Insurgency: Sandstorm – Setup a Personal Practice Server

This guide will teach you how to set up a private server that only you can connect to, for practicing nades, finding cool pick spots, and learning the maps.

Setting Up SteamCMD

Please note that unless you open the 27102 port on your router, nobody but yourself will be able to join this server. I am not going to show how to open that port on your router. If you want to do that step, google tutorials on port forwarding for your router brand.

To create your own server, first you have to setup steamcmd and install the insurgency server.

To start, download steamcmd for windows. This is the official download link.

Next create a folder somewhere on your computer called steamcmd. For this example I’m just going to put it directly on the C: drive.

Then you need to extract the contents of the steamcmd.zip file to your steamcmd folder.

Once done with that, open up a command prompt window and run the following commands:

  • cd C:/steamcmd

* Note that you should change the path if you put your steamcmd folder somewhere else.

  • steamcmd

This will install and setup steamcmd. It should take less than 3 minutes. Once done, it should leave you with a steam prompt that reads “steam>” If you do not see this steam prompt after the setup, just run the steamcmd command again.

  • login anonymous
  • app_update 581330

This will install the insurgency sandstorm server. Depending on your internet speed, this will take around 5-10 minutes.

  • cd steamapps/common/sandstorm_server/

This just puts you into the directory for the sandstorm server so we are ready to run the command that starts the insurgency server.

Once you have this done, leave the command window open as we will need to come back to it.

Running the Server and Connecting

Now, for whatever reason, you must have the game running before you start the server, otherwise windows thinks that the game is already running and wont open.

So fire up your copy of insurgency sandstorm and let it load into the main menu. Go ahead and press the play button and then hover over the versus option. Click the box below the versus box named “Browse Servers”.

Once you see the server browser screen, press Alt+Tab to go back to your command prompt window.

Then in the command prompt window you will need to run the following command:

InsurgencyServer.exe Oilfield?Scenario=Scenario_Refinery_Push_Security?MaxPlayers=28 -Port=27102 -QueryPort=27131 -log -hostname="My Server"

This will open a second command window with a whole bunch of code scrolling down the screen. This is normal. Once this second window opens, Alt+Tab back over to your insurgency game.

In the bottom left of your screen there should be a box labeled “Server IP”.

In this box type:

  • 127.0.0.1:27102

And then press the right arrow next to the box.

A password prompt will pop up. leave it blank and just click ok.

TA-DA you are now in your own practice server.

Now, the command you run to start the insurgency server will need to be changed depending on what map and game mode you want the server to run, plus there are all sorts of options that you can set up for the server.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 7946 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*