Zomboid Server Scripts

The following collection of scripts are used to monitor, manage and update the Project Zomboid Server for the private Space Brothers group.

Some terminology used below is as follows:

• Server: The physical machine running all of these processes
• Zomboid Server: The Project Zomboid server executeable that powers the game

Caveats:

• Assumes the user account is called steam
• Assumes the scripts are located in /home/steam/scripts/
• Assumes screen and steamcmd has already been installed

Manually run task scripts

These are a series of scripts/commands that are created for a human to manually trigger and tell the server which actions to take.

They are expected to be run under the proper user account and not as the root/admin.

Script	Purpose
server-restart.sh	Stops then starts the Zomboid server
server-start.sh	Starts the Zomboid server
server-stop.sh	Stops the Zomboid server
server-update.sh	Stops Zomboid server, runs steam updates, runs workshop updates then starts the server

Scheduled task scripts

These are a series of scripts that are setup using the server's cronjobs as a scheduled task. For example the cron_monitor may run every minute while the shutdown may only trigger at 2am.

These are expected to be run as the system account and should not be run manually by the user.

Script	Purpose
cron_monitor.sh	Runs every minute to ensure that Zomboid is running and restart it if it is not.
cron_shutdown.sh	Shuts the zomboid server down at the end of the night, runs backups and powers off
cron_startup.sh	Triggers on physical server boot to start the Zomboid application
cron_update.sh	Updates Zomboid through steam, all of it's mods through workshop and then starts server

Big advantage to the cron_monitor.sh is that we can now use UpdatePlz which shuts the server down when the workshop is out of date and no players are connected. cron_monitor.sh will then restart and update the server after it has finished powering off

Includes used in the above tasks

These partials are used within all the above scripts. Rather than type out the same commands over and over they have been written once to a file and then included in the above scripts.

For example, the server-restart.sh script actually includes the stop, update and start includes.

Script	Purpose
/includes/message.sh	Sends an in-game message to all players
/includes/start.sh	Starts the Zomboid Server
/includes/stop.sh	Stops the Zomboid Server
/includes/update.sh	Updates the Zomboid Server software

Cron

MAILTO=""
# ==============================================
# PROJECT ZOMBOID SERVER SOFTWARE --------------
#       On startup      Start the Zomboid Server after 10 seconds
#       09:00-23:00     Make sure the server is running, restart if needed
#       01:45           Stop Zomboid, Backup and Shutdown System
# ==============================================
@reboot sudo -u steam "/home/steam/scripts/cron_startup.sh" > /home/steam/logs/autostart.log
* 9-23 * * * /home/steam/scripts/cron_monitor.sh >> /home/steam/logs/monitor.log
45  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/cron_shutdown.sh > /home/steam/logs/autoshutdown.log

# ==============================================
# TIME MESSAGES FOR ZOMBOID --------------------
# ==============================================
 0 12 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "12:00 PM"
 0 17 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "05:00 PM"
 0 21 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "09:00 PM"
30 21 * * 0-4 /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "09:30 PM"
 0 22 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "10:00 PM"
30 22 * * 0-4 /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "10:30 PM"
45 22 * * 0-4 /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "10:45 PM"
 0 23 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "11:00 PM"
15 23 * * 0-4 /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "11:15 PM"
30 23 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "11:30 PM"
45 23 * * 0-4 /home/steam/scripts/include/smessage.sh "11:45 PM"
 0  0 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "12:00 AM"
15  0 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "12:15 AM"
30  0 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "12:30 AM"
45  0 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "12:45 (Shutdown in 01 hour)"
 0  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "01:00 (Shutdown in 45 minutes)"
15  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "01:15 (Shutdown in 30 minutes)"
30  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "01:30 (Shutdown in 15 minutes)"
35  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "Shutdown in 10 minutes"
40  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "Shutdown in 5 minutes"
41  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "Shutdown in 4 minutes"
42  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "Shutdown in 3 minutes"
43  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "Shutdown in 2 minutes"
44  1 * * * /home/steam/scripts/includes/message.sh "Shutdown in 1 minute"