool again and it will work.
Step 8 alternative
Manually editing the config file can take longer but you can change every single possible setting and customize your servre to the maximum.
Open mtaserver.conf with Notepad and you should see this:
From here you can edit all the settings. The only ones you should need to edit are ServerName, ServerPort, ServerPassword (if you want it private), AdminPassword and AdminPlusPassword. Of course, it's up to you what you want to do. Once you've finished editing it, save it and close it.
Step 9
Running the server. After running the config tool/editing the config manually, double click on MTAServer.exe. This should bring up a DOS window with some text on like this:
This is what you are supposed to see, so don't panic. As long as this window is open, the server is running.
You may also want to apply Server Patch 1 which you can also obtain from the download page. To install the server patch one, simply download it, extract it from the ZIP file and copy the EXE into the directory where you installed the server. It should overwrite the old EXE and provides a fix to the memory leak that was first found when 0.5 was released.
If you have completed all of the above steps, your server should work. If you can connect to it but people on the Internet can't, then you may need to open the gameport through your router/firewall. The gameport is the one you specified in the config (2003 by default). If you don't know how to port forward, consult your router's manual. People without a router need not to worry about this. If you are running a firewall, there should be an option to allow direct connection on specified ports, this is where you'll need to enter the port.
If people say they can't see your server on the ASE server browser, you need to do the above except to the gameport+123 (so for example if my gameport is 2003, I need to forward 2126 so that the server can report to ASE).
Have fun, and if you need any help, contact me on msn -
[email protected] - and preferrably English speaking people only!
