Deployment Overview of Pterodactyl Control Panel on Server¶

Prerequisites and Basic Requirements¶

The deployment requires a server running Ubuntu Jammy (22.04 LTS). The following system components and requirements must be met:

• Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish)

• Privileges: Root or sudo access for service management and package installation

• Domain Requirements: A valid FQDN on the hostkey.in domain is required for SSL termination via Let's Encrypt.

• Required Packages:

  • PHP 8.2 (with specific extensions)

  • Nginx

  • MariaDB Server

  • Redis Server

  • Git, Unzip, Curl, and Cron

FQDN of the final panel¶

The application is accessible via the following FQDN format: <prefix><server_id>.hostkey.in (e.g., pterodactyl123.hostkey.in)

File and Directory Structure¶

The application files and configuration data are stored in the following locations:

Application Installation Process¶

The installation is performed by downloading the latest release of the Pterodactyl Panel from GitHub. The process includes:

1. Downloading panel.tar.gz to /tmp.

2. Extracting the archive into /var/www/pterodactyl.

3. Installing PHP dependencies via Composer v2.

4. Configuring the environment using .env.

5. Running database migrations and seeding the initial administrator user.

Access Rights and Security¶

Security is enforced through several layers:

• Firewall/Port Management: The application utilizes specific internal and external ports for communication.

• Web Server Permissions: All files within /var/www/pterodactyl are owned by the www-data user and group with 0755 permissions on directories.

• SSL/TLS: Let's Encrypt certificates are managed via Certbot, providing HTTPS encryption for all web traffic.

• Security Headers: Nginx is configured to prevent access to hidden files (e.g., .ht).

Databases¶

The application uses MariaDB as the primary database engine.

Docker Containers and Their Deployment¶

A Docker container is used specifically for managing Nginx and automated SSL certificate renewal via Certbot.

• Image: jonasal/nginx-certbot:latest

• Deployment Method: Deployed using docker compose from /root/nginx/compose.yml.

• Network Mode: host

• Volumes:

  • nginx_secrets (external volume) mapped to /etc/letsencrypt.

  • /data/nginx/user_conf.d mapped to /etc/nginx/user_conf.d.

  • /var/www/pterodactyl/public mapped as read-only (ro) to /var/www/pterodactyl/public.

Proxy Servers¶

The deployment utilizes a dual-layer proxy approach:

1. Dockerized Nginx (Certbot): Acts as the primary entry point, handling SSL termination and routing traffic to the host's PHP-FPM via port 9000 or local socket.

2. Host Nginx: Configured to handle specific site logic and serve as a fallback/interface for the panel.

Permission Settings¶

The following permission structure is applied to ensure service stability:

• /var/www/pterodactyl: Owned by www-data:www-data (Recursive).

• /etc/cron.d/pterodactyl: Mode 0644.

• /root/nginx/compose.yml: Mode 0644, owned by root:root.

Location of configuration files and data¶

Available ports for connection¶

The following ports are utilized by the system:

Starting, Stopping, and Updating¶

Service management is performed via systemctl. The following commands are used to manage the background processes:

• Pterodactyl Queue Worker:

  • Start: systemctl start pteroq

  • Enable on boot: systemctl enable pteroq

• Web Server (Nginx):

  • Restart: systemctl restart nginx

• Database (MariaDB):

  • Status: systemctl status mariadb

• Docker Proxy:

  • Deployment/Restart: docker compose up -d within the /root/nginx directory.