Debian PufferPanel setup - johnkeates/PufferPanel GitHub Wiki
This guide was written for Debian Wheezy (Debian Stable at the time of writing - 2014) with version 7.4
Quickstart: what you basically need to do to have a minecraft server up and running:
- Setup at least 1 admin node
- Setup at least 1 client node
Introduction
I'm assuming you have a basic knowledge of how to administer a Debian (or derivative distro like Ubuntu), you already have a running server with SSH access, a domain name you have access to (to add A-records) and root or at least sudo access. PufferPanel (at this time) is designed to run on one server per node.
This means you have to have 2 servers or one server with virtualisation software installed so you can run 2 virtual servers. Since the admin node won't be running minecraft, you could use a cheaper cloud or VPS server as those tend to be instantly available and a whole lot less expensive than a powerful server you'd want to use for minecraft servers.
In order to guide you through the setup, this guide is devided in to chapters and sections to separate the tasks you need to perform in order to complete a basic setup to get you started with this awesome panel.
Notes and Warnings
This requires vhosts and certain tools and dependencies. Each node setup list allows you to perform all tasks for setting this up for the node type. First, you'll set up the node environments and the master, next you set up the node communication, storage locations and client nodes. During this setup I might assume certain things, if this proves to be a problem for new or existing installations, please let me know so this can be fixed in future revisions.
Before you begin, make sure of the following:
- You are using Debian or a comparable DEB based Linux distribution
- You have root access and/or sudo access via SSH or a direct console
- You have contrib and non-free repos on in your APT settings and your system is up-to-date
- You are not killing existing services on the system if you are using things besides PufferPanel
Please note that the environment setup is reversible and doesn't to anything to user data or PufferPanel data. If you try to execute the guides on a server that is already setup, there simply won't be any change. It only adds and overrules things without deleting anything at all.
The PufferPanel setup will initialise the installations if any exist, so be careful. When an upgrade guide becomes available, you won't need to execute the environment guide and you can just follow the upgrade guide. It's not ready yet, but that is why you will need to execute both node types in two steps.
DNS and A-Records
In order to use PufferPanel, you need to have access to a domain you can manage because you have to create at least 2 A-records to point to your servers (which are at least 2 different servers and thus 2 different IP addresses).
Because PufferPanel users cookies to authenticate you, it is a smart thing to use subdomains on the same main domain to make sure a login sticks when you go from the admin cp to the user cp and back.
If you own a domain, like for example: minecraftserver.com, you may want to create useful subdomains that describe your purpose, like:
- master.minecraftserver.com for your master
- node1.minecraftserver.com for your first node
- node2.minecraftserver.com for your second node (and so on)
The records you must use are called A-records. I'm not sure if IPv6 is supported at this time, but if it is, AAAA records can be used to point to IPv6 addresses. You cannot use CNAME records for the main server domains.
You have to set this up before you start with anything, and you have to set it up for at least 1 master node and 1 client node. Remember what you set them to, this guide will use example domains that will not work, and you have to replace them with your real domain names.
Geting started
To begin or continue with your installation or maintenance, pick a step from the list below:
###1. Setting up a debian master node
1.1. Master node environment setup
1.2. PufferPanel Master node setup
###2. Setting up a debian client node