Multi-Game Server Management

A single VPS runs Pelican Panel (web UI) + Wings (daemon) + Docker. Each game server is an isolated Docker container with its own resource limits and port allocations.

• Panel - Web UI on ports 80/443 for management
• Wings - Daemon on port 2022, manages containers
• Docker - Each game server gets isolated CPU, RAM, and storage via cgroups
• Port allocation - Each server needs unique ports (25565, 25566, etc.)

Rule of thumb: sum of all game server RAM + 1-2 GB for OS + Panel overhead.

Note: CPU is often the bottleneck for survival games (Valheim, Palworld), not RAM. Monitor both.

Plan your port assignments before creating servers:

Prevent one server from starving others by setting per-server CPU and RAM limits in the Panel admin.

• RAM limit - Set via the server management tab (maps to Docker --memory)
• CPU limit - Set as a percentage of available cores (maps to Docker --cpus)
• Soft vs. hard limits - Soft limits allow burst usage when other servers are idle; hard limits are enforced at all times

Use Pelican Panel's built-in schedule system to start servers at peak hours and shut them down during off-peak windows:

• Start Minecraft at 4 PM, shut down at 2 AM
• Valheim at 6 PM for evening sessions
• Palworld on weekends only

This reclaims RAM during idle windows, letting you run more servers on the same VPS.

Configure a single rclone remote to Backblaze B2 as the backup destination for all servers:

rclone config
# Follow prompts: name=b2, type=b2, account=YOUR_KEY_ID, key=YOUR_APP_KEY

# Global backup - all server data, daily, 3-day retention
rclone sync /var/lib/pelican/volumes/ b2:my-game-backups/ --transfers 4

Backblaze B2 costs $0.006/GB/month - a 50 GB backup costs roughly $0.30/month.

Future-proof your setup by importing eggs for additional games:

1. Browse the Pelican Eggs repository
2. Download the egg JSON file for your game (e.g., CS2, Terraria)
3. In the Panel: Admin > Nests > Import Egg > upload the JSON
4. Create a new server using the imported egg, configure resources and ports

Keep an eye on your servers:

• Pelican Panel - Built-in resource graphs per server
• htop/glances - Real-time system overview via SSH
• docker stats - Per-container CPU, RAM, and network breakdown

#!/bin/bash
# Alert when memory usage exceeds 85%
MEM_USED=$(free | awk '/Mem:/ {printf "%.0f", $3/$2 * 100}')
if [ "$MEM_USED" -gt 85 ]; then
  echo "Memory at $MEM_USED% on $(hostname)" | mail -s "Memory Alert" you@email.com
fi

Give friends or community admins control over specific servers without full Panel access:

• Admin - Full Panel access, can create/delete servers and nodes
• Subuser - Access to specific servers only, with granular permissions (start/stop, console, file manager, backups)

Use case: your gaming community has 3 admins, each managing their own server. Create subuser accounts so they can manage their servers independently.