Game Server Login Tokens: why a CS2 server drops off the list

Connections will be restricted to LAN only. That line sits in a box of asterisks in the console of a CS2 server started without a Game Server Login Token, under No Steam account token was specified. and Logging into anonymous game server account. Only players on the server's own network can join. The fix is a token created for app ID 730 and passed at launch with +sv_setsteamaccount.

Valve's CS:GO release notes of December 2015, which made tokens mandatory, said servers without one "will only allow clients to connect from the same LAN", and the CS2 dedicated server page on Valve's wiki says other players can join only once you generate a token and include it.

What the token is

A GSLT is the login for a game server account, a separate Steam account that belongs to the server and is created under yours. Steam's Web API calls it "a persistent game server account": the server keeps one identity that Steam recognises and Valve can tie to an owner, and players keep favourites that still work after its IP changes, as Team Fortress 2's 2014 update notes put it. When the logon works, the console reports a successful connection to Steam and the steamid the server was assigned. The asterisk box means no token reached the server, so look at the launch line first.

Making one

Tokens are created at steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers while signed in. For CS2 the app ID is 730, the same number SteamCMD installs the server with now that Valve has merged the CS2 client and dedicated server into one app (CS:GO's server was a separate app, 740); SteamCMD and app IDs covers the install side. The memo field "serves only as a reminder", so put the server's host and port in it.

The account must not be community banned, locked or limited (Steam's term for an account that has not yet spent $5 USD in the store), must have a qualifying phone number registered, and must own the game. One account can create up to 1,000 game server accounts. Tokens, and the consequences if a server using one is banned, belong to the account that made them, so create them on the owner's account and not on a volunteer admin's.

On the launch line

Valve's example, using the Linux start script:

./cs2.sh -dedicated +sv_setsteamaccount YOURTOKEN +map de_dust2

On Windows the same arguments follow cs2.exe in game/bin/win64. Keep the token on the command line, which is where Valve's instructions put it.

Treat it like a password: the management page asks you not to give tokens to third parties. The Source server settings that matter can live in a public repository; the token cannot, because anyone holding it can run a server that logs on as yours.

One token per running server

The CS:GO notes that introduced tokens stated it directly: "Each GSLT is restricted for use on one dedicated server instance only". Three servers on one machine need three tokens. Garry's Mod's documentation shows what sharing looks like on a Source server: the console prints Connection to Steam servers lost. (Steam error code 6) and clients are dropped. Nothing in the CS2 documentation relaxes the rule, so give every instance its own token and a memo naming its port.

Regenerate, delete, and tokens that expire

Regenerate issues a new token for the same game server account; delete removes the account itself. Regenerate when a token has leaked but the server is staying, and delete when a server is retired or a token went to someone outside the project.

Two things break working tokens without warning. A token that goes unused for a long period expires, and Steam publishes no figure for how long, so a server switched off for a season can come back unable to log on. And a password reset through Steam's help site, or by Support, regenerates every GSLT on the account at once, so every server you run fails its next logon until the new tokens are pasted in.

Other games on the same system

CS:GO made tokens mandatory for internet play in December 2015. Team Fortress 2 added sv_setsteamaccount in February 2014 as an option, mainly so favourites survive an address change. Garry's Mod uses app ID 4000 and has expected a token on every server since its May 2020 update: servers without one "suffer a severe penalty in server list ranking", and an invalid or expired token stops the server starting. The in-game browser versus a server list explains why that ranking is not the whole picture.

If the token gets banned

Steam's support article on CS2 token bans names the cause: servers offering false inventories or profiles through mods. That means skins or knives the player does not own, a faked competitive skill group, profile rank or scoreboard coin, or interference with players' access to their own inventories. Custom knives count, even a "vanilla" Karambit or Bayonet, and so do skin changes only the player holding the weapon can see. Gun menus handing out stock weapons are fine, as are scoreboard changes such as surf ranks, and knife drops, which the built-in mp_drop_knife_enable 1 already handles.

The penalty lands on the person as well as the server. The operator is told in game that their account is "now permanently banned from operating game servers", and gets a matchmaking cooldown that blocks competitive matches and trading while it runs. Steam Support cannot remove or reduce it, though bans the automated system issued in error are rolled back. Hosting again takes a Steam account that has never shared a phone number with a GSLT-banned account, so a fresh token on the same account is no way back.

The audit therefore happens before the ban. When you take over a CS2 community server, go through its plugins for anything that touches skins, knives, ranks or coins, and remove it before the server goes public. If the token is clean and the server still disappears, work through why servers vanish from browsers, starting with the query port, and see how it sits among the CS2 servers we list.