A quick guide how to setup Space Engineers Dedicated server on a Linux box with Wine

se_server_linux.md

Ubuntu 14.04/14.10 SpaceEngineers Dedicated Server

Here's a quick guide how to run SpaceEngineers Dedicated Server on Ubuntu with Wine

Requirements

• A copy of Space Engineers
• A Windows box
• A Linux box running Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10 (It'll probably work on other distros, YMMV)

Step #1: Install & configure Wine1.6 and dependencies

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.6
winetricks -q dotnet40
rm -r ~/.wine
WINEARCH=win32 wine wineboot

Step #2: Copy necessary files to Linux box

Server binaries

There are multiple ways for transfering files, easiets would probably be using SCP, WinSCP works well for that. You'll want to transfer the DedicatedServer.zip file found in

[Steam install directory]\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Tools

Unpack the zip somewhere inside

~/.wine/drive_c/users/$(whoami)/

World and config files

The easiest way to do this is to just generate them locally and copy them over to the server, this can be done by using the dedicated server tool on your windows box, the tool is located in

[Steam intall directory]\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Tools\DedicatedServer\SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe

1. Select the Default profile
2. Set up the world
3. Save the config
4. Start to generate the world.

The files will be stored in

C:\Users\{USERNAME}\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineersDedicated\Default

Edit the SpaceEngineers-Dedicated.cfg and copy it with the Saves folder to the following directory on your Linux box

~/.wine/drive_c/users/$(whoami)/Application\ Data/SpaceEngineersDedicated

Step #3: Tweaks

You'll have to change the <LoadWorld> tag so it point to the correct directory.

If the Save folder is located in

~/.wine/drive_c/users/$(whoami)/Application\ Data/SpaceEngineersDedicated/Saves/Created 2015-03-30 2331

the <LoadWorld> tag must look like this, where {username} is the same as $(whoami)

<LoadWorld>C:\Users\{username}\Application Data\SpaceEngineersDedicated\Default\Saves\Created 2015-03-30 2331</LoadWorld> 

You still need to use windows paths.

Step #4: Run it

1. Go to the directory where you have the dedicated server files
2. wine SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe -console

Notes:

• There will be a lot of messages regarding xserver, ignore them
• Errors like fixme:shell:URL_ParseUrl failed to parse L"System.Core" are okay, ignore them.
• Be sure to run 32bit, wine doesn't like the 64bit one.
• There is a small bug where after stopping the server you will no longer see what you're typing into the console.
• This guide is based on the guide I found over at Keen Software House Forums created by AdamAnt

Some updates:
Using wine-staging, forcing the installation of dotnet48, usine winecfg and setting os to windows 7 and starting the server with
wineconsole ./DedicatedServer64/SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe -noconsole
the remote management api port 8080 was opened, according to the log.

The following problems persist:

• the server does not respond to any requests on the management port, even though netstat reports a listening port
• quitting the server with CTRL+C or any other way will produce an autosave entry in the log, but the FileWriterThread seems to crash prematurely, therefore the autosave on shutdown is lost.

I experimented with the remote management api and managed to remotely initiate a save over the network when running nativeley on windows with an http PATCH request to the remote management api, by slightly modifying this git project: https://github.com/chris007de/pyvrageremoteapi .

In this line https://github.com/chris007de/pyvrageremoteapi/blob/b6c48468d12c5739f9b5a1b4a4f9b47aaed10a27/pyvrageremoteapi.py#L89 GET must be changed to PATCH and then calling
python pyvrageremoteapi.py --url http://localhost:8080 --key XKb8xk7vrKaq+BpallYnGA== --resource session
will trigger an autosave.

So the idea was to launch this python script before the systemctl service goes down, but unfortunately the dedicated server's remote management port does not work.

So If someone get's the remote management port to work please share it here.

