Creating servers in Pterodactyl

Revision as of 01:00, 6 October 2025 by Sirdog (talk | contribs)

This guide will go over how to create servers on Pterodactyl.

Eggs

An egg is a file which tells Pterodactyl how to install, launch, and manage whatever application the egg is advertising to be installable. It gives Pterodactyl the commands necessary to download server files, instructions on how to setup the environment for the software appropriately, and what configuration options should be available to server operators.[1]

As all games are different not all egg installations will be the same. Some degree of basic server and computer literacy will be necessary. This guide will aim to be as helpful as possible in spite of this.

The benefit of an egg is that, so long as it has been added to the list of eggs on the panel, EDC can terminate and boot up the relevant software on demand.

Step 0: Checking if we have the egg

The first thing we want to do is see if we currently have the egg or not.

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

You will be greeted with the following list (or similar looking list).

 
List of Pterodactyl egg nests.

The term nest is fairly self-explanatory. Click into the nests and see if an egg for the software you want to spin up is present.

Review the table below for what you should do now.

Desired egg IS present Desired egg is NOT present
Skip to Step 2: Spin up server Continue to Step 1: Finding and installing an egg

Step 1: Finding and installing an egg

Finding the egg

The following locations are commonly used to find eggs:

For the sake of this guide, let's suppose we wish to spin up a Mordhau server. On the Option 1 list, we find that Mordhau's egg is said to be located at a very long URL. Going to this URL presents a raw page with text. You are viewing a JSON file. The entirety of this page's contents should be saved to your computer in some fashion. The advised way is to right click on the page and select Save as.

Installing the egg

  1. Log into the panel at https://edcgaming.org.
  2. Click the cog icon to the left of the colored smiley face to access the administrative section of Pterodactyl.
     
    The Pterodactyl panel button to get to the administrative section.
  3. Click the Nests button on the following page.
     
    The Pterodactyl panel nests button in the administrative section.
  4. You will be greeted with the following list (or similar looking list). Click Import Egg.
     
    List of Pterodactyl egg nests.
  5. You will be shown a confirmation prompt. In this prompt, select the relevant JSON file, and ensure to set the nest to Non-Default Games.
     
    Pterodactyl egg importing prompt.
  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.
     
    Pterodactyl successful egg import notification.

If you know what you are doing, or feel confident in your server literacy, you can tinker on this page. Otherwise, you should be able to safely navigate away.

Step 2: Spin up server

We now get to use our egg to spin up an environment.

  1. Click the cog icon to the left of the colored smiley face to access the administrative section of Pterodactyl.
     
    The Pterodactyl panel button to get to the administrative section.
  2. Click the Servers button on the following page.
     
    The Pterodactyl panel servers button in the administrative section.
  3. Near the top right of the server list, click Create New.
 
An unfilled portion of the Create New server prompt.

From here, you are going to see a considerable form requesting a lot of information from you. Review the table below for assistance.

Field Instructions
Server Name The fancy title of the software/video game server.
Server Owner Set this as yourself; use your email address to find yourself.
Server Description Not relevant. Can be left blank.
Node Unless knowledgeable advised to not edit.
Default Allocation Unless knowledgeable advised to not edit.
Additional Allocation(s) Unless knowledgeable advised to not edit.
Database Limit Unless knowledgeable advised to keep at 0.
Allocation Limit Unless knowledgeable advised to keep at 0.
Backup Limit Discretionary; advise equal to or less than 3.
CPU Limit Unless knowledgeable advised to keep at 0.
CPU Pinning Unless knowledgeable advised to keep blank.
Memory This is the server's RAM. Set to the minimum amount necessary to function. A Google search should identify what the recommended amount is. This may not be set to 0.
Swap Unless knowledgeable advised to keep at 0.
Disk Space This is the server's actual available disk space. Set to the minimum amount necessary to function. A Google search should identify what the recommended amount is. This may not be set to 0.
Block IO Weight Unless knowledgeable advised to keep at default value.
Enable OOM Killer Terminates a server if it exceeds given memory. Operator choice.
Nest Select nest that has the egg you wish to use.
Egg Select egg you wish to use.
Skip Egg Install Script Uncheck.
Docker Image Egg dependent.

Remaining options on this form are determined by the egg itself. Ergo, a vanilla Minecraft egg will ask for a game version to be specified, whereas a Mordhau egg has options for the default map and maximum player slots. This inherently makes it impossible to provide further assistance. Research online and/or seek help from other experienced systems operators if you struggle with that part.

When all options have been set, click Create Server.

Footnotes

  1. For example, for the Arma server, it's egg tells Pterodactyl's GUI to provide an option to change the server's modlist. It maps the input made on the GUI to the relevant configuration file on the server.