Palworld Linux Server

Palworld and Dependencies

steamcmd is the primary tool that we will use in the creation of our Palworld dedicated server. Double check if steamcmd is installed. If not install it before proceeding.

Installation command assumes you have a Debian based Linux distribution using the apt package manager. Please use your provided distribution’s package manager.

# Check for steamcmd
which steamcmd

# Update repositories and install required updates
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install steamcmd
sudo apt install steamcmd -y

If the which command is successful and steamcmd is already installed you will see the absolute path to it’s corresponding binary file. My output, for example, was /usr/games/steamcmd. If it fails there will be no output, and you will have to install it.

Once steamcmd is installed we can use the Steam ID of Palworld’s dedicated server to install the necessary files. Palworld’s server ID is 2394010. Run and save the below command to a file, this same command can be used at a later time to update the game. I saved mine to ~/bin/update-palworld. If you decide to save it to a file you need to make it executable with chmod 744 update-palworld.

steamcmd +force_install_dir /PATH/YOU/WANT/GAME/FILES +login anonymous +app_update 2394010 validate +exit

Once Palworld is installed all the important assets and configuration files required for the game to function are in the directory you specified. The world save is buried a good bit. I downloaded my game to ~/steam/steamapps/common/palworld. This puts my world save under ~/steam/steamapps/common/palworld/Pal/Saved/SavedGames/0. The specific folder that contains the world save is different for everyone, it will be the only directory within the .../0 directory with a random string of letters and numbers for the name. It won’t exist just yet as we have not started up the server at all yet.

All the configuration for the server is done within the /Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini file. There is another .ini file in the root directory of your game files with the same name. Do not make changes to that file, any changes you make to that file will not be saved. I would recommend that you set both a ServerPassword and AdminPassword. They can be found toward the end of the line, along with the ServerName and ServerDescription.

All the different configuration options reside on the same single line. For ease of editing through the terminal, if you are using nano, use the “Esc + $” shortcut to enable soft line wrapping. Meaning press “Esc” and let go, hold “Shift” and press “4”.

To run the server ensure the PalServer.sh file in the root directory your game files is executable with chmod 744 PalServer.sh. If you run the game server now from your terminal session, you will not be able to interact with that system in any way from that same window and the window will need to remain open. We can solve those issues using systemd.

systemd

Setting up systemd is relatively straight forward as we have already been given the start up script for the game. You will need sudo privileges to create the systemd service. Create an empty file within the /etc/systemd/system directory, name it what you like so long as it ends is .service. Open it with your preferred text editor, for example sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/palworld.service. Then copy the below content to the file:

[Unit]
Description=PalWorld service
Wants=network.target
After=syslog.target network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
User=USER
WorkingDirectory=/home/USER/steam/steamapps/common/palworld/
ExecStart=/bin/sh /home/USER/steam/steamapps/common/palworld/PalServer.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

If you followed along and used the same file paths I did you only need to change every instance of “USER” with the name of the user account you want to run the server. Otherwise change the file paths accordingly. Once the file is sorted and contains the correct paths allow systemd to manage it with sudo systemctl enable palworld.service and start it with, sudo systemctl start palworld. When you need to update the game files stop the server first with sudo systemctl stop palworld, move to the directory containing the script from earlier. Run it with ./update-palworld, upon completion restart the server with sudo systemctl start palworld.

Final Touches

You are just about ready to connect and play with your friends! The last few things you will need to do to connect are:

• Open port 8211 on your servers firewall (if the firewall is enabled)
• Port forward the same port through your gateway/router to your server
• Give the public Ip assigned to your machine (if hosted in the cloud) or the public Ip of your home networks gateway (if hosted locally) to players
• Enter that Ip address into the correct field on Palworld and you are all set!

References

steamcmd

Palworld Dedicated Server

systemd