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 within the hostkey.in zone is required for SSL and panel access.

• Ports:

• 80/tcp: HTTP (for ACME challenges and redirection).

• 443/tcp: HTTPS (main application access).

• 12333/tcp: Wings communication port.

• 3306/tcp: MariaDB service.

• 6379/tcp: Redis service.

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

The application uses a dynamic subdomain template for access:

File and Directory Structure¶

The application and its associated services are organized in the following locations:

• Application Installation Directory: /var/www/pterodactyl

• Nginx Configuration Directory: /etc/nginx/sites-available/ and /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

• Certbot/SSL Certificates: /etc/letsencrypt/live/{FQDN}/

• Docker Nginx Management: /root/nginx/

Application Installation Process¶

The installation process follows a multi-step procedure to set up the environment, dependencies, and the application itself:

1. System Preparation: The system package cache is updated, and essential tools such as curl, gnupg, and software-properties-common are installed.

2. Repository Configuration:

3. A PHP repository (Ondrej PPA) is added to provide the required PHP version (8.3).

4. The Redis APT repository is configured via a dedicated GPG keyring.

5. Dependency Installation: The following packages are installed:

6. PHP 8.3 Components: php8.3-fpm, php8.3-mysql, php8.3-gd, php8.3-mbstring, php8.3-xml, php8.3-curl, php8.3-zip, etc.

7. Web & Database: nginx, mariadb-server, and redis-server.

8. System Utilities: composer, git, unzip, tar, and cron.

9. Application Deployment:

10. The latest Pterodactyl Panel release is downloaded from GitHub as a compressed archive.

11. The archive is extracted to /var/www/pterodactyl.

12. Composer dependencies are installed using composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader.

13. Environment Configuration:

14. A .env file is generated from the example template.

15. Critical environment variables (APP_URL, Database credentials, Redis settings) are injected into the .env file.

16. An application key is generated using php artisan key:generate.

17. Database Setup:

18. A MariaDB database named panel is created.

19. A dedicated user pterodactyl is configured with appropriate privileges.

20. Database migrations and initial data seeding are executed via php artisan migrate --seed.

Access Rights and Security¶

• File Ownership: The application directory /var/www/pterodactyl and its subdirectories (storage, bootstrap/cache) are owned by the www-data user and group.

• Permissions:

• Application directories use 0755.

• Sensitive configuration files like .env use 0640 to restrict access.

• Firewall/Service Security: The application utilizes a dedicated Nginx configuration that enforces HTTPS redirection and restricts access to hidden files (.ht).

Databases¶

The application uses MariaDB for persistent data storage:

Docker Containers and Their Deployment¶

The deployment utilizes a Docker container to manage SSL certificate acquisition via Certbot:

• Nginx-Certbot Container

• Image: jonasal/nginx-certbot:latest

• Network Mode: host

• Volumes:

• /etc/letsencrypt: Shared with the host to manage SSL certificates.

• /data/nginx/user_conf.d: Contains custom Nginx configurations.

• /var/www/pterodactyl/public: Mounted as read-only for ACME challenges.

• Environment Variables: CERTBOT_EMAIL is set for Let's Encrypt notifications.

• Restart Policy: unless-stopped

Custom Scripts and Additional Setup¶

The following system-level configurations are applied to ensure application stability:

• Pterodactyl Scheduler: A cron job is installed at /etc/cron.d/pterodactyl to run the Laravel scheduler every minute as the www-data user.

• Queue Worker Service: A custom systemd service named pteroq is created and enabled. This service runs php artisan queue:work to handle background tasks (high, standard, and low priority queues).

Application Update Instructions¶

To update the Pterodactyl Panel application:

1. Navigate to the installation directory: cd /var/www/pterodactyl.

2. Download and extract the latest release from GitHub over the existing files.

3. Run Composer to update dependencies: php8.3 /usr/bin/composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader.

4. Execute database migrations: php8.3 artisan migrate --force.

5. Clear application caches: php8.3 artisan config:clear && php8.3 artisan route:clear && php8.3 artisan view:clear.

Location of Configuration Files and Data¶

• Main Application Config: /var/www/pterodactyl/.env

• Nginx Site Configs: /etc/nginx/sites-available/pterodactyl.conf

• Systemd Service (Queue): /etc/systemd/system/pteroq.service

• Cron Configuration: /etc/cron.d/pterodactyl

Available Ports for Connection¶

Starting and Stopping the Application¶

The application relies on several system services. Use the following commands for management:

• Main Web Service:

• Start/Restart Nginx: systemctl restart nginx

• Background Worker (Queue):

• Restart Queue: systemctl restart pteroq

• Database and Cache:

• MariaDB: systemctl status mariadb

• Redis: systemctl status redis-server

Proxy Servers¶

The deployment uses a dual-layer proxy approach:

1. Nginx (Host): Acts as the primary web server, handling SSL termination via Let's Encrypt certificates and serving PHP requests to php-fpm via a Unix socket.

2. Docker Nginx: A specialized container used specifically for automated SSL certificate management and ACME challenges.