Use a mod that is not published on the workshop or at least not publicly visible

Hi! I want to test a mod together with some friends on a dedicated server. This mod however should not be publicly visible on the workshop as we want it to stay hidden for some time... Here (https://steamcommunity.com//sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=296249959) it says that the mod has to be public though... That's not cool because it could then be downloaded by everyone (correct me if I am wrong tho, I didn't use the workshop in terms of uploading my own mods before) and I do not want this. Is there a way to use the completely unpublished mod (meaning the mod is still contained in a folder, not in a .sbm-file? I did quite some research on google but wasn't able to find an answer to this problem...
Does anyone of you know something that might help me? :confused:
Thank you in advance!

 

Speaking in terms of Minecraft: If for example the "server mod" for https://www.multicu.be/ was to be public in a workshop for Minecraft then everyone could potentially download this mod and host his own server based on the multicube-software (mod), essentially stealing the developers work... Could this be fixed by using the SEServerExtender? A problem with this though is that I think I saw a post which said that the original developers of the community-mod-api (and thus SEServerExtender) abandoned the project. Although there is supposed to be someone else picking up where they left (he says he'll continue the work on the API) I prefer to work with the API given by the developers... What are your thoughts on this? It might just as well be that I simply didn't understand the whole concept but or missed something, please correct me if that is the case!

 

I believe you can set a mod to "Friends only" and then they should be able to download it. Does that not work?

 

The only way to add mods to a dedicated server is though the Steam Workshop in public mode. This is because there is no way to manually install mods for the server and the server has a different SteamID than you do, so putting the mod in friends-only mode would make the server unable to access it.

 

The mod must be public. Anyone who joins the server will have Steam automatically download all the mods. If a mod is anything other than public then steam can't really download it.

 

Yeah I thought it would be like that... But I think you get my problem, too? Because if someone was to create a mod like Multicube, that means not an additional block or something but several minigames then everybody would be able to download the mod (by joining the server or starting a server on his own that uses the mod). As already pointed out, what keeps these people from starting up another server and "stealing" the work of the developers? Or is my line of thought gone wrong somewhere?

 

The only way to keep a mod private is to set it to friends only and only do local-hosted games. As for "stealing" a developer's mod, if they put it on the internet and others have access to it, it's not stealing. If you don't want other people playing with it, keep it private and don't share it.