TNTable

Tag: Server

  • Server Updates: Fall 2025 Edition

    Server Updates: Fall 2025 Edition

    This update shouldn’t fall flat…

    Long time no see, it is about time I provide an update on the happenings of the server. As well as some upcoming changes and improvements to look forward to!

    Changes since the last update

    Let me check when the last update was, I cannot remember what has changed since then. Please hold.

    Ah yes, here we go.

    • I bought a new server computer
      • This server is not replacing the current machine, stay tuned for the 2025 year in review for more details on that.
    • Improved backups, there was an issue where backups were not deleted even though they were supposed to be deleted in accordance with the retention policy. However they were not and I had over 2TB of backups for the servers. Clearing that out helped me a lot, and made room for future backups.
    • We are migrating our wiki to a new service called BookStack. Check it ouย here!
      • We are looking for help to do this migration, if you are interested reach out to David on Discord.
      • If you want to contribute but don’t want to help with the migration, totally understand, reach out to David on Discord to set up an account.
      • This is no longer happening. Please disregard.

    Upcoming Changes

    There are a few changes and improvements I will be working on in the next couple months. The timeline is a little long and fuzzy because it depends on how much free time I have, and all the other changes I need to make before to prepare for these improvements.

    • Live server map rendering, hoping to also get player positions on maps (only when logged in of course).
      • This will result in a full re-render of the server map when I do make the change, but after that updates should be near instant when chunks are changed.
      • This will also save me about $0.50 per month in map hosting costs as I am bringing it onto my server and not hosting it in the cloud.
    • Website overhaul (I know I know, I say this nearly every update) – more details to follow later.
    • New game hosting back end called Pelican Panel

    Pelican Panel

    I am switching is from Pterodactyl Panel to Pelican Panel, this mainly means nothing for the average player except for some downtime while I migrate everything over. Less than a day. For those interested in learning why I am glad you asked.

    Pterodactyl Panel is an open source project, but the developers spent less and less time on the project, and other contributors wanted to add features but were rejected due to the direction the owner wanted to take the project. So they split off and created Pelican Panel. This split appears to be amicable as the lead developer did not have enough time to dedicate it seems. I could be wrong about all this. Anyways, Pelican Panel is now the more active version with a larger library of game support. Pterodactyl was getting outdated and I would have to use workarounds to get things to work in the last year or two. I will be posting updates in Discord about downtime and when the full migration is complete.

    Just a quick note/update. Pterodactyl Panel is back and being developed again. However we will be sticking with Pelican Panel.

    Live Server Map

    I am taking advantage of the switch to Pelican Panel to also improve the server map render. I really don’t need to wait for this, I simply plan to add the BlueMap plugin to the server and adjust where my web server points to, but I am making a bunch of changes already so I will just add it on. The way the map currently renders is every 2 days a separate virtual machine downloads the map from Pterodactyl Panel, then runs BlueMap which checks for changes in the files and renders that. This has a few disadvantages, mainly that it could take up to 2 days for builds to appear. The other change is that it causes a small spike in server usage that could otherwise be avoided, and resources are allocated to a virtual machine that only really needs them for 10 minutes every 2 days. Running BlueMap as a plugin should enable nearly instant updates, as well as player locations. To help with performance I will also be storing the map in a database instead of as plain files.

    Anyways, with this I leave you know until the 2025 year in review in the first half of 2026!

  • Building the New Server

    Building the New Server

    Server Upgrade 2020

    A new server! Huzzah! I will take you through the experience of building the new server and setting it all up to run the Minecraft server. I talk about the components that went into the server as well as my rationale.

    Planning

    This server upgrade has been planned for a few weeks now. Started with an ambitious goal to create a super server that could do it all, but then was reduced to an upgrade, but a significant one at that. The primary goal was to consolidate the two servers into one to make management easier and reduce power consumption. To make this happen I needed high-capacity hard drives for the media server component, an insane amount of RAM (I still wish I had more), and a super fast 1TB boot drive.

