Set up a Minecraft server with Pterodactyl

October 20, 2026 · admin

Pterodactyl is a free, open-source game server panel. The Panel is the web interface; Wings is the daemon that runs game servers in Docker containers. Both can live on the same server for small setups.

Prefer a ready-made option? RMDHost game server plans include a game control panel, so you can skip this setup.

Requirements

• Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 on a KVM VPS or dedicated server
• 4 GB RAM or more (Minecraft itself needs 2–4 GB for a small world)
• Two subdomains, for example panel.example.com and node.example.com

1. Install the Panel

Follow the official installation guide at pterodactyl.io – it installs PHP 8.3, MariaDB, Redis, Composer and Nginx, then downloads the panel to /var/www/pterodactyl. Key commands:

cd /var/www/pterodactyl
php artisan p:environment:setup
php artisan p:environment:database
php artisan migrate --seed --force
php artisan p:user:make

Add the queue worker service and the scheduler cron job described in the guide, and secure the panel with a Let’s Encrypt certificate.

2. Install Wings

curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | CHANNEL=stable bash
sudo mkdir -p /etc/pterodactyl
curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/wings "https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings/releases/latest/download/wings_linux_$([[ "$(uname -m)" == "x86_64" ]] && echo "amd64" || echo "arm64")"
sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/wings

3. Create a node and connect Wings

1. In the panel go to Admin → Locations and create a location.
2. Go to Nodes → Create New, enter node.example.com and the memory and disk you want to allocate.
3. Open the node’s Configuration tab, copy the generated config to /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml.
4. Start Wings as a systemd service (wings.service in the docs) and check the node shows a green heart.

4. Create a Minecraft server

1. Under Nodes → Allocation, add your IP and port 25565.
2. Go to Servers → Create New, pick the Minecraft → Paper egg, set 3072 MB memory and start the server.
3. Accept the EULA in the console and connect from Minecraft using your server’s IP.

Firewall

sudo ufw allow 22,80,443,8080,2022/tcp
sudo ufw allow 25565

Back to the blog