A Valheim dedicated server is a Windows or Linux program you install from your Steam library, under Tools, called "Valheim Dedicated Server". It holds one world, it takes up to ten players, and it keeps running whether or not the person who made the world is online. This guide covers what it needs, what it is like to run one month to month, and where renting changes the picture. It is written for people deciding between the two, so it tries to be straight about both.
What the server needs
A machine that stays on, running Windows or Linux. Consoles are not a platform the server runs on, which matters more at 1.0 than it used to: crossplay now reaches PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, so a mixed group either rents a server or leaves a PC switched on.
- Ports 2456 and 2457. Valheim uses the port you give it and the port
above it. If you set
-port 2456, plan for 2456–2457. - On Linux, three extra packages:
libatomic1,libpulse-devandlibpulse0. Older distributions can use the Docker route that ships with the server files. - Memory. Iron Gate publishes no figure. Our own guidance is 2 GB to boot and 4 GB to run comfortably — we explain how we got there separately.
- Disk. Small, but the world grows as people explore, and the server keeps several backups by default.
What it actually is
It is a headless program with no window to click in. You start it with
start_headless_server.bat on Windows or start_server.sh on Linux, and you
configure it by editing that start script and adding flags to it: a name, a port, a world name, a
password. Iron Gate's own advice is worth following exactly — copy the start script before
you edit it, because Steam overwrites the original every time the server updates. People
lose their configuration this way and assume the server broke.
Stop it with CTRL+C in the console. Closing the window with the X can leave it running in the background, which is the other way people end up with two servers fighting over one world.
The bit that catches people out: there are two networks
Valheim's server can run on either of two networking backends, and the one you choose decides who can join and how much router work you do.
- The Steam backend is the default. Steam players only, direct connection, and you have to forward ports. Players join by IP and port or from the server list.
- The crossplay backend, enabled with the
-crossplayflag, routes through PlayFab instead. Any platform can join, no port forwarding is needed, and players can use a join code as well as an IP. The trade-off is that connections are relayed rather than direct, and a loopback or local IP will not work — you cannot test it from the same machine the way you can on the Steam backend.
If your group is entirely on Steam, the default is simpler. If anyone is on Xbox, PlayStation or Switch, crossplay is not optional. Connecting to your Valheim server covers the join side of both.
Two traps worth knowing before you open it up
The permitted list is a whitelist that bans everyone else. Server access lives in
three text files — adminlist.txt, bannedlist.txt and
permittedlist.txt — one platform user ID per line, and the IDs are case sensitive.
Iron Gate's warning on the third one is blunt: adding a person to the permitted list bans everyone
else from the server. Add one friend, lock out the rest of the group, and it looks like the server
is broken rather than working exactly as documented.
Difficulty presets can cost your players their achievements. Achievement tracking
starts fresh when 1.0 is downloaded, and the FAQ lists hammer mode among the things that put a
character into a cheat state. The dedicated-server guide separately documents -preset
hammer as a server-side flag. Iron Gate does not join those two statements up, so read this
as our reading of both documents rather than something they state outright: a server launched on the
hammer preset looks likely to affect achievements for everyone playing on it. If achievements matter
to your group, pick a different preset and check before launch night rather than after.
Admin,
permissions and world settings goes through the presets.
Does the Deep North mean starting over?
Not necessarily, and the honest answer has a condition attached. Iron Gate's position is that an existing world keeps working and receives new content, but that biome generation only works properly in areas nobody has explored yet. A long-running server world that has already been sailed out to the northern edge will not get a clean Deep North there. A world that has not been is fine. We worked through the cases separately, because it is the question every group is asking this week and it deserves more than a yes or no.
Self-hosting: what you are signing up for
A spare PC or a rented virtual machine, the port forwarding above unless you use crossplay, and the ongoing part: keeping the machine on, applying game updates, watching that the start script survives them, and having somewhere to put backups that is not the same disk. None of it is hard. It is just work that recurs, and it lands on whoever set it up, usually at the least convenient moment.
The two costs people underestimate are electricity and attention. A machine on all month is a real bill, and being the person who has to restart the server from a phone on holiday is a real commitment.
Renting: what you get instead
The server is already installed and running, updates and backups are handled, and the machine is in a datacentre rather than under a desk. You configure it through a panel instead of a text file, and if something breaks at midnight it is someone else's job. What you give up is root-level control: you work within what the panel exposes.
Which one should you pick?
Self-host if you already have hardware that stays on, you want full file access, and the administration is part of the appeal rather than a chore. Rent if the group is mixed-platform, if nobody wants to own the uptime, or if you would rather spend the evening playing than working out why the world did not save. The game files, the flags and the ten-player cap are the same either way. The difference is who does the work.
Need a Valheim server? Ours deploy with the official Iron Gate server software preinstalled and scale in 1 GB steps from 2 GB, so you can start small and grow into the Deep North. Valheim server hosting →
See also: connecting to your server · how much RAM you need.
