How do I host a Half-Life game?

Once or twice a year, I get the chance to cleave my brother’s head in two (we’re both married, live a thousand miles apart, and with kids, his “kill your little brother” time is limited). But things don’t always work out as planned. Last night the Steam server wouldn’t let him connect to a game for more than two minutes. Other problems abound – mainly we don’t have much of an interest in killing other people, just us.

So, seeing that there is a “create server” option, seeing that there are thousands of servers out there with passwords, player-number limits, etc., we figured it should be easy to set something up. Hah!

I haven’t been able to cut through the rigmarole in my Google searches to find a nice, simple, straightforward introduction to HL multiplayer gaming. Any leads?

Thanks,

Rhythm