I found a kind of hacky solution. By checking the directory where the savefiles go for new files one can time the termination of the server with a upcoming autosave. The disadvantage is that this can take a while, depending on the autosave intervall. (You can force a save as admin with /save in the chat 😄 )
Here the systemctl user files, in case someone might find them helpfull:
spaceeng.service at ~/.config/systemd/user/spaceeng.service

[Unit]
Description="Space Engineers wine server"
Requires=xvfb.service
After=xvfb.service

[Service]
Environment=DISPLAY=:1.0
Environment=WINEPREFIX=/opt/spaceeng/winePrefix
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/spaceeng/winePrefix/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/SpaceEngineersDedicatedServer
KillMode=control-group
KillSignal=SIGKILL
ExecStart=/usr/bin/wineconsole ./DedicatedServer64/SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe -noconsole
ExecStop=/opt/spaceeng/checkSaveUpdate.sh
TimeoutSec=0
TimeoutStopSec=700
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

The checkSaveUpdate.sh located at /opt/spaceeng/checkSaveUpdate.sh

#!/bin/bash
path='/opt/spaceeng/winePrefix/drive_c/users/yourUsername/Application Data/SpaceEngineersDedicated/Saves'
i=""
while [ -z "$i" ]
do
	i=$(find "$path" -mmin 0.2)
	sleep 1
done
sleep 15

And the xvfb file at ~/.config/systemd/user/xvfb.service , if you plan to run headless:

[Unit]
Description=X Virtual Frame Buffer Service
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/Xvfb :1 -screen 0 1024x768x16

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

To avoid that the user service gets killed when leaving the console which is logged in as that user execute
loginctl enable-linger

To shutdown the server just
systemctl --user stop spaceeng
to force a save an Admin on the server can force a save by sending
/save
in the chat, if you don't want to wait for the next autosave.

Also a note, if it starts and crashes with the following message in the log:

MyDefinitionManager.GetSessionPreloadDefinitions() - START
2020-12-19 20:53:07.557 - Thread:   1 ->     World Sandbox.sbc not found.
2020-12-19 20:53:07.557 - Thread:   1 ->     Creating new one with same name
2020-12-19 20:53:07.567 - Thread:   1 ->     Cannot start new world - Premade world not found 
2020-12-19 20:53:07.568 - Thread:   1 ->  MySandboxGame.Initialize() - END
2020-12-19 20:53:07.601 - Thread:   1 ->  Exception occurred: System.ApplicationException: Session can not start. Save is corrupted or not valid. See log file for more information.
   at Sandbox.MySandboxGame.Run(Boolean customRenderLoop, Action disposeSplashScreen)
   at VRage.Dedicated.DedicatedServer.RunInternal(String instanceName)
   at VRage.Dedicated.DedicatedServer.RunMain(String instanceName, String customPath, Boolean isService, Boolean showConsole, Boolean checkAlive)
   at VRage.Dedicated.DedicatedServer.ProcessArgs(String[] args)
   at VRage.Dedicated.DedicatedServer.Run(String[] args, Action`1 initializeServices)
   at SpaceEngineersDedicated.MyProgram.Main(String[] args)

Then you need to edit the file in Application Data/SpaceEngineersDedicated/Saves/LastSession.sbl
and change the line from
<Path>C:\Users\myUsername\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineersDedicated\Saves\Star System</Path>
to
<Path>C:\Users\myUsername\Application Data\SpaceEngineersDedicated\Saves\Star System</Path>

Further convinience, an automatic update service that finally works:

[Unit]
Description="Space Engineers Updater"

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/userName
ExecStart=/usr/games/steamcmd +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows +force_install_dir /opt/spaceeng/winePrefix/drive_c/Steamdir/steamapps/common/SpaceEngineersDedicatedServer/ +login anonymous +app_update 298740 +quit
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

But you need to create the softlink /opt/spaceeng/winePrefix/drive_c/Steamdir which points to /opt/spaceeng/winePrefix/drive_c/Program Filex (x86)/Steam, because steamcmd seems to choke on spaces in the path.

So reading all this seems to me as it still works with Linux. Anyone able to make new instructions? I'm very new to Linux and cant figure some things out. The help in the later post like install this and that is a bit hard for me, as I'm totally not familiar with Linux

Hi @Ic3x,

The help in the later post like install this and that is a bit hard for me

on which particular step are you stuck on? And which distibution of linux are you using?
I've held some things this short because they are explained better on other websites already, like installing wine-staging on debian:
https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian
And some things are of course specific to your linux distribution.

