Knowledgebase

Private game servers directly on your VPS.

Whether you are running a Minecraft server to discord bots directly on your VPS for privacy, speed and low maintenance, Pterodactyl panel is the key to success.
In this article, we will discuss why and how to install Pterodactyl alongside our recommended steps. 

When and why should you use a VPS over game hosting?

A VPS provides much more flexibility and control over your game servers. This allows you to create unlimited instances (as long as you have resources on your system)
to run these multiple instances at once. This method also allows you to have administrative control over your servers privately - we do not have access to these.

The massive improvement over shared game hosting is that you have the resources for your server, and your server only.
This also allow you to customise your own panel, add different game types without waiting and custom servers. 

Our recommendations when using a VPS for game servers.

Using an SSL certificate (signed ones such as LetsEncrypt, which is free) is highly recommended for security. 

To prevent future issues and potential data corruption. Ensure that you DO NOT use an installer.
These installers do not check for any incompatibilities and will lead to panel corruption and data loss. 
If you require assistance with installing Pterodactyl panel, we offer installation service from just £2.50 and will usually be completed within 24 hours.

When you are assigning resources to the node (used for running the game servers), we recommend that you DO NOT overallocate.
If the server does not know when to limit itself and go over the resources available to your VPS, this could lead to the vps not starting.
We recommend leaving around 500MB to 1GB of memory and 8-10GB storage for the operating system itself. 
if you have this issue, Rescue Mode is a feature, allowing you to directly access the VPS without starting it.
If you require further assistance, you can contact our support team. 

Disclaimers when you are taking this route

We are not responsible for any security issues such as you using simple passwords and/or not securing your VPS server.

Getting started (Ubuntu 24 is recommended)

To get started, please head over to: https://pterodactyl.io/panel/1.0/getting_started.html

We are not adding any installation steps here as there may be sudden changes to the installation steps.
However, we will add some information here that may require clarifications. 

• In Ubuntu 24, you are not required to add the PHP repository. You can skip this step. 
• For MySQL database (for panel), the password should be complex and randomly generated for added security.
  Do not change anything else, keeping the IP 127.0.0.1 prevents external access to the panel's database and should NOT 
  be exposed in the first place.
• After generating the application keys, ensure that you copy the .env file to someplace secure. As this is what allow your panel to
  work and decrypt the files. This is highlighted in red within the installation guide.
• When running the command 

  php artisan p:environment:mail

  Select SMTP, if you do not have an email credentials, you can skip this command. This is used to send password recovery emails and a few other ones.
  If you have lost your password, you can follow our guide to reset your pterodactyl panel's admin account password. 

• For setting the web files permisions: Set Permissions section. DO NOT copy and paste all commands into your VPS. Only copy the one
  that is suitable for your system. In this case, it should be 

  chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pterodactyl/*

• For creating Cron (Queue listeners), you must run the first command:
  

  sudo crontab -e​

  Do Not paste the actual cron script into the bash terminal (shell/linux terminal). This will not do anything and your schedules will not work.
  Instead, run the above command for crontab, select the 1st option, scroll to the bottom of the file and paste the cron script. Save this file and you are done for this step.

• We recommend Nginx for your choice of webserver. Simply for its simplicity. We also recommend you use SSL. Before you continue
  please install Certbot: https://pterodactyl.io/tutorials/creating_ssl_certificates.html
  
  If the certificate request fails, this is likely that your nginx server is online and running. You must stop this service to continue as port 80 is required.
  --nginx method should not require you to stop the service.
• When installing wings, you can keep the URL the same for simplicity as you are unlikely to have multiple nodes. 

That is the end of this article, if this requires improvement, you can contact us. If you require the installation service, please create a ticket. We will install your panel for just £2.50 within 24 hours.