Introduction
Pterodactyl is made of two components:
- Panel: the web interface (PHP + Laravel + MySQL + Redis) where users manage their servers
- Wings: the daemon (Go + Docker) that actually runs the game servers
Both can be installed on the same machine or on separate machines to scale. This guide covers an all-in-one install on a single VPS.
Prerequisites
- Debian 12 VPS with at least 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)
- Domain pointing to the VPS (e.g.
panel.your-domain.com) - Root access
- Ports 80, 443, 2022 (Wings SFTP) and 8080 (Wings) open
Step 1: Update and dependencies
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl wget git unzip software-properties-common \
apt-transport-https ca-certificates gnupg lsb-release
Step 2: Install PHP 8.3, MariaDB, Redis, Nginx
Add the Sury PHP repository:
curl -sSL https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/sury-php.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sury-php.gpg] https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sury-php.list
sudo apt update
Install the stack:
sudo apt install -y php8.3 php8.3-{cli,gd,mysql,pdo,mbstring,tokenizer,bcmath,xml,fpm,curl,zip,redis} \
mariadb-server nginx redis-server tar unzip git
Install Composer:
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
Step 3: Create the database
sudo mysql
In the MariaDB shell:
CREATE DATABASE panel;
CREATE USER 'pterodactyl'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword123!';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON panel.* TO 'pterodactyl'@'127.0.0.1' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
Step 4: Download Pterodactyl Panel
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/pterodactyl
cd /var/www/pterodactyl
sudo curl -Lo panel.tar.gz https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/releases/latest/download/panel.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzvf panel.tar.gz
sudo chmod -R 755 storage/* bootstrap/cache/
Step 5: Configure the Panel
Copy the environment file and install dependencies:
sudo cp .env.example .env
sudo composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
sudo php artisan key:generate --force
Run the configuration wizards:
sudo php artisan p:environment:setup
sudo php artisan p:environment:database
sudo php artisan p:environment:mail
Migrate the database and create an admin:
sudo php artisan migrate --seed --force
sudo php artisan p:user:make
Step 6: Permissions and cron
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pterodactyl/*
Add the cron that runs scheduled tasks:
sudo crontab -e
Add the line:
* * * * * php /var/www/pterodactyl/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1
Step 7: Queue Worker service
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/pteroq.service
Content:
[Unit]
Description=Pterodactyl Queue Worker
After=redis-server.service
[Service]
User=www-data
Group=www-data
Restart=always
ExecStart=/usr/bin/php /var/www/pterodactyl/artisan queue:work --queue=high,standard,low --sleep=3 --tries=3
StartLimitInterval=180
StartLimitBurst=30
RestartSec=5s
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Enable:
sudo systemctl enable --now redis-server pteroq.service
Step 8: Nginx + SSL configuration
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/pterodactyl.conf
Minimal HTTP config (SSL will be added right after by Certbot):
server {
listen 80;
server_name panel.your-domain.com;
root /var/www/pterodactyl/public;
index index.php;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
fastcgi_buffers 4 16k;
}
}
Enable the site and get an SSL certificate:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pterodactyl.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d panel.your-domain.com
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Step 9: Install Docker (for Wings)
curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | CHANNEL=stable sudo bash
sudo systemctl enable --now docker
Step 10: Install Wings
sudo mkdir -p /etc/pterodactyl
sudo curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/wings "https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings/releases/latest/download/wings_linux_amd64"
sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/wings
In the Panel, go to Admin → Nodes → Create New and fill in the information. At the end, copy the Configuration File Content and paste it into:
sudo nano /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml
Create the systemd service:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/wings.service
Content:
[Unit]
Description=Pterodactyl Wings Daemon
After=docker.service
Requires=docker.service
PartOf=docker.service
[Service]
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/etc/pterodactyl
LimitNOFILE=4096
PIDFile=/var/run/wings/daemon.pid
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/wings
Restart=on-failure
StartLimitInterval=180
StartLimitBurst=30
RestartSec=5s
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Start Wings:
sudo systemctl enable --now wings
Step 11: Create a Location and Allocation
In the Panel: Admin → Locations → Create New (e.g. Paris-VeryCloud)
Then Admin → Nodes → your node → Allocations: add available IPs and port ranges.
You can now create your first game servers!
Troubleshooting
Wings won't connect to Panel
Check the config:
sudo wings --debug
Common error is an invalid SSL certificate. If Wings and Panel are on the same machine, disable SSL verification in config.yml:
api:
ssl:
enabled: false
502 error on the Panel
PHP-FPM is not running:
sudo systemctl restart php8.3-fpm
Disk quota on servers
Enable quotas in /etc/fstab:
UUID=xxx / ext4 defaults,usrjquota=aquota.user,jqfmt=vfsv0 0 1
Conclusion
You now have a professional platform to host game servers. Going further:
- Add multiple Wings (nodes) on different VPS to spread the load
- Configure automatic backups (S3, Backblaze B2)
- Enable 2FA authentication
- Customize eggs for your own games
Resources
- Official documentation: https://pterodactyl.io/panel/1.0/getting_started.html
- Panel GitHub: https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel
- Wings GitHub: https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings