Gaming dedicated servers: Pterodactyl, LinuxGSM and game hosting

UnderHost gaming dedicated servers are bare-metal machines tuned for game hosting: a high-clock AMD Ryzen CPU, ECC memory, mirrored NVMe storage, an unmetered 1 Gbps port and DDoS protection tuned for game (UDP) traffic. You get the Pterodactyl web panel for free, or LinuxGSM on request, to run one or many game servers on the same machine.

Plans and hardware

Both regions use identical hardware. Need more RAM, a GPU or more storage? Custom builds are available on request from the gaming servers page.

Locations

Choose the data center closest to most of your players, since distance is the biggest part of ping.

The gaming plans above are offered in Canada and Europe. For the other regions, see the dedicated servers available in each location.

Pterodactyl or LinuxGSM

LinuxGSM supports the games on its published list at linuxgsm.com/servers. If your game is listed, ask for LinuxGSM when you order.

Your first game server

With Pterodactyl:

1. Log in to the panel

   Use the panel address and admin login provided when your server is set up.

2. Create the server

   In the admin area, create a server, pick the game's egg (for example Paper for Minecraft or Rust), and set its CPU, RAM and disk limits and port.

3. Start and test

   Open the server's console, start it, and connect from the game using your server IP and port.

With LinuxGSM (example: Valheim), as root create a user, then install as that user:

adduser vhserver
su - vhserver
curl -Lo linuxgsm.sh https://linuxgsm.sh && chmod +x linuxgsm.sh && bash linuxgsm.sh vhserver
./vhserver install

./vhserver start      # start the server
./vhserver details    # IP, ports and config locations
./vhserver console    # attach to the console (Ctrl+B then D to leave)

Ports and firewall

Each game listens on its own ports, mostly UDP. Open only the ports your games use:

ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow 25565/tcp           # Minecraft Java
ufw allow 2456:2458/udp       # Valheim
ufw enable
ufw status

Pterodactyl also needs its panel (HTTPS) and the Wings daemon port open. Keep RCON and admin ports limited to your own IP where possible.

Backups and updates

• Worlds and player data: schedule backups in Pterodactyl, or run ./gameserver backup with LinuxGSM from cron.
• Off the machine: RAID-1 protects against a failed disk, not against deletion, griefing or a bad update. Keep copies elsewhere; a 2 TB off-site backup add-on is available.
• Game updates: update after a game patch, then test before players join. LinuxGSM: ./gameserver update.
• System updates: keep the operating system patched. See Linux server basics.

Add-ons and operating systems

Operating systems, all free: Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, Debian 11, 12 and 13 (recommended for Pterodactyl and LinuxGSM), and AlmaLinux 8 and 9 (these need extra repositories for game tools).

Move from another host

Migration is free. Most game server moves finish in under 24 hours. The team copies world saves, player data, mod and plugin configs, databases and your Pterodactyl eggs or LinuxGSM scripts while your old server stays online, then you choose a cutover time that suits your players.

FAQ

Related: DDoS protection | Linux server basics | IPMI and remote console | Manage SSH keys

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