CS 1.6 redirection to other server issue

Background

This is not a technical post rather a solution for the issue I faced while playing CS 1.6 online. I had bought it on Steam and happen to play around online on different servers. After a while it seemed to be redirecting to other servers and that seems to be issue. How can it connect to a server without Me telling it to? Well well see that in a moment.

I have steam installed and playing CS 1.6 on my mac. So path and files location may be different for you.

CS 1.6 redirection to other server issue

First of all find your counter strike installation directory. For me it is -

• /Users/athakur/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Half-Life/cstrike

It would be different for you based on which OS you are using and how did you install it.

One you locate it try to find files with .cfg extension. The file we are interested in is 

• config.cfg OR
• userconfig.cfg  (If you have it)

In these files look for bind commands that ask to redirect to some IP. For eg. -

• bind "F12" "Connect 93.119.24.96:27015";

When you connect to a rogue server it can alter these files to change your bindings and user configuration. You can see the permissions of these files. Your user would have write permissions on  it.

NOTE : Word of advice. Do not connect to servers that don't have folks playing in it and the ones you don't trust.

Now that we know what the issue is lets see how we can fix it.

Solution : CS 1.6 redirection to other server issue

1. Close your CS game and delete the compromised config file.
2. Restart you game and you can see that the config.cfg file is created again with default values. You can also go in game and click on reset to defaults. Do not connect to any servers.
3. Once you have confirmed your file exist and you have made chances to it based on your configurations (binding keys etc) you need to make it read only.
4. For this you can execute chmod ugo-w config.cfg command i.e you remove write permissions for the file. And your gamming life will be back to normal :)

NOTE : For me it was just config.cfg but if you open config.cfg it internally execute userconfig.cfg. So make sure if you have it, it is not compromised too.

 Related Links

• CS 1.6 Redirecting problem