First provision your server at your desired web host. I recommend using an 8GB Linode VPS. I could not get the server to start on a 4GB but maybe some day they will optimize it enough for that if you aren’t planning to have a lot of players. Linode is great because they have more RAM than some other hosts for the same price and it runs ARK great!

For the OS choice I prefer using Ubuntu 16.04 and this is what I’ll be using in this guide. We will also use the excellent ARK Server Tools. You don’t have download it yet, that part comes later.

Once you have your server running you can login to your shiney new SSH console. I’m logging in directly as root but if you are using another user you probably already know what you’re doing maybe you’re using a different host so just make sure to add sudo in front of all your commands until you switch to the steam user later on.

You might notice if you’ve already tried to update Ubuntu that it gets stuck at “Connecting to security.ubuntu.com” so before we update let’s fix that. Edit the file at /etc/gai.conf with your favourite editor. I use vi so type:

vi /etc/gai.conf

Find this line:

#precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 10

Remove the # at the start by using the arrow keys to go down and press Delete to uncomment the line and save the file with :wq Enter

Now you can update properly!

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

If it prompts anything about grub config just hit enter to keep the current grub config.

Now install the necessary packages (Note: If using sudo be sure to put it in front of apt-get as well):

dpkg --add-architecture i386; apt-get install libcompress-raw-zlib-perl libc6-i386 curl wget file bzip2 gzip unzip lsof util-linux lib32gcc1 libstdc++6 libstdc++6:i386

Now let’s setup the firewall. If you have a static IP and want to allow only your IP to access your RCON and SSH you can run these:

ufw allow from YOURIPADDRESS proto any to any port 22
ufw allow from YOURIPADDRESS proto any to any port 32330

Otherwise you can run these:

ufw allow 22
ufw allow 32330

Now open some more ports:

ufw allow 27000:27030/udp
ufw allow 27015
ufw allow 27016
ufw allow 7777
ufw allow 7778
ufw allow 4380/udp

And finally enable the firewall:

ufw enable

Now we are going to increase some limits on the file system and whatnot. Run these commands:

echo fs.file-max=100000 >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf
echo *               soft    nofile          1000000 >> /etc/security/limits.conf
echo *               hard    nofile          1000000 >> /etc/security/limits.conf
echo session required pam_limits.so >> /etc/pam.d/common-session

Now it’s time to reboot the server:

reboot

Once it comes back up and you’re logged back into your SSH console it’s time to install steam:

adduser steam
curl -sL http://git.io/vtf5N | sudo bash -s steam

Now switch to the steam user:

su - steam

As the steam user type these commands to install SteamCMD:

mkdir ~/Steam && cd ~/Steam
curl -sqL "https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz" | tar zxvf -

Now install the ARK server:

arkmanager install

Edit config files in /etc/arkmanager/ or create /home/steam/.arkmanager.cfg
More info about the config files.

Upload any backups to /home/steam/ARK/ShooterGame/Saved/SavedArks. If you do this as root make sure you change the ownership on the files after:

chown -R steam:steam /home/steam

Optionally install any mods you want to use:

arkmanager installmod 513353060

And finally, start the server:

arkmanager start

After a minute or two the server should be up and running and ready to play on. If not then you may have configured something wrong.