So reading all this seems to me as it still works with Linux.

Have not tested this since Jan.21 but would guess it still works.

Greetings
Benjamin

To be honest, i think the Problem is allready at Wine. I installed the newest version, i think i installed the i386 and winetricks. At the moment i have a Problem with a GUI. i Use Ubuntu Server 21 without GUI.
Wine says it has Problem with X server. Wasnt this for GUI purpose? wont work with other apllications either. I use a VM and seem to miss somethink here.

Wasnt this for GUI purpose? wont work with other apllications either.

Yes X server is part of the GUI. If you install the Server version of Ubuntu you will not have X server or a window manager installed.
This shouldn't have something to do with you using a VM.

But in order to install the dotnet stuff with winetricks you probably need an X server + windows manager to click through the dialogs.

I guess you have three options:

• temporary install xserver and a window manager on Ubuntu Server
• use a remote xserver solution like x2go (which will also install xserver)
• use a different vm-image with GUI like a normal Ubuntu or Debian to create the wine drive, then copy the resulting wine-drive to your headless vm.

Tested working on the most recent version (1.199.025)

But the most recent wine version 6.X breaks networking and when trying to connect I get

Peer2Peer_SessionRequest [xxxx]
Peer2Peer_ConnectionFailed [xxxx], Timeout

Using an older wine version (5.1~buster) fixed this for me.
With the latest version one has to change AppData\Roaming -> \Application Data
in SpaceEngineers-Dedicated.cfg and LastSession.sbl

I also recently tried this with the latest wine 6.X and was unable to get it to work. Instead, I use a docker container which works flawlessly with wine 6.X.

https://github.com/mmmaxwwwell/space-engineers-dedicated-docker-linux

will it be possible to create a custom linux server or does space engineers have the server architecture closed source with no docs

@Crazygamer212 there is an old version of the source code, including the dedicated server, on github. But it is no longer updated, see: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2017/08/statement-on-space-engineers-github.html

By the way, theoretically this should work on arm64, I am still testing it:

FROM ubuntu:23.04

ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
    TZ=America/Los_Angeles

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get -y install \
        git \
        curl \
        wget \
        bash \
        sudo \
        tar \
        gzip \
        xz-utils

# Pi Apps
RUN git clone --recursive https://github.com/Botspot/pi-apps /usr/share/pi-apps
RUN sed -i 's/error "Pi-Apps is not designed to be installed as root! Please try again as a regular user."/echo -e "\\e[93mPi-Apps is not designed to be installed as root! Things may break!\\e[39m"/g' /usr/share/pi-apps/install
RUN /usr/share/pi-apps/install
RUN sed -i 's/error "Pi-Apps is not designed to be run as root! Please try again as a regular user."/echo -e "\\e[93mPi-Apps is not designed to be run as root! Things may break!\\e[39m"/g' /usr/share/pi-apps/gui
RUN sed -i 's/error "Pi-Apps is not designed to be run as root! Please try again as a regular user."/echo -e "\\e[93mPi-Apps is not designed to be run as root! Things may break!\\e[39m"/g' /usr/share/pi-apps/manage
RUN /usr/share/pi-apps/manage install Box64
RUN /usr/share/pi-apps/manage install Box86
RUN /usr/share/pi-apps/manage install "Wine (x64)"

# SteamCMD
RUN mkdir -p /usr/share/steamcmd
WORKDIR /usr/share/steamcmd
RUN curl -fsSL "https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz" | tar -zxvf -
COPY steamcmd-2.sh /usr/share/steamcmd/
RUN chmod a+rx steamcmd.sh steamcmd-2.sh linux32/*
RUN chmod -R a+rwx /usr/share/steamcmd
RUN ln -sf /usr/share/steamcmd/steamcmd-2.sh /usr/local/bin/steamcmd

# Server
RUN steamcmd +force_install_dir ./server +login anonymous +app_update 298740 +quit
RUN mv /usr/share/steamcmd/server /server
WORKDIR /server

