Setup a Linux Valheim Dedicated server

A guide on how to setup a Valheim Dedicated server on a Linux system, using SteamCMD.

10th January, 2026

You’ve got a spare computer laying around and its got linux installed, you’ve just started to play Valheim with the boys, and you don’t want to run the server on the same computer.

This guide assumes:

  • You have a computer with linux installed.
  • You’re at least somewhat comfortable using the terminal.
  • You’re running Ubuntu (tested on 24.04).
  • You have a static IP provided by your Internet Service Provider.

Let’s get into it.

Step 1: SteamCMD

SteamCMD is the offical CLI tool by Value to interact with Steam via the command line.

This makes it easy to install and update the Valheim Dedicated Server later on.

Prerequisites

Before we can run SteamCMD, we need to do a few things.

First we have to create a new user.

sudo useradd -m steam

This will create a new user called steam.

We do this because of security reasons. If anything installed by SteamCMD were ever compromised, it’ll only have access to the steam user. Not the whole system.


Now set a password for that new steam user.

sudo passwd steam

You’ll be prompted to input a password, and again for password confirmation.


Before we switch over, we have to temporarily make the steam user a super user, also known as sudo. This is because to run the next few commands we need sudo access.

So while you’re still logged in as your main user, run:

sudo usermod -aG sudo steam

Now that the steam user is sudo, let’s switch to their account:

sudo -u steam -s

This will prompt you to input the password of the current user.


Once you’re switched over we can now install the required packages for SteamCMD.

sudo add-apt-repository multiverse

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo apt update

It may prompt you with a “Adding component(s) ‘multiverse’ to all repositories.” Just continue by pressing Enter.


Once all those dependencies are install you can now finally install SteamCMD:

sudo apt install steamcmd

Now hopefully if anything is all good you should be able to run:

steamcmd

And it’ll launch SteamCMD.

But, you may encounter an error along the lines of:

Command ‘steamcmd’ is not available in ‘usr/games/steamcmd’…

Run these commands:

echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/usr/games"' >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

And now you should be able to run:

steamcmd

Running SteamCMD will do the initial download of updates and then say “Loading Steam API…OK” if all is well. This means we’re successfully using SteamCMD!

Step 2: Installing Valheim Dedicated Server

Now that SteamCMD is installed and running, we can finally install the goodies.

But first we need to tell steam who we are.

Luckily we don’t need to login with our own accounts to download the server. Steam allows us to login anonymously.

login anonymous

If all is well, you can now run the following command:

app_update 896660

896660 is the Steam App ID for the Valheim Dedicated Server.

Let’s get out of the SteamCMD by typing:

quit

And just like that, you have your own Valheim Dedicated server!


But of course you’re gonna need to edit and run it.

SteamCMD by default will install the server in the following directory:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Valheim Dedicated Server

Let’s change the server name and password.

cd ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Valheim Dedicated Server
vi start_server.sh
  1. Move down with arrow keys to the line with ./valheim_server.x86_64 -name "My server"...
  2. Press I to enter Insert Mode.
  3. With the arrow keys move over and edit your server settings.
  4. Once you’re done press Escape to exit Insert Mode.
  5. Press : (colon) and type wq to save your changes.

Here’s an example of the entire edited start_server.sh file:

#!/bin/bash
export templdpath=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./linux64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export SteamAppId=892970

echo "Starting server PRESS CTRL-C to exit"

# Tip: Make a local copy of this script to avoid it being overwritten by steam.
# NOTE: Minimum password length is 5 characters & Password cant be in the server name.
# NOTE: You need to make sure the ports 2456-2458 is being forwarded to your server through your local router & firewall.
./valheim_server.x86_64 -name "MyCoolServer" -port 2456 -world "CoolServer" -password "mashedpotatoes" -crossplay

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$templdpath

As you can see in the comments of the start_server.sh file it recommends us to copy this file and rename it, just incase of a steam update.

Let’s do that.

cp start_server.sh run_server.sh

Now that our server is edited and copied, we can quickly check if it works by running:

./run_server.sh

This may take a while depending on your PC. But once this is done, you should see a message along the lines of:

Session “MyCoolServer” with join code [code] and IP [your ip] is active with 0 player(s)

Cool, now let’s close the server with CTRL + C

Step 3: Portforwarding

Now for the dreaded part of this guide. Portforwarding…

All routers are different with different user interfaces and terminology, so I can’t really tell you exactly what to look for. But generally you should be able to look at the back of your router and search on YouTube: ”[your router model] port forwarding”

But once you find your setting, we need to forward the following ports:

UDP 2456-2568

If your router doesn’t allow for specifing a port range, you’ll have to manually forward each port:

  • UDP 2456
  • UDP 2457
  • UDP 2458

Step 4: Open ports on Linux

Now that our router has the ports open, we need to tell linux to also open those ports.

Simply run the following command:

sudo ufw allow 2456:2458/udp

And that will allow connections of those ports to be made to your linux server.

Step 5: Revoking sudo access

Just quickly before we revoke sudo access, let’s make sure that the screen package is installed:

sudo apt install screen

This will be used later one to persist terminal sessions.


Now that we’ve done all that we need to, we can now revoke the super user access we gave the steam user.

Exit out of the steam user account with:

exit

Now type:

sudo deluser steam sudo

This may look like you’re going to delete the steam account, but it won’t. Trust me.

Now log back into the steam account.

sudo -u steam -s

Step 6: Starting a persistent server session

Let’s go back to our Valheim server with:

cd ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Valheim Dedicated Server

If we were to run the run_server.sh file directly, wait for the server to load and then close the terminal, the server would then forcefully close.

This is bad because… well… your server isn’t running and forcefully closing the server may cause issues with your world later on.

So before we do that, let’s start a screen session. Screen is the linux package we installed before that allows for persistent terminal sessions even after closing the terminal.

screen -S valheim_server

You should now see a “blank” terminal. This is great, it means you have a screen session running with the name of valheim_server


So now we can run:

./run_server.sh

And once we’re happy with the server we can press CTRL + A then CTRL + D to detach the screen session.

To reattach to the screen session we can just run:

screen -r

But if you have more than 1 screen session running at once, we can target the name of the session:

screen -r valheim_server

We’re done

Now that you’ve got your server up and running, here’s a few things to note:

Updating your server

When you need to update your server, use steamcmd, login, and run:

app_update 896660

If there’s an update, steam will update your server.

But be sure to stop your server first with with reattaching to your screen session and pressing CTRL + C.

World files

You may be looking through the server files trying to find the world files, and just can’t seem to find them.

This is because the world files are stored in a different location.

Your world files are located at:

~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local

Steam only

If you and your friends are only playing on steam, I suggest removing the -crossplay flag in your run_server.sh file.

This will disable PlayFab and potentially fix weird lagging issues.

Modded server

I highly suggest using a mod manager, such as R2ModMan.

  1. Install your mods to your client.
  2. Open your profile in your file explorer.
  3. Copy all the files and folders (excluding _state folder) to a USB and paste them in your server directory. Or transfer via FTP.
  4. Edit start_server_bepinex.sh launch flags to match your old run_server.sh.
  5. Run ./start_server_bepinex.sh