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Spinning up servers

Info

This page goes over how to perform actions which require an administrator account on Pterodactyl. This is not the same as simply having an account

This will go over how to create servers on Pterodactyl.

Eggs

All servers are born from eggs. An egg is a file which tells Pterodactyl how to install a particular application, and then Pterodactyl executes those instructions inside a Docker container. The egg also translates application-specific settings (e.g. player slots for a Garry's Mod server) as options which are instead configurable in the panel.

While the adding of an egg to the EDC panel is straight forward, because by nature all game servers are different1, the configuration and effort required to get a server to launch is case-by-case.

Do we have the egg?

Before a server can be spun up, you must first determine if EDC already has an egg for the application.

Here is how you do so:

  1. Log into the panel at https://edcgaming.org.
  2. Click the cog icon to the left of the smiley face to access the administrative section of Pterodactyl.
  3. Click the Nests button on the following page.
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Important

The below image is a list of configured nests. These are not all of the eggs available. A nest is a grouping of eggs.

You will be greeted with a list looking something like the below:

To determine if an egg exists, navigate into all the nests. Non-Default Games is where most eggs are held, such as Vintage Story.

If you see an egg on the list matching your desired application, jump to section Spinning up a server. If you do not see an egg on the list matching your desired application, jump to section Installing a new egg.

Installing a new egg

Warning

Please be cautious of uploading duplicate eggs. Pterodactyl does not in any way stop this. To maintain consistency of server setup, and general organization, multiple eggs for the same application is not desirable.

Finding the egg

The following locations are recommended for finding eggs:

Regardless as to where an egg is found, it will always be a JSON file. For example, on the Option 1 list, when we select Mordhau's entry, we are sent to the raw text of the egg. Right click and select Save as on your browser, or copy the contents into a new text file and change the extension to .json.

Installing the egg

Now, we are going to take the egg and upload it to our Pterodactyl instance. Once done, EDC has this egg forever, and it will be possible boot up and terminate it's associated application at will.

  1. Log into the panel at https://edcgaming.org.
  2. Click the cog icon to the left of the smiley face to access the administrative section of Pterodactyl.
  3. Click the Nests button on the following page.
  4. You will be greeted with the following list (or similar looking list). Click the green Import Egg button.
  5. You will be shown a confirmation prompt. In this prompt, select the JSON file, and ensure to set the nest to Non-Default Games.
  6. Click Import.
  7. You should see a new page with a lot of information on it and a green prompt saying the import was successful.

You may navigate away from the confirmation page safely.

Creating the server

So, we either just installed our desired egg, or we found that the egg already exists. Now, we create the server.

  1. Log into the panel at https://edcgaming.org.
  2. Click the cog icon to the left of the smiley face to access the administrative section of Pterodactyl.
  3. Click the Servers on the following page.
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From here, you are going to see a form requesting a lot from you. Review the table below for assistance.

Field Instructions
Server Name Set as the name of the software/game.
Server Owner Set as your Pterodactyl account.
Server Description Discretionary. Not relevant to anything.
Node Advised it be left alone.
Default Allocation Advised it be left alone.
Additional Allocation(s) Advised it be left alone.
Database Limit Advised it be left alone.
Allocation Limit Advised it be left alone.
Backup Limit Discretionary; advise equal to or less than 3.
CPU Limit Advised it be left alone.
CPU Pinning Advised it be left alone.
Memory This is the server's available memory. Set to the minimum amount necessary to function. This may not be set to 0.
Swap Advised it be left alone.
Disk Space This is the server's actual available disk space. Set to the minimum amount necessary to function. This may not be set to 0.
Block IO Weight Advised it be left alone.
Enable OOM Killer Terminates server if memory is exceeded. Discretionary.
Nest Select nest that has the egg you wish to use.
Egg Select egg you wish to use.
Skip Egg Install Script Advised it be left alone.
Docker Image Egg dependent.

Remaining options on this form are determined by the egg. This inherently makes it impossible to provide further assistance here. Seek help from other experienced operators and search online.

When all options have been set, click Create Server.

  1. Pterodactyl can be used for non-game servers too, like FoundryVTT, but the point stands. ↩