General dedicated server changes for Left4Dead:

===============================================
* There is a new remote access feature which allows a server
administrator (or software tool) to create a persistent connection
to a running server, and to see its entire console output and send
it commands. This feature is enabled by using the "-netconport"
option when launching srcds. For instance, if a server is started
with "-netconport 9000", someone with access to port 9000 of the
server could type "telnet xxxx 9000" and view the console
output. This feature is disabled by default, and should only be used
when an appropriate firewall/tunnel is used to control access to
this port. Multiple clients can connect to the netconport of a
running server at the same time.
* If the netconsole is enabled, and the option "-netconpassword xxx"
is set, the network console will not execute commands received
through the netconport until the command "PASS xxx" is entered.
* Dedicated servers by default participate in matchmaking. Matchmaking
system allows players to get together in a lobby and then start a game
on a dedicated server together. To make your Left 4 Dead dedicated
server easily accessible to your community you would create a Steam group
and get its group id on Steam community group admin page (say "444").
Set "sv_steamgroup 444" to make all members of your Steam group have access
to the server from their main menu. You can also set "sv_steamgroup_exclusive
1"
which will require that at least one player from your Steam group has to join
the server before public people will be able to join via matchmaking.
Linux-specific dedicated server changes for Left4Dead
=====================================================
There have been many changes, enhancements, and optimizations with the
dedicated server for Linux:
* All of the code is now being compiled with gcc 4.3.0 and glibc 2.8-8
in order to take advantage of compiler fixes and optimization
enhancements. In order to run the l4d Linux dedicated server, you
will need a system which can run binaries built against this version
of glibc.
* As a performance enhancement, the dedicated server can now use the
hardware "RDTSC" timer instead of gettimeofday() for its internal
timing, on systems which support it ( such systems are identified by
having the "constant_tsc" flag set in /proc/cpuinfo ). When the code
detects that the system has this, it will execute a benchmark to
measure the actual rate of the hardware timer, and use this for all
timing. If this causes trouble on a system, you can set the
environment variable "RDTSC_FREQUENCY" to "disabled".
* The Linux dedicated server is now capable of running multiple
server instances as sub-processes off of one parent process. This
provides a memory savings (through sharing of read-only data), a
speedup when starting multiple servers, and also enhances server
stability by having the servers restart as new sub-processes after
each game is completed. This is controlled by the "-fork n" option.
For instance, you can run "srcds_run -fork 5" to start up 5 separate
server instances in this mode.
* When -fork mode is enabled, some options on the command line can be
parametrized based upon the server instance, by typing '##' on the
launching line. For instance, "-fork 10 -netconport 90##" would
cause the first server instance to use port 9001, the second to use
9002, etc.
* When running with -fork mode and a netconsole, the control/parent
process will also listen on a port and accept commands. For
instance, if you start the server with "-fork 10 -netconport 90##",
the parent will accept netconsole connections on port 9000, the
first child will accept netconsole connections on port 9001,
etc. You can see a list of commands accepted by the parent process
by connecting to it and typing "find". useful commands are:
status see status of all children.
shutdown cleanly shutdown the server when all games have finished.
broadcast <cmd> execute the console command 'cmd' on all active subprocesses.
Note that this netconsole also obeys the set -netconpassword. You
should always set a password unless you are otherwise protecting
access to your netconsole ports (for insatnce via a firewall/ssh
tunnel).
* The linux dedicated server supports a watchdog timer functionality,
which is enabled by default. The intent of this timer is to make
anything which hangs the server, either due to unknown bugs or
misconfiguration, cause an abort, so that the server may restart or
be debugged. In the case of a forked server, this will cause a new
subprocess to start to replace the crashed one. On a non-forked
server, this can be used in conjunction with an auto-restart script
in order to increase server availability. If you see your server
dying with SIGALRM (signal 14), it means that this has triggered
because of either a server frame taking longer than 5 seconds of
wall time, or a map load taking too long. If this code causes
trouble for you, it can be disabled via giving the "-nowatchdog"
option on the command line.