Installing Teamspeak 3 Server on Linux Debian Squeeze

Teamspeak 3 is very clever designed. There is no need to install anything. Just download the TAR ball, extract and run a script. Everything is set up very sanely, such that using it is just a breeze. Very well done, Teamspeak, I am impressed!

You do not need anything or give anything away. Teamspeak needs no login, no license file or anything else. It just works on any Internet connected server.

Note, however, that the server phones home to teamspeak, probably for them to shutdown illegal use of teamspeak. I can live with this. Really.

Getting started

  • Prepare your server and change into a special Teamspeak user. I use "teamspk" for it, you can use another one of course.
    TS=teamspk
    sudo fgrep -x 'PermitEmptyPasswords no' /etc/ssh/sshd_config || echo "DANGER DANGER DANGER, SSH MUST NOT ACCEPT EMPTY PASSWORDS"
    sudo adduser $TS
    sudo passwd -d $TS
    sudo su - $TS
  • Now do everything under that user. It does not need privileges. If you are not superuser, you can run teamspeak as a nonprivileged user. However this assumes that no other teamspeak is running on the machine.
  • Download the Teamspeak server from www.teamspeak.com
    • navigate to "Downloads" on the top right
    • Locate your proper OS
    • Click on the "Downloads" link for your correct CPU type
    • check "I agree"
    • click "Submit"
    • Stop the download.
    • Copy the URL on the website to your server
    • Now enter "wget URL" on your server
    • (note that this URL does not change, but for the sake of legal acceptance and that, perhaps, TeamSpeak might want to update the URL I do not copy it here)
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