    The current setup is rather janky, see the image below. It consists of two computers, one rocking a 3rd gen i7 from 2014, and the other rocking an Athlon from that same time period. The smaller Dell server handles the media serving as well as all the game servers, while the larger box with the Athlon is the bulk storage. These are being consolidated with a complete rebuild and upgrade in the be quiet! Pure Base 600 with 3 6TB WD Red drives, a Ryzen 7 3700X and a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD. This should provided enough power to host game servers and host a media server all at the same time.

    The old server setup. It worked, but was not ideal.

    If you are interested in the specs seeย this postย where I announce the upgrade and discuss the parts.

    Dismantling

    The first step was to dismantle the computer in the case I needed. Thankfully I could do this with minimal impact to the Dell server so only the services that relied on the storage would be down. It was extremely dusty. I needed it to be out of the case to build the new server in it, but I also needed it to run to get the data off. The result is what I like to call the jank bench.

    Took the old components out of the case since I am reusing the case. It needed a good clean.

    Cleaning

    Like I mentioned, the case was extremely dusty, as well as all the parts. I did not care so much about the parts but the case needed a good cleaning. I got to work with compressed air, a vacuum and a microfibre cloth.

    Drywall mud dust got everywhere, even with plastic sheets.

    Looks brand new again. Used to be covered in dust like above. Not great for a computer.

    Building/Upgrading

    The new residents of the be quiet case.

    First step was to assemble the new server outside the case to ensure everything worked.

    Motherbaord out of and on top of the box. On a non-conductive surface.

    The CPU, it is a beast for the price.
    CPU, cooler and RAM installed. It is beautiful.

    I got everything else in an assembled and it was time to POST (Power On Self Test). Will I get it on the first try?

    The answer is yes, I got it first try. Blurry photo because I was excited.

    Needed to adjust a bew of the BIOS options for my RAM and CPU but everything was recognized as expected. The server is alive!

    Here is the full setup out of the case. Janky but pretty.

    Now I wanted to make sure that everything was working properly so I ran a RAM test to ensure that all 64GB were behaving correctly. This took about 10 hours.

    Memtest x86 is a free program that tests RAM for errors.
    RAM Specs. Pretty intense.
    Running the test. Came back 10 hours later with no errors.

    Animal Crossing Break

    On Christmas Eve I took a small Animal Crossing break to enjoy the Toy Day event while the test ran. Plus I needed a small break. Toy Day was quite fun.

    Installation/Setup

    Can’t forget to ensure that the server receives clean and consistent power, especially in the event of a power failure. Got a new to me Eaton UPS. This should be able to power the server for between 30-60 minutes depending on the load.

    It is very heavy.

    Next up is to get all the hard drives in their caddies and then get everything into the case. It is getting exciting as we get closer to completion.

    One down, 3 more to go
    They are beautiful. The Reds are for the media storage and brand new, the green and black is for backups and is being reused from the old server.
    Everything is in the case now!
    Decent cable management job. Not the neatest but the panel slides on easily which was the goal.
    It’s alive! Now I can start the setup and transfer of all the data from the old servers.
    Proxmox, the hypervisor of choice to run everything in virtual machines to make this a multipurpose server.
    Running OpenMediaVault in a VM to provide the data pool. Nearly 11TB with redundancy for media.

    Final Thoughts

    I hope you enjoyed reading my little write up about the server upgrade. It was certainly a lot of fun for me. I am very excited for the upgrade and to test the limits of the new hardware. Obviously everything will be run within a virtual machine or container so there will be minor overhead but it isn’t that much of an issue with modern hardware. If you have any questions or want more info let me know and I am happy to talk about it and answer questions. Now I have to pay my dog tax.

    Dog Tax

    These fluff balls kept me company while I worked on the server and took breaks and whatnot. They are going to miss me when I go back home.

    Salem (Grey), Dax (Black), Jazz (Black & White).

  • Server wide reset!

    There has been a server wide reset of the world! It is now an amplified world in hard mode so watch out, you can now die of hunger and mobs are harder. The server is also whitelisted with the same people and we can now handle more people on so invite your friends! The old world is up for download on the home page. Good luck and happy mining!