setting-up-a-server-vanilla

title: Setting up a Vanilla FXServer weight: 40 description: > A step-by-step guide on setting up a Vanilla FXServer.

Vanilla Server Installation steps > Windows > Prerequisites

Git if you want to follow the recommended way of cloning the base server data.

Vanilla Server Installation steps > Windows > Installation

Create a new directory (for example C:\FXServer\server), this will be used for the server binaries.
Download the current recommended master branch build for Windows from the Windows server build listing.
Extract the build into the directory previously created.
- 3b. Use any third-party archiving tool (such as WinRAR or 7-Zip) to open the .7z file.
Clone cfx-server-data in a new folder outside of your server binaries folder, for example, C:\FXServer\server-data.
- 4b. git clone https://github.com/citizenfx/cfx-server-data.git server-data (To type this command you need to open a command prompt, press Win + R, once the run dialog shows type cmd and hit enter, remember to switch directories to the directory you plan to clone to by typing cd C:\FXServer.)
Make a server.cfg file in your server-data folder (copy the example server.cfg file below into that file).
Set the license key in your server.cfg using sv_licenseKey "licenseKeyGoesHere".
Run the server from the server-data folder. For example, in a plain Windows command prompt (cmd.exe) window:
```
cd /d C:\FXServer\server-data
C:\FXServer\server\FXServer.exe +exec server.cfg
```
(the /d flag is only needed when changing directory to somewhere on a different drive)

Vanilla Server Installation steps > Linux

{{% alert color="info" %}}Note that the Linux version of FXServer is only provided as a courtesy port due to issues regarding Linux distribution compatibility and availability of diagnostic tools for native C++ code. If you're experiencing any issues, you're more likely to see them fixed if you use the Windows version. {{% /alert %}}

Vanilla Server Installation steps > Linux > Prerequisites

Git if you want to follow the recommended way of cloning the base server data.
xz or xz-utils package.

Vanilla Server Installation steps > Linux > Installation

Create a new folder (for example mkdir -p ~/FXServer/server), this will be used for the server binaries.
Download the current recommended master branch build for Linux from the Linux server build listing (copy the URL for the recommended server version and use wget <url> to download it).
Extract the build to the directory that was previously created, using cd ~/FXServer/server && tar xf fx.tar.xz (you need to have xz installed, on Debian/Ubuntu this is in the xz-utils package).
Clone cfx-server-data in a new folder outside of your server binaries folder.<br> For example: git clone https://github.com/citizenfx/cfx-server-data.git ~/FXServer/server-data
Make a server.cfg file in your server-data folder (copy the example server.cfg file below into that file).
Set the license key in your server.cfg using sv_licenseKey "licenseKeyGoesHere".
Run the server from the server-data folder.<br> cd ~/FXServer/server-data && bash ~/FXServer/server/run.sh +exec server.cfg

Vanilla Server Installation steps > server.cfg

An example server.cfg follows.

{{% code file="/static/examples/config/server.cfg" language="sh" %}}

Vanilla Server Installation steps > RedM / RDR2

To set the FXServer to host a RedM server, apply the following to the server.cfg.

set gamename rdr3

Vanilla Server Installation steps > Common issues

If you don't get any 'resources found', and it says 'Failed to start resource', you didn't 'cd' to the right folder.
If no resources get started, and you also can't connect (i.e. 'timed out'/'connection refused'), you didn't add +exec.
If you get 'no license key was specified', one of the above two mistakes may apply.
If you're facing slow server startups on Windows, refer to this.