HLSW (Half-Life Server Watch) is probably one of the best tools a game server admin can have. It is a remote administration tool that connects to a game server and lets a game server admin monitor the game server without even being inside the server. Talk about sneaking in your server to catch cheaters and on occasions abusive game admins. HLSW has many other features such as live-reporting for game matches to IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Requirements

•  Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP, and/or Windows Vista.
•  Minimum 6 MB HDD space.
•  Internet connection.
•  Minimum 14 MB of RAM.

To get HLSW just go to HLSW.org and download the latest version. Once you've installed it, you'll be greeted with with a screen that looks like this.

With HLSW things like checking for a player's name, IP, and/or game id is a breeze. All you need to do is save your game server administrator password in HLSW. Things like kicking/banning unwanted players, changing maps, and/or fixing game server settings will be available provided that your game server has those commands and the game server is supported by HLSW. Easy as cake isn't it?

Another feature of HLSW for is the ability to log all the players that have connected to a particular game server. You can then label them as Friend, Lamer, Blue or Brown, the last two player labels depend on you as to however you want it translated (E.g. The difference between Admins and Head Admins).

HLSW is probably one of the best remote administration tools freely available to all the game server admins out there. I use it a lot on my game servers and it really takes off a lot of time especially if I haven't logged in the game itself and there's already a ton of cheaters roaming around in my game servers.