How to Create a Tibia (OTServ) Server on Linux with TFS

Install the compilation toolchain and development libraries:

sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake git
sudo apt install -y libluajit-5.1-dev libmariadb-dev libboost-system-dev \
  libboost-iostreams-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-date-time-dev \
  libpugixml-dev libcrypto++-dev libfmt-dev

build-essential brings GCC, G++, and make. The libboost-*-dev packages are the specific Boost modules TFS actually uses — installing libboost-all-dev works but pulls in ~300 MB of unnecessary code.

Create a dedicated user to run the server (good isolation practice):

sudo adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" otserv
sudo usermod -aG sudo otserv

The --disabled-password flag blocks password login — you access it via sudo -iu otserv from your main user.

Switch to the otserv user and clone the official repository:

sudo -iu otserv
cd ~
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/otland/forgottenserver.git tfs
cd tfs

The --depth 1 flag downloads only the latest commit (instead of the entire history, which is hundreds of MB). If you need to contribute back to the project, do a full clone later.

Generate the project with CMake and compile using all available cores:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

nproc returns the number of CPU threads — on a VPS with 4 vCPUs, this parallelizes the build into 4 jobs. Compilation takes between 3 and 10 minutes depending on the hardware. When it finishes, the tfs binary appears in ~/tfs/build/.

Exit the otserv user (back to your sudo shell) and install the MySQL server:

exit
sudo apt install -y mariadb-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation

mysql_secure_installation is an interactive wizard: set a strong root password, remove anonymous users, block remote root login, and remove the test database. Accept everything with Y.

Create the database and the OTServ user:

sudo mariadb

Inside the MySQL prompt:

CREATE DATABASE forgottenserver CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'otserv'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'CHANGE_THIS_PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON forgottenserver.* TO 'otserv'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Replace CHANGE_THIS_PASSWORD with a strong password (at least 16 random characters — use openssl rand -base64 24 to generate one).

Import the initial TFS schema:

sudo -iu otserv
cd ~/tfs
mariadb -u otserv -p forgottenserver < schema.sql

The schema.sql file is at the root of the cloned repository and creates all the necessary tables (accounts, players, houses, guilds, etc).

Copy the configuration template:

cd ~/tfs
cp config.lua.dist config.lua
nano config.lua

Adjust these essential fields:

ip = "0.0.0.0"
mysqlHost = "127.0.0.1"
mysqlUser = "otserv"
mysqlPass = "CHANGE_THIS_PASSWORD"
mysqlDatabase = "forgottenserver"
mysqlPort = 3306
loginProtocolPort = 7171
gameProtocolPort = 7172
statusProtocolPort = 7171
serverName = "My OTServ"
worldType = "pvp"

ip = "0.0.0.0" makes TFS listen on all interfaces — required to accept external connections. If you prefer to restrict to a specific interface, use the VPS public IP.

Switch back to your sudo user and open the ports in UFW:

exit
sudo ufw allow 7171/tcp
sudo ufw allow 7172/tcp
sudo ufw reload
sudo ufw status

If UFW is inactive (Status: inactive), enable it with sudo ufw enable — but first confirm that port 22 (SSH) is open, otherwise you’ll lock yourself out.

Start the server to validate it:

sudo -iu otserv
cd ~/tfs/build
./tfs

If everything went well, you’ll see something like:

The Forgotten Server - Version 1.5
>> Loading config
>> Establishing database connection... MySQL 10.11.x
>> Running database manager
>> Loading vocations
>> Loading items
>> Loading script systems
>> Loading monsters
>> Loading map
>> Loaded map
>> Loaded all modules, server starting up...
>> A server has been started on 0.0.0.0:7171.