How to Set Up FastDL on Your Garry's Mod Server

For players to see your server's custom content such as models, textures, sounds or maps, they have to download it. With FastDL players download these files over HTTP from your webspace when they join. To set it up, you enter the address of the webspace in the server.cfg and use Lua to define which files should be downloaded.

Tip

The easier and faster way is the Steam Workshop. If your content is on the Workshop, add it to your collection and have it distributed to players with resource.AddWorkshop. You can find out how in Add mods. You only need FastDL for content that is not available on the Workshop.

Requirements for FastDL

For FastDL you need your own web server or webspace that is publicly reachable via http:// or https://. Your Garry's Mod server itself is not a web server and cannot deliver the files over HTTP.

Note

.lua files do not count as content. They are transferred to players through a separate process and do not need FastDL. Only place files such as models, materials, sounds and maps on the webspace.

Provide the content on the game server

The files players should download also have to be on your game server. If a file is missing on the server, it is not added to the download list.

1. Stop the server
   Stop your server via the dashboard.

2. Connect via SFTP
   Connect to your server via SFTP.

3. Upload the content
   Upload your content as an addon into its own subfolder, for example:

   /garrysmod/addons/myserver-content/

   It contains subfolders such as materials/, models/ or sound/. Custom maps go into /garrysmod/maps/ as a .bsp file.

   Note

   Keep your server stopped until you have completed all steps of this guide. It is started at the end in the section Mark files for download.

Upload the files to the webspace

Players request every file from your webspace address using the same path it has relative to the garrysmod/ folder. The folder structure on the webspace therefore has to match the structure in the game exactly.

1. Create the folder structure
   In the root directory of your webspace, create the same folders your content uses, for example maps/, materials/, models/ and sound/.

2. Upload the files
   Upload the files into the matching folders. Leave out the addon folder itself: /garrysmod/addons/myserver-content/materials/myserver/logo.vmt on the game server becomes materials/myserver/logo.vmt on the webspace.

   Example

   If your webspace is reachable at https://fastdl.example.com, a player fetches the file materials/myserver/logo.vmt from this address:

   https://fastdl.example.com/materials/myserver/logo.vmt

3. Optionally compress the files
   You can additionally compress the files in the bzip2 format to make the downloads smaller. The compressed file gets the extension .bz2 appended to the full file name, for example logo.vmt.bz2. Players request the .bz2 file first. If there is no compressed version, they download the uncompressed file.

Important

The server runs on Linux and file paths there are case-sensitive. To be safe, make sure folder and file names are spelled exactly the same on the game server, on the webspace and in your Lua file.

Enter the download URL

1. Open the file
   Open the following file via SFTP:

   /garrysmod/cfg/server.cfg

2. Enter the URL
   The file already contains the line sv_downloadurl "". Enter the address of your webspace between the quotation marks:

   sv_downloadurl "https://fastdl.example.com"

   The address has to point to the directory that contains the materials/, models/ etc. folders.

3. Disable downloads from the game server
   Add the following line below the line // Add custom lines under here:

   sv_allowdownload 0

   This way players do not download any files directly from the game server. You can find out why this matters in Download directly from the game server.

4. Save the file
   Save the file.

Mark files for download

For players to download the files, you have to mark them for download in a server-side Lua file. There are two functions for this:

Function	Description
resource.AddFile	Marks the file and all related files. For a .vmt file the .vtf file with the same name is added automatically, for a .mdl file the .vvd, .ani, .dx80.vtx, .dx90.vtx and .phy files with the same name are added automatically.
resource.AddSingleFile	Marks only exactly the specified file.

1. Create a Lua file
   Create a new file via SFTP, for example:

   /garrysmod/lua/autorun/server/fastdl.lua

2. Add the files
   Add one line per file. The path is relative to the garrysmod/ folder – without addons/<addonname>/ in front and without the .bz2 extension:

   resource.AddFile( "materials/myserver/logo.vmt" )
   resource.AddFile( "models/myserver/chair.mdl" )
   resource.AddFile( "sound/myserver/music.wav" )
   resource.AddFile( "maps/rp_examplecity.bsp" )

   Warning

   The folder for sounds is called sound/ – without an "s" at the end.

3. Start the server
   Save the file and start your server. The next time they join, players download the marked files from your webspace.

Note

With resource.AddFile the related files are requested as well. For models, for example, upload all related files to the webspace, not just the .mdl file.

Limitations of FastDL

Warning

FastDL does not check the content of the files. If you change a file on the server, players who have already downloaded it will not download the new version again. To make sure players get the new version, you can for example give changed files a new name and update the references to them.

Note

A maximum of 8192 files can be marked for download in total. This limit applies to all resource.Add* functions combined. If you need more, upload your content to the Steam Workshop and distribute it with resource.AddWorkshop.

Note

FastDL downloads file by file. With a large number of small files, joining can therefore take longer. Players can also choose in their game settings which file types they download from servers.

Download directly from the game server

With the ConVar sv_allowdownload, players can also download files directly from the game server. You should not use this method: at around 64 KB/s it is very slow.

Important

If sv_allowdownload is enabled, players with modified clients can spam file requests and severely slow down your server. Keep sv_allowdownload 0 in your server.cfg and use FastDL or the Steam Workshop instead.