How to run Homefront as a Windows Service with FireDaemon Pro.


What is Homefront?

Homefront is a first person shooter game. The dedicated server component can be run as a Windows Service using FireDaemon Pro. You can only run the unranked server when hosting it yourself. If you want a ranked server, you will need to rent one from a Game Server Provider. FireDaemon will allow you to have the dedicated server start automatically at boot prior to login, start multiple instances of the dedicated server and so forth. This HOWTO will show you how to set it up. You can also use Fusion to manage FireDaemon and other Windows services via a web browser.

Homefront Dedicated Server Setup Under FireDaemon Pro

First download and extract SteamCMD. The download is small (< 2 MB).


Download the Homefront server files via Valve’s content servers. First before you can download the files, go to the directory where you installed SteamCMD and create a shortcut to "SteamCMD.exe". Next edit the properties of the shortcut and in the target box, at the end of it (with a space before the following), put:

+login anonymous +force_install_dir "C:\Homefront" +app_update 55280 validate +quit
The target box should now look something like:
C:\SteamCMD\steamcmd.exe +login anonymous +force_install_dir "C:\Homefront" +app_update 55280 validate +quit


Now download the Homefront server files via Valve’s content servers. Click the shortcut you created and let it run. It might take a few hours to update everything. You should also stop your server and run the shortcut every week or so to grab the latest server updates.


Homefront uses one configuration file, C:\homefront\GCGame\Config\DedicatedProfile_DefaultProfile\DedicatedPlaylist, to store its profile settings. This article explains more about the configuration settings that are of interest to most people. Edit this file to suit your preferences. Now start your server by running the DedicatedServer.exe file within the Binaries directory of your Homefront folder. Edit the settings to suit your preferences and click Launch Server. Note the command in the console next to the server GUI. These are your parameters.


Note: You may receive an error stating that PhysX is out of date, requesting you to install the latest version. You can find the latest version of PhysX on the NVIDIA website. Be sure to reboot your computer after installing.


Now download and install FireDaemon Pro into the directory of your choice, typically C:\Program Files\FireDaemon.


Next start the FireDaemon GUI from the desktop shortcut. Click on the "Create a new service definition" button in the toolbar (or type Ctrl+N) and enter the information into the fields as you see below. Adjust the paths to suit your installation. Note the required parameters.


  • Executable: The path to your HFDedicated.exe file. The default path is C:\homefront\binaries\HFDedicated.exe.
  • Working Directory: The directory containing your HFDedicated.exe file. The default path is C:\homefront\binaries.
  • Parameters:Retrieve your parameters by running the Homefront server GUI. For the purposes of this HOWTO, we will use the following:
    • SERVER ?maxplayers=32 -queryport=27015 -authport=8766 -rconport=27010 -rconport2=27011 -runasserver -configsubdir=DedicatedProfile_DefaultProfile
      • You may replace the profile name with the name of your profile.

Now click on the Settings tab. If you DON'T want to see your dedicated server running, uncheck the Interact with Desktop check box & select "Hidden" from the "Show Window" dropdown. You can optionally run Homefront as the user you installed it as. In the Logon Account field type your username (eg. Administrator) and then enter the user's password twice in the Password and Confirm fields. You can change the Process Priority to allocate more CPU time to the dedicated server or specify which CPU or core the dedicated server will run on (in the case of multi-processor, hyperthreaded or multi-core CPUs).


Now click on the Lifestyle tab. Uncheck Graceful Shutdown as Homefront doesn't respond to it.


Now click OK to finish setup and start your Homefront server!