SuperTuxKart

Last reviewed Sep 13, 2026 · 821 words

A SuperTuxKart server for 8 players runs comfortably on a Raspberry Pi 4 or the smallest VPS you can rent, with about 512 MB of RAM and no GPU, because the server only simulates the race and never draws a frame. That makes it the easiest multiplayer game server in the games category to host for a household or a group of friends: no mod ecosystem to manage, no Java tuning, no plugin churn. What it lacks is a crowd. The public server list on a given evening has a few dozen people worldwide, so the reason to host is the people you already know, not strangers.

The kids' LAN party is the real use case

SuperTuxKart (5,300 stars, GPL-3.0, C++, first released 2007) is a free kart racer in the Mario Kart mould: 20-odd tracks, powerups, battle arenas, capture-the-flag, and a soccer mode that is better than it has any right to be. It runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android, and the same game binary can act as a server. Two households on different continents can race with a small VPS in between, and a single laptop can serve a room full of players on a LAN with no internet at all. The audience is families, school labs, and friend groups; the online ranked scene exists but is small.

Build the headless server, or reuse the game binary

The game client can host a server from its own menu, and for a one-off LAN game that is all you need: Online, Enable LAN, Create Server. For a persistent box, build the server-only variant so you do not drag in graphics libraries:

git clone https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code
git clone https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-assets
cd stk-code && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DSERVER_ONLY=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make -j$(nproc)

The assets checkout is large, several gigabytes, because the server still needs track data to simulate races; expect the initial clone to take a while. Debian and Ubuntu package supertuxkart too, and the packaged binary works as a server with the flags below, at the cost of pulling in the graphics dependencies you will not use.

One XML file configures everything

Generate a default config and edit it:

supertuxkart --server-config=server.xml --network-console

The first run writes server.xml with commented defaults. The lines that matter: server-name, server-port (default 2759, UDP), max-players, wan-server (true to list publicly, false for LAN only), private-server-password, and owner-less (true lets the server start races itself when players are ready, which you want for an unattended box). motd shows a message on join, and server-mode and server-difficulty set the default game type. Then run the same command again to start serving; --network-console gives you a console for kicking players and starting races by hand.

Open UDP 2759 on the firewall and, for a WAN server, forward it on the router. Listing publicly requires a free account on the project's online service, passed once with --init-user --login and --password, so the server can register with the master list. A LAN-only server needs neither; clients discover it by broadcast.

Keep it running with systemd, not a panel

There is no official Docker image and no need for one. A systemd unit that runs the command above as an unprivileged user, with Restart=on-failure, is the whole operations layer. The process is single-threaded and idle when no race is in progress, so it can share a box with anything. If you already run Pterodactyl for other game servers, community eggs for SuperTuxKart exist, but for a single server the panel is more moving parts than the game.

Version matching is the one recurring irritation: clients and server must be on the same release series, and a player on a distro's older package will be refused. Point everyone at the same download and the problem disappears.

If you want a bigger online crowd

For a hosted arena shooter with more players online, Xonotic has a similar zero-cost server story and a busier public list. For a strategy game that a dozen friends can play in one long session, OpenTTD servers are equally light. SuperTuxKart's niche is specific: family-safe, controller-friendly, and playable by an 8-year-old and a 40-year-old in the same race.

What I'd do

Build the SERVER_ONLY binary on whatever small Linux box is already awake, set wan-server to true with a password so only your group can join, owner-less to true, forward UDP 2759, and run it under systemd. Tell everyone to install the same release from the official site rather than a package manager, and the next race night costs nothing and needs no admin present.