# Dependencies
RUN winetricks -q dotnet40 || true

# Startup
CMD [ "/usr/local/bin/wine", "/server/DedicatedServer64/SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe", "-console" ]

The only change with steamcmd-2.sh from the original steamcmd.sh is this:

3c3
< STEAMROOT="$(cd "${0%/*}" && echo $PWD)"
---
> STEAMROOT="$(dirname "$(realpath "$0")")"
34,35c34
<   : "${DEBUGGER_ARGS=}"
<   $DEBUGGER -x "$ARGSFILE" $DEBUGGER_ARGS --args "$STEAMEXE" "$@"
---
>   $DEBUGGER -x "$ARGSFILE" "$STEAMEXE" "$@"

@RedstoneWizard08, Hi. Did anything go beyond testing? Was there a test run of the server in docker?

I don't remember. It's been a few months. I'll test again, but I think it worked.

For the life of me, I can't get this to work:

FROM ubuntu:24.04

ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
    TZ=America/Los_Angeles

RUN apt-get update && apt-get -y install \
    bash \
    curl \
    git \
    gzip \
    lib32gcc-s1 \
    sudo \
    tar \
    wget \
    wine \
    winetricks \
    xz-utils \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# SteamCMD
WORKDIR /usr/share/steamcmd
RUN curl -fsSL "https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd_linux.tar.gz" | tar -zxvf - \
    && chmod a+rx steamcmd.sh linux32/* \
    && chmod -R a+rwx /usr/share/steamcmd \
    # # Server
    && ./steamcmd.sh +force_install_dir ./server +login anonymous +app_update 298740 +quit \
    && mv /usr/share/steamcmd/server /server

WORKDIR /server
# Dependencies
RUN winetricks -q dotnet40 || true

# Startup
CMD [ "wine", "/server/DedicatedServer64/SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe", "-console" ]

I had to install wine and winetricks which was missing. used the normal steamcmd isntead of the custom one. As I saw no issues with it. Also merged RUN commands, as per linter.

When I run the last CMD I get:

root@cb8a0d3def06:/server# wine "/server/DedicatedServer64/SpaceEngineersDedicated.exe" -console
it looks like wine32 is missing, you should install it.
multiarch needs to be enabled first.  as root, please
execute "dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update &&
apt-get install wine32:i386"
0044:err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded.
0044:err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow L"The explorer process failed to start."
0044:err:systray:initialize_systray Could not create tray window
0044:err:ole:StdMarshalImpl_MarshalInterface Failed to create ifstub, hr 0x80004002
0044:err:ole:CoMarshalInterface Failed to marshal the interface {6d5140c1-7436-11ce-8034-00aa006009fa}, hr 0x80004002
0044:err:ole:apartment_get_local_server_stream Failed: 0x80004002
0024:err:ole:com_get_class_object class {079aa557-4a18-424a-8eee-e39f0a8d41b9} not registered
0024:err:ole:com_get_class_object no class object {079aa557-4a18-424a-8eee-e39f0a8d41b9} could be created for context 0x1
0024:err:ole:com_get_class_object class {079aa557-4a18-424a-8eee-e39f0a8d41b9} not registered
0024:err:ole:com_get_class_object no class object {079aa557-4a18-424a-8eee-e39f0a8d41b9} could be created for context 0x1
0024:err:mscoree:CLRRuntimeInfo_GetRuntimeHost Wine Mono is not installed
0044:err:ole:start_rpcss Failed to open RpcSs service

Yet, I was under the impression that the SEDS required a 64bit environment?

Maybe checkout this wine installation script from mmmaxwwwell for setting up the wineprefix:
https://github.com/mmmaxwwwell/space-engineers-dedicated-docker-linux/blob/v2/install-winetricks
I also needed dotnet48 and vcrun20XX, but can't comment on docker setups though, as I now run this on nixos as a flake.
Most likely 0024:err:mscoree:CLRRuntimeInfo_GetRuntimeHost Wine Mono is not installed is caused by these missing.

The wine32 thing just sounds like some warning one could ignore. I always use a 64bit wineprefix for space engineers and it works with the most recent version.