Portainer Templates logo

Portainer Templates

Steam Steam

Container

Games

Steam is the ultimate destination for playing, discussing, and creating games.

Image details

Pulls: 10.5k
Architecture: amd64
Image size: 1.2 GB
User: linuxserver
Created: Jan 11, 2026
Updated: 7 hours ago
Status: active

Configuration

Type
Container
Platform
linux
Image
linuxserver/steam:latest
Ports
3000:3000/tcp3001:3001/tcp
Volumes
/config : /srv/lsio/steam/config
Env vars
PUID=1000PGID=1000TZ=Etc/UTC
Restart
unless-stopped

Template by technorabilia

Notes

Portainer App Templates by Technorabilia, based on data provided by LinuxServer.io.

Ensure to create the following volume directories on the host file system, or modify the paths in the volume mapping section under the advanced options below, as needed.

mkdir -p /srv/lsio/steam/config

Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying Steam

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select Steam, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo

More install options in our documentation.

linuxserver/steam

This readme has been truncated from the full version found HERE

Steam is the ultimate destination for playing, discussing, and creating games.

Application Setup

The application can be accessed at:
  • https://yourhost:3001/

>!NOTE >This image is for a web accessible version of Steam to be played through a web browser it is in development and has oddities, if you want a fully flushed out Moonlight couch solution please consider Wolf or another non Docker solution. Moonlight clients have major advantages over using a web browser.

GPU Support

Using an Intel/AMD GPU is usually as easy as just passing --device /dev/dri:/dev/dri. If you have multiple GPUs you need to pass both the setting for the render node and the encoder IE for the second GPU:
-e DRINODE=/dev/dri/renderD129 \
-e DRI_NODE=/dev/dri/renderD129

Nvidia support only works on 580 and up full proprietary drivers (no MIT/GPL) with nvidia-drm.modeset=1 kernel parameter set. You must ensure the card is initialized before running a container so on headless systems run nvidia-modprobe --modeset from the host even with this kernel parameter set, this only needs to be run once per boot.
These modifications for NVIDIA are for Wayland to function properly and have nothing to do with the Docker runtime. If you are using compose it is important to run sudo nvidia-ctk runtime configure --runtime=docker this is a persistent setting and only needs to run once.

Gamepad support

This container leverages a userspace gamepad interposer to provide gamepad support. To use a gamepad always force Proton in "Properties>Compatibility" even for Linux native games, "Proton Hotfix" is a good default selection. You cannot use the "Steam Input" feature on any game as the uinput socket and HID do not exist.

Gaming mode

An absolute must for mouse and keyboard input is sending relative mouse input from the browser, you will need to use the "Gaming Mode" which is a small crosshair in the top right of the sidebar. This runs in fullscreen and traps you in the window, to exit this mode hold down escape for 3 seconds.

Game Launching

Included in this image are tools for managing Proton versions and a command line launcher. This means once a game or application is installed via Steam it can be directly launched on init by creating a config file and modifying /config/.config/labwc/autostart to run umu-run instead of Steam.: 
umu-run --config /config/game.toml

[umu]
prefix = "/config/game"
exe = "/config/Desktop/game/game.exe"
proton = "/config/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton-version"
game_id = "0"

This facilitates custom home directories with pre-configured runtimes and gamefiles for baking images outside of using the Steam launcher.

Usage

docker run -d \
  --name=steam \
  --security-opt seccomp=unconfined \
  --security-opt apparmor=unconfined `#optional` \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=Etc/UTC \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -p 3001:3001 \
  -v /path/to/config:/config \
  --shm-size="1gb" \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  lscr.io/linuxserver/steam:latest

Serve Steam on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying steam.example.com to http://Steam:3000

Add this to your Caddyfile

steam.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://Steam:3000
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs Steam
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:3000 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :3000
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 3000:3000 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:3000. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, Steam can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 3000

Permission denied on volumes

If the logs show "permission denied", the app can't write to its data folder on the host.

  • Fix the ownership: sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /srv/lsio/steam/config
  • Or set the PUID and PGID variables (defaults 1000:1000) to match your own user, found with id $USER

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull linuxserver/steam:latest

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses latest, so try pinning a specific version instead.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • This image supports: amd64
  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect Steam --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A single container

Steam runs as one container, the simplest kind of app here. Just the one image to pull and nothing else wired up alongside it.

The app image

An image is the app packed up ready to go, everything Steam needs bundled into one download. This template pulls linuxserver/steam:latest, which Docker fetches once (about 1.2 GB) and then starts your own copy from.

Where the image comes from

Docker pulls its images from registries, public libraries of ready-built apps. Steam's comes from Docker Hub, published by linuxserver.

Version tags

The bit after the colon in the image name is the version tag. Here it's latest, which always points at the newest build, so a redeploy can bump you to a newer release without you asking. Pin a specific tag if you would rather stay on one version.

Which machines it runs on

Every image is built for particular CPU types. This one ships for amd64, so it runs on regular x86 PCs and servers, though not ARM boards like a Raspberry Pi.

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 3000:3000 means it's reachable on port 3000 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. Once it's running, open http://your-server-ip:3000 in a browser. It opens:

  • 3000:3000, likely the web interface
  • 3001:3001

Volumes

A volume is where Steam keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /config from /srv/lsio/steam/config on the host

Environment variables

Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. Steam takes 3 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:

  • PUID, defaults to 1000. Run 'id [USER]' for the owner of the host volume directories to get the UID to use here.
  • PGID, defaults to 1000. Run 'id [USER]' for the owner of the host volume directories to get the GID to use here.
  • TZ, defaults to Etc/UTC. Specify a timezone to use, see this list.

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts Steam after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Users and permissions

The PUID and PGID settings tell it which user and group to act as on your host. Point them at your own account (find yours with id $USER) so the files it writes into your mounted folders come out owned by you rather than root.

Networking

Nothing custom is set, so Steam sits on Docker's default bridge network: its own private space that reaches the outside world only through the ports it publishes.

Container name

Once it's deployed, Portainer names the container Steam. That's what you'll spot in the containers list and use in commands like docker logs Steam.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set Steam up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying Steam is a click rather than a wall of config.