Where to get a VPS for Pterodactyl and how to set it up

Step-by-step: How to install Pterodactyl on your VPS

Let’s walk through how to install Pterodactyl yourself. This assumes you’re using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and starting from a clean VPS.

1. Connect to your VPS

Use an SSH client (like Terminal or PuTTY):

ssh root@your-server-ip

If it’s your first time logging in, change the root password and update your packages:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

2. Set up your environment

Create a non-root user with sudo privileges:

adduser pterodactyl
usermod -aG sudo pterodactyl

Switch to that user:

su – pterodactyl

Install essential tools:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nginx mariadb-server php8.3 php8.3-fpm php8.3-common php8.3-mysql \
php8.3-mbstring php8.3-xml php8.3-curl php8.3-zip redis curl unzip git

3. Set up MariaDB (MySQL)

📝 Recommended: Use MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.2+ for compatibility with the latest Pterodactyl versions.

Secure the installation:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Create a database and user:

CREATE DATABASE panel;
CREATE USER ‘ptero’@’127.0.0.1’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘yourpassword’;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON panel.* TO ‘ptero’@’127.0.0.1’;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

4. Install the Pterodactyl Panel

Download the latest release:

cd /var/www/
sudo mkdir pterodactyl
cd pterodactyl
sudo curl -Lo panel.tar.gz https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/releases/latest/download/panel.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzvf panel.tar.gz

Install PHP dependencies:

php -r “copy(‘https://getcomposer.org/installer’, ‘composer-setup.php’);”
php composer-setup.php –install-dir=/usr/local/bin –filename=composer
composer install –no-dev –optimize-autoloader

📝 Note: This installs Composer v2, which is required for Laravel 10 used by Pterodactyl.

Set file permissions:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pterodactyl/*

Copy the environment file and run setup:

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan p:environment:setup
php artisan p:environment:database
php artisan migrate –seed –force

Copy the environment file and run setup:

php artisan p:user:make

5. Configure NGINX and HTTPS

Create a new NGINX config at /etc/nginx/sites-available/pterodactyl:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/pterodactyl/public;
    index index.php;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
    }
    location ~ /\.ht
        deny all;
    }
}

Enable the config:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pterodactyl /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t
systemctl restart nginx

Set up HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot –nginx -d yourdomain.com