5Stack

Appearance

Steam Datagram Relay (SDR) ​

The Steam Datagram Relay (SDR) is Valve's virtual private gaming network for Counter-Strike servers. When enabled in 5Stack, your game server traffic is routed through Valve's dedicated gaming backbone, providing access to their global network of relays for optimal connectivity.

Game Server Nodes ​

Game server nodes are automatic, and no configuration is needed: turn on Use Steam Relay on a region, and servers in it start on the relay. For more information about game server nodes. See Game Server Nodes.

The connect address ​

A server on the relay is reached by its Steam ID, for example [A:1:3653557264:51859], not by an IP and port. Each 5Stack plugin (the match plugin, the practice plugin and the Player Management plugin) reports whether its server is on the relay and, once Steam has given it one, that address.

  • In a region that is not LAN, players are given the relay address as the connect command, and the server's page shows it.
  • Until Steam has given the server an address, nothing changes, and a server running the match or practice plugin is not counted as up: the only address left to hand out would reach nobody.
  • A server that reports it is off the relay goes back to its host and port.

The region's Use Steam Relay switch only decides how a server on a node is started. The address players get is always the one the server itself reported, so an external server you put on the relay yourself is handled the same way.

Dedicated Servers Setup ​

To configure Steam Datagram Relay, edit game/csgo/gameinfo_branchspecific.gi and add two settings to it:

  • "net_p2p_listen_dedicated" "1" inside the existing ConVars block
  • a new NetworkSystem block with "CreateListenSocketP2P" "2"

Do not replace the file

Keep everything Valve ships in this file. It sets the server's SteamAppId to 730, and replacing it with an empty file breaks the server.

The file should end up looking like this:

"GameInfo"
{
	FileSystem
	{
		ForceFixedAppIds	1
		SteamAppId			730
		BreakpadAppId			2347771
		BreakpadAppId_Tools		2347779
	}

	Panorama
	{
		"PreprocessResources"	  "1"
	}

	ConVars
	{
		"net_p2p_listen_dedicated" "1"
		"cl_usesocketsforloopback" "0"
	}

	NetworkSystem
	{
		"CreateListenSocketP2P" "2"
	}
}

A CS2 update can overwrite this file. If relay stops working after an update, add the two settings again.

To check that relay is on, run net_p2p_listen_dedicated in the server console. It should print 1.