To start things off you need to have a Windows CD version of Quake 3 Arena to be able to copy the main game files from. You will need to log into your box with root privileges and whenever you want to setup or run the server you will need to be logged in as root.

Now that you are ready you need to create the directory for which you wish to install the server. As a general idea most install it to the /usr/local/games/quake3/ directory so you will need to create this and also create the /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3 directory. Once you have created these directories you are ready to copy the information across from the CD. Firstly you need to mount the CD-ROM e.g. mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom and then you can browse the CD. now you want to go to the baseq3 directory on the CD and copy the pak0.pk3 (and make sure that you only copy this file since you are using a Windows CD the other files wont work and may cause you problems during the installation process) file to your q3 servers baseq3 directory, this is done by cd /mnt/cdrom/baseq3 and then cp pak0.pk3 /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3

Once you have copied the file above you are ready to install your server. You will need the following files which you can get off the Internet very easily.

- You need the latest point release of Quake 3 Arena for Linux, e.g. linuxq3apoint-1.17.x86.run, and put this in your quake3 directory and then chmod u+x linuxq3apoint-1.17.x86.run the file to give it executable permission.

- You will also need the Quake 3 Fortress for Linux install, this is alot easier as it automatically updates from within the installation. This file is q3finstall.run and can also be downloaded from the Internet. Once again you will have to download this file to your quake3 directory and chmod the file and give it executable permissions.

- Now it is time to run the installations, the Q3A can simply be done by ./linuxq3apoint-1.17.x86.run which will do all the necessary creating of files. This must be done before you install the Q3F files. Once this has been installed you can then install the Q3F server similarly by ./q3finstall.run and following the instructions it give you. Firstly it will require the installation directory for Quake 3 Arena which is your /usr/local/games/quake3 directory. It will ask you if you would like to continue and the will download the appropriate update file from a suitable download location.

When the installation process is complete you will need to make some configuration changes in order to customize your setup to work the way you want. Firstly you will need to create a server.cfg file for Q3A to run, this file should be in your baseq3 directory. Here is a sample file:

// Server Config
q_qametype 4
seta sv_hostname "MAYHEM'S CTF SERVER"
seta sv_maxclients 16
capturelimit 8
timelimit 30
fraglimit 0
seta g_motd "* BORN TO FRAG *"
seta g_quadfactor 3
sv_pure 0
sv_maxRate 10000
seta g_inactivity 0
seta rconpassword "secret"

g_allowvote 1

set d1 "map q3ctf1 ; set nextmap vstr d2"
set d2 "map q3ctf2 ; set nextmap vstr d3"
set d3 "map q3ctf3 ; set nextmap vstr d4"
set d4 "map q3ctf4 ; set nextmap vstr d1"
vstr d1

This basically sets up the name for your server (hostname) and the various details about it. It also tells the server which order to rotate the maps.

You man also wish to edit your /usr/local/games/quake3/q3f/q3f_server.cfg file to give it a name and set the passwords for admin and remote control of the server. This file is well documented internally and should be quite straight forward as to how you can edit it. But be careful as to what you change, anything your not 100% sure of don't change as you may create security breaches.

Now that the servers are setup they should be ready to run. Now depending on what sort of server you want to run you will need to pass different options when running your Quake 3 Dedicated Server. I recommend writing a script that gives you quick choices as to which server you want. Below is a quick script that I wrote for mine, you will need to make this script executable and change any directory that is different to yours, also you will need to change the IP for your Internet connection. My script is called q3serv and is in my quake3 home directory for easy access, here is the code:

#!/bin/tcsh
# Quake 3 Dedicated Server Start Script
# Coded by Mayhem (C)2000

if ($#argv != 1) then
echo "USAGE: ./q3serv [ q3a_lan | q3_www | q3f_lan | q3f_www ]"
exit
else if ($argv[1] == "q3a_lan") then
echo "Starting Quake 3 Arena Dedicated LAN Server..."
./quake3 +set dedicated 1 +set com_hunkmegs 96 +set net_ip 192.168.0.1 +set net_port 27695
else if ($argv[1] == "q3a_www") then
echo "Starting Quake 3 Arena Dedicated WWW Server..."
./quake3 +set dedicated 2 +exec server.cfg +set net_ip <internet_ip> +set net_port 27695
else if ($argv[1] == "q3f_lan") then
echo "Starting Quake 3 Fortress Dedicated LAN Server..."
./quake3 +set dedicated 1 +set fs_game q3f +exec q3f_server.cfg +set net_ip 192.168.0.1 +set net_port 27695
else if ($argv[1] == "q3f_www") then
echo "Starting Quake 3 Fortress Dedicated WWW Server..."
./quake3 +set dedicated 2 +set fs_game q3f +exec q3f_server.cfg +set net_ip <internet_ip> +set net_port 27695
else
echo "USAGE: ./q3serv [ q3a_lan | q3_www | q3f_lan | q3f_www ]"
endif

To make the file you have just create executable you will have to type chmod u+x q3fserv. To run the server using this script all you need to do is pass it the type of server you wish to run. e.g. for a Quake 3 Fortress Dedicated LAN Server you just execute the script as follows: ./q3fserv q3f_lan and it will run the appropriate server.

One problem that I had was when I ran the server I got this error message "Error: Couldn't load default.cfg", it took me hours to figure out what was going wrong, and after locating a site that detailed this error I found that when I installed the server I didn't have the pak0.pk3 file in the correct directory (i.e. the one I was trying to run the server from), so make sure you install to the correct directory and that all files are contained in the appropriate paths. The default.cfg file doesn't actually exist, it is part of the pak file and the error message defaults to this when the pak file can't be found.

Another problem you may have is when you run a Quake 3 Fortress Dedicated WWW Server and you try and join the game from a computer on your local network it will give you an message when trying to connect "CLIENT_UNKNOWN_TO_AUTH". Apparently, this is only a problem for clients connecting to a local Linux server. I found this fix and it worked for me: Add 'authorize.quake3arena.com' to the '127.0.0.1' line in /etc/hosts. Now when you run the server you should be able to connect from your LAN as well as others connecting from the Internet.