Game Servers

Panel

Deploy Pelican Panel on a VPS

Modern open-source game server management platform — the spiritual successor to Pterodactyl with a polished UI and Wings daemon.

Prerequisites

2 vCPU cores minimum (4 recommended if co-locating Wings)
2 GB RAM minimum for the panel (4 GB+ if running Wings on the same server)
20 GB SSD storage minimum
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
A domain or subdomain pointed at your VPS IP
Root or sudo access

Architecture note: The panel and Wings (the daemon that runs game servers) are separate components. For production, run Wings on a dedicated node. This guide covers both panel installation and Wings setup.

Prepare the Server

Update the system

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install base dependencies

apt install -y curl wget git unzip tar software-properties-common

Install PHP 8.3

Add PHP repository and install

add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php -y
apt update
apt install -y php8.3 php8.3-fpm php8.3-cli php8.3-mysql php8.3-pgsql \
  php8.3-mbstring php8.3-tokenizer php8.3-bcmath php8.3-xml php8.3-curl \
  php8.3-zip php8.3-gd php8.3-intl php8.3-redis

Install Composer

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
composer --version

Install MariaDB

Install and secure MariaDB

apt install -y mariadb-server
systemctl enable mariadb
systemctl start mariadb
mysql_secure_installation

Install Redis & Nginx

Install Redis and Nginx

apt install -y redis-server
systemctl enable redis-server
systemctl start redis-server

apt install -y nginx
systemctl enable nginx
systemctl start nginx

Create the Database

Create database and user

mysql -u root -p

SQL commands

CREATE DATABASE pelican;
CREATE USER 'pelican'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_strong_password_here';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON pelican.* TO 'pelican'@'127.0.0.1';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download and Install Pelican Panel

Download and extract

mkdir -p /var/www/pelican
cd /var/www/pelican
curl -Lo panel.tar.gz https://github.com/pelican-dev/panel/releases/latest/download/panel.tar.gz
tar -xzvf panel.tar.gz
chmod -R 755 storage/* bootstrap/cache/

Install dependencies

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Setup environment

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate --force

Configure the Environment

Edit .env

nano .env

.env configuration

APP_URL=https://panel.yourdomain.com
APP_TIMEZONE=UTC

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=pelican
DB_USERNAME=pelican
DB_PASSWORD=your_strong_password_here

CACHE_DRIVER=redis
SESSION_DRIVER=redis
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis

REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_PORT=6379

Run migrations and set ownership

php artisan migrate --seed --force
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pelican

Configure Nginx

Create Nginx config

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/pelican

/etc/nginx/sites-available/pelican

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name panel.yourdomain.com;
    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name panel.yourdomain.com;

    root /var/www/pelican/public;
    index index.php;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/pelican.access.log;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/pelican.error.log error;

    client_max_body_size 100m;
    client_body_timeout 120s;
    sendfile off;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/panel.yourdomain.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/panel.yourdomain.com/privkey.pem;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers "ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384";
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Robots-Tag none;
    add_header Content-Security-Policy "frame-ancestors 'self'";
    add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
    add_header Referrer-Policy same-origin;

    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 PHP_VALUE "upload_max_filesize = 100M \n post_max_size=100M";
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
        fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
        fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
        fastcgi_buffers 4 16k;
        fastcgi_connect_timeout 300;
        fastcgi_send_timeout 300;
        fastcgi_read_timeout 300;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Enable the site

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pelican /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Issue an SSL Certificate

Install Certbot and issue certificate

apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx
certbot certonly --nginx -d panel.yourdomain.com

Test and reload Nginx

nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

Configure the Queue Worker

Pelican uses Laravel's queue system for background tasks. Create a systemd service:

/etc/systemd/system/pelican.service

[Unit]
Description=Pelican Panel Queue Worker
After=redis-server.service

[Service]
User=www-data
Group=www-data
Restart=always
ExecStart=/usr/bin/php /var/www/pelican/artisan queue:work --queue=high,standard,low --sleep=3 --tries=3
StartLimitInterval=180
StartLimitBurst=30
RestartSec=5s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start

systemctl enable --now pelican.service
systemctl status pelican.service

Set Up the Cron Job

Add cron job

crontab -e -u www-data

Cron entry

* * * * * php /var/www/pelican/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Create the Admin User

Create admin

php artisan p:user:make

You will be prompted for email, username, name, password, and whether the user should be an admin (enter yes).

Log In and Configure the Panel

Navigate to https://panel.yourdomain.com and log in with your admin credentials.

Create a Location

Go to Admin → Locations → Create New. Give it a short name (e.g., us-east).

Create a Node

Go to Admin → Nodes → Create New. Set the FQDN, memory, disk limits, and daemon port. After saving, click the Configuration tab to get the Wings YAML.

Install Wings (Game Server Daemon)

Wings runs on the node that hosts your game servers. This can be the same VPS or a separate one.

Install Docker

curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | CHANNEL=stable bash
systemctl enable --now docker

Download Wings

Download and install Wings

mkdir -p /etc/pelican
curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/wings "https://github.com/pelican-dev/wings/releases/latest/download/wings_linux_amd64"
chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/wings

Configure Wings

Copy the configuration YAML from the panel's node Configuration tab:

Paste Wings config

nano /etc/pelican/config.yml

Create Wings systemd service

/etc/systemd/system/wings.service

[Unit]
Description=Pelican Wings Daemon
After=docker.service
Requires=docker.service
PartOf=docker.service

[Service]
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/etc/pelican
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

Enable and start Wings

systemctl enable --now wings
systemctl status wings

In the panel, refresh the node page. The status indicator should turn green.

Open Required Firewall Ports

Panel server

Panel UFW rules

ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Wings node

Wings UFW rules

ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw allow 8080/tcp   # Wings daemon (use 443 if configured for SSL)
ufw allow 2022/tcp   # SFTP for file management
ufw enable

Game server ports

Open game port range

ufw allow 25565:25575/tcp
ufw allow 25565:25575/udp

Troubleshooting

Panel shows 500 error

Check Laravel logs

tail -n 50 /var/www/pelican/storage/logs/laravel.log

Queue worker is not running

Check service

systemctl status pelican.service
journalctl -u pelican.service -n 50

Wings node shows offline

Verify Wings is running, the FQDN resolves correctly, and required ports are open.

Check Wings

systemctl status wings

Permission errors

Fix permissions

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pelican
chmod -R 755 /var/www/pelican/storage /var/www/pelican/bootstrap/cache

Certbot fails

Ensure DNS A record is pointing to your VPS IP:

Check DNS

dig +short panel.yourdomain.com

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