Host your own server

Before you start

1. Up to 32 players free. More needs TeamSpeak's licence (1.4.6).
2. The PC must be on and awake whenever your unit plays.
3. Your players connect to your home's internet address, so they can see it.
4. Upload speed: about 2.5 Mbit/s while 3 people talk at once with 32 in the channel (our estimate, from TeamSpeak's own formula).
5. Your router's settings page, to open one port.

Download

1. On teamspeak.com's downloads page, under TeamSpeak 3, choose Server, then Windows 64-bit.
2. Take version 3.13.8 or newer. Older versions have security holes that TeamSpeak fixed in May 2026.
3. Make a folder, for example C:\TeamSpeakServer, and extract the ZIP into it.

First start: your admin key

1. Double-click ts3server.exe in that folder.
2. Read TeamSpeak's licence agreement and accept it.
3. Windows asks whether to let it through the firewall. Press Allow.
4. A window shows a login name, a password, an API key and a server admin token. Copy all four into a text file and keep it somewhere safe. The token makes you the admin.

Make yourself admin

1. On the same PC, open TeamSpeak 3: Connections, then Connect. Server address: localhost.
2. TeamSpeak asks for a privilege key. Paste the token. No question? Permissions, then Use Privilege Key.
3. Make the unit channel with a password (1.4.8).

Open the port

1. Find this PC's address at home: press the Windows key, type cmd, press Enter, type ipconfig. Note the IPv4 Address, for example 192.168.1.20.
2. On your router's settings page, give this PC a fixed (reserved) address, so the next step keeps working after a restart.
3. Forward UDP port 9987 to that address. It is the only port players need. TCP 30033 only if you want to share files in TeamSpeak. Never open 10011: it is the server's remote control.
4. Players connect to your home's public address. On this PC, search the web for "what is my IP". It can change; check it again if players suddenly can't connect.

Keep it running

1. It runs while ts3server.exe runs. Start it before each op, or start it with Windows: press Windows+R, type shell:startup, and put a shortcut to ts3server.exe in the folder that opens.
2. No sleep during ops: in Windows' power settings, set sleep to Never.
3. To stop it: Task Manager, Details, ts3server.exe, End task.
4. Updates: when the downloads page shows a newer server, stop it, back it up (1.5.7), extract the new ZIP over the folder, and start it. Your channels stay.
5. Bought a bigger licence? Put licensekey.dat in the server folder and restart the server.

Backups

1. Stop the server.
2. Copy the whole server folder to a USB stick or a cloud folder. The file that matters is ts3server.sqlitedb: your channels, passwords and admins. With a bought licence, licensekey.dat too.
3. Start the server again.

Do it before every update, and once a week. To restore, put the folder back and start ts3server.exe.

On a rented Linux VPS

The same server, with typed commands. Written for Ubuntu; log in with SSH. Copy the Linux 64-bit server link from the downloads page first.

1. Download
sudo apt install -y bzip2
sudo adduser --disabled-login --gecos "" teamspeak
cd /home/teamspeak
sudo -u teamspeak wget the-link-you-copied
sudo -u teamspeak tar xjf teamspeak3-server_linux_amd64-*.tar.bz2

Make it start by itself: sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/teamspeak.service, paste this, save. license_accepted=1 says you accept TeamSpeak's licence agreement, so read it first: it is in the server folder.

2. teamspeak.service
[Unit]
Description=TeamSpeak 3 server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=teamspeak
WorkingDirectory=/home/teamspeak/teamspeak3-server_linux_amd64
ExecStart=/home/teamspeak/teamspeak3-server_linux_amd64/ts3server_minimal_runscript.sh license_accepted=1
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Start it, get the token, open the port
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now teamspeak
sudo journalctl -u teamspeak --no-pager | grep -iE "token=|password="
sudo ufw allow 9987/udp

Keep the token and password safe, then make yourself admin as in 1.5.4, connecting to the VPS's address. If your VPS company has its own firewall page, open UDP 9987 there too.

Backup (and before every update)
sudo systemctl stop teamspeak
sudo tar czf ~/ts3-backup-$(date +%F).tar.gz -C /home/teamspeak teamspeak3-server_linux_amd64
sudo systemctl start teamspeak

Copy the backup to your own PC with scp. To update: stop, back up, download and extract the new version as in step 1, start.