Deployment Overview of Pterodactyl Control Panel on Server¶

Prerequisites and Basic Requirements¶

To ensure a successful deployment, the following requirements must be met:

Operating System: Ubuntu (specifically jammy version).
Privileges: Root or sudo access is required for package installation and service management.
Domain: A valid FQDN pointing to the server IP is required for SSL/TLS encryption.
Ports: The following ports must be open on the firewall:
80 (HTTP)
443 (HTTPS)
12333 (Wings communication)

FQDN of the final panel on the hostkey.in domain¶

The application uses a specific subdomain template for access.

Parameter	Value
Prefix	`pterodactyl`
Domain	`hostkey.in`
Full template	`pterodactyl{Server_ID_from_Invapi}.hostkey.in`

File and Directory Structure¶

The application and its associated services utilize the following directory structure:

/var/www/pterodactyl: Main installation directory for the Pterodactyl Panel.
/root/nginx: Configuration directory for the Nginx Certbot container.
/data/nginx/user_conf.d/: Directory containing custom Nginx proxy configurations.
/etc/letsencrypt/live/{Server_ID_from_Invapi}.hostkey.in/: Location of SSL certificates.

Application installation process¶

The installation follows a multi-step process involving package management and manual configuration:

System Preparation: The system updates the apt cache and installs essential dependencies including software-properties-common, curl, and gnupg.
Repository Configuration:
Adds the sury.org PHP repository to support PHP 8.3.
Adds the official Redis repository.
Dependency Installation: The following packages are installed via apt:
PHP 8.3: php8.3, php8.3-fpm, php8.3-mysql, php8.3-gd, php8.3-mbstring, php8.3-xml, php8.3-curl, php8.3-zip, and others.
Web Server: nginx.
Database: mariadb-server.
Caching/Queue: redis-server.
Other Tools: composer, git, unzip, tar, cron, and certbot.
Panel Installation:
The latest Pterodactyl Panel release is downloaded from GitHub as a .tar.gz archive.
The archive is extracted to /var/www/pterodactyl.
Environment Setup:
A .env file is generated from the example template.
Application environment variables (Timezone: Europe/Amsterdam, Cache/Session Driver: redis) are configured.
An application key is generated using php artisan key:generate.
Database Initialization:
A MariaDB database named panel and a user pterodactyl are created.
Database migrations and initial seeding are executed via php artisan migrate --seed.

Access Rights and Security¶

User Permissions: The /var/www/pterodactyl directory and its subdirectories (storage, bootstrap/cache) are owned by the www-data user and group.
Service Isolation: A dedicated systemd service pteroq is created to run the Pterodactyl queue worker under the www-data user.
SSL/TLS: The application is configured to enforce HTTPS via Nginx redirects.

Databases¶

The application uses MariaDB for data storage.

Component	Detail
Database Name	`panel`
Database User	`pterodactyl`
Connection Host	`127.0.0.1:3306`
Storage Location	Managed by MariaDB system paths

Docker Containers and Their Deployment¶

The deployment utilizes a Docker container to manage SSL certificate renewals via Certbot.

nginx-certbot
Image: jonasal/nginx-certbot:latest
Ports: Uses host network mode.
Volumes:
nginx_secrets:/etc/letsencrypt
/data/nginx/user_conf.d:/etc/nginx/user_conf.d
/var/www/pterodactyl/public:/var/www/pterodactyl/public:ro
Restart Policy: unless-stopped

Custom Scripts and Additional Setup¶

The following custom configurations are applied during setup:

Cron Job: A system cron job is installed at /etc/cron.d/pterodactyl to run the Pterodactyl scheduler every minute as the www-data user.
Queue Worker Service: A custom systemd service named pteroq is configured to ensure the background queue worker (artisan queue:work) stays running and restarts automatically if it fails.

Application Update Instructions¶

To update the Pterodactyl Panel, perform the following steps:

Navigate to the installation directory:
```
cd /var/www/pterodactyl
```
Download the latest version of the panel and extract it over the existing files (ensure you have a backup first).

Update dependencies:

php8.3 /usr/bin/composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Run database migrations:
```
php8.3 artisan migrate --force
```

Location of configuration files and data¶

Application Configuration: /var/www/pterodactyl/.env
Nginx Site Configurations:
/etc/nginx/sites-available/pterodactyl.conf
/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pterodactyl.conf
Logs: /var/log/nginx/pterodactyl-access.log and /var/log/nginx/pterodactyl-error.log

Available ports for connection¶

Port	Service	Purpose
`80`	HTTP	Web traffic (Redirects to HTTPS)
`443`	HTTPS	Main Panel Access
`12333`	Wings/Proxy	Communication for Pterodactyl Wings

Starting and Stopping the application¶

The following commands are used to manage the core services:

Starting all services:

systemctl start nginx mariadb redis-server php8.3-fpm pteroq

Stopping all services:

systemctl stop nginx mariadb redis-server php8.3-fpm pteroq

Proxy Servers¶

The application uses Nginx as a reverse proxy to handle SSL termination and route traffic to the PHP-FPM service running on the host via a Unix socket (/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock). Certbot is utilized within a Docker container to automate the acquisition and renewal of Let's Encrypt certificates for the FQDN.

2026-10-29