HostableHostable

Install

Put Hostable on a fresh Debian or Ubuntu VPS.

Requirements

  • A VPS running Debian 12/13 or Ubuntu 24.04, x86_64 or arm64 (Steam games need x86_64).
  • SSH access with sudo.
  • Enough RAM for your game. See Small VPS.

Install

SSH into the VPS and run:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blankeos/hostable/main/install.sh | sh

The installer:

    Installs the basics

    ca-certificates, tar, xz-utils, openssl and ufw through apt. Installing ufw does not turn it on yet.

    Downloads the release

    It picks the archive for your CPU, installs hostable and hostabled into /usr/local/bin, and the web admin files into /var/lib/hostable.

    Creates the service user

    A system user called hostable owns the game servers under /srv/hostable/servers.

    Starts the daemon

    hostabled is installed as a systemd service and starts right away. It only answers connections from the VPS itself.

Then open the app:

sudo hostable

IMPORTANT

Run hostable with sudo. The daemon's operator token (/etc/hostable/operator-token) is readable by root only, on purpose.

Installer options

Set these before the command to change defaults:

VariableDefaultMeaning
HOSTABLE_VERSIONlatestRelease tag to install.
HOSTABLE_INSTALL_DIR/usr/local/binWhere the binaries go.
HOSTABLE_SERVER_DIR/srv/hostableServers and backups live here.
HOSTABLE_SKIP_SERVICE0Set 1 to skip the systemd service (for containers).
HOSTABLE_SKIP_DEPS0Set 1 to skip the apt packages (upgrades do this).
HOSTABLE_DOWNLOAD_URLunsetInstall from a specific archive URL or file:// path.

Upgrade

sudo hostable upgrade

It downloads the latest release, checks its checksum, replaces hostable, hostabled and the web admin, and restarts the daemon. Your servers, settings and token stay as they are, and running game servers are not interrupted. hostable upgrade --check only says whether a newer release exists, and hostable upgrade 0.0.2 installs a specific version.

Running the install command again does the same thing.

Uninstall

sudo systemctl disable --now hostabled
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/hostable /usr/local/bin/hostabled /etc/systemd/system/hostabled.service

Your servers stay in /srv/hostable. Remove that folder by hand if you want them gone.