Pterodactyl is a software for managing game servers. As it’s still in development, installing it in some environments is not straight-forward. You should read the official docs along. The guide is written for Plesk but could be helpful for other panel users like cPanel too.

Originally published 9. Sep 2017
EDIT (7. Feb 2018): Fixed error thanks to samyratchet
EDIT (15. Mar 2018): Updated for Pterodactyl v0.7.6
EDIT (28. Jun 2018): Updated for Pterodactyl v0.7.7
EDIT (06. Mar 2019): Updated for Pterodactyl v0.7.13
EDIT (11. May 2020): Updated for Pterodactyl v0.7.17; Added screenshots

Web host/Plesk configuration

Log into to your SSH console (we start with root) and install the Redis and PHP packages. Here are the commands for CentOS (the epel repository is a requirement on CentOS for Redis):

yum install epel-release
yum update
yum install redis
plesk installer --select-release-current --install-component php7.4
yum install plesk-php74-redis plesk-php74-cli plesk-php74-bcmath plesk-php74-gd plesk-php74-mbstring plesk-php74-mysql plesk-php74-pdo plesk-php74-xml

Start redis and enable autostart:

systemctl start redis
systemctl enable redis

Log into Plesk, go to Domain -> Add Domain (even if you use a subdomain like panel.example.com, click on Add Domain and not on Add Subdomain. This way you can separate the installation of your main homepage). Type in the full URL of which it will be reached later and make sure to click on Secure the domain with Let’s Encrypt. Remember the username and click on save.

Now we will have to modify some settings on the domain. Go to Web Hosting Access and change Access to the server over SSH to /bin/bash.

Go to Hosting Settings and set the document root to httpdocs/public and change PHP Support to 7.4 and run as FPM application served by nginx.

Go to Apache & Nginx Settings, turn off Proxy Mode and write into additional NGINX directives:

sendfile off;
index index.php;
location = / {
	try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}

location ~ / {
	try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}

You should now create a new database for the panel in the Databases menu (Domain -> Databases (in the menu on the right side) -> Add Database). And remember its configuration.

Installing Pterodactyl

For security reasons and simply because we don’t want to get any permission problems later, we won’t work with root.

(It’s also a little paradox that the official wiki goes through the installation with root, as the Panel advertises with its security. Working with root, especially for beginners, is never safe).

Download and Configuration

While creating your domain/webspace you had to provide a user and a password. SU into that user with su yourusernameforvhost (I named it gamepanel in the screenshots). And simply type cd to get to the home directory.

Create a temporary alias for the PHP-command (you will have to do this each time, you open a ssh session or SU into an user):
PHP7=/opt/plesk/php/7.4/bin/php

Install composer locally into the vhost by typing:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | $PHP7 -- --install-dir=. --filename=composer

Download and extract Pterodactyl and set permissions:

cd httpdocs
curl -Lo panel.tar.gz curl -Lo panel.tar.gz https://github.com/pterodactyl/panel/releases/download/v0.7.17/panel.tar.gz
tar --strip-components=1 -xzvf panel.tar.gz

chmod -R u+w storage/*
chmod -R u+w bootstrap/cache

Run composer:

cp .env.example .env
$PHP7 ../composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Run the configuration commands as stated in the wiki, but with the Plesk PHP installation. When asked for a database backend, use always the default one (Redis / MariaDB). And when asked for MariaDB user credentials, insert the ones you used while creating the database with Plesk:

# Run the first command only, when doing a new installation (not an upgrade)
$PHP7 artisan key:generate --force
$PHP7 artisan p:environment:setup
$PHP7 artisan p:environment:database
$PHP7 artisan p:environment:mail
$PHP7 artisan migrate --seed
$PHP7 artisan p:user:make

You don’t need to correct the permissions, as we didn’t work with root.

The panel should be available, you can try by going to your panels website.

Setting up workers

Go back to Plesk and select your panel domain. Go to Scheduled Tasks and click on Add Task. Choose Run a command and type into Command:

/opt/plesk/php/7.4/bin/php /var/www/vhosts/YOURPANELDOMAIN/httpdocs/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Don’t forget to replace YOURPANELDOMAIN with your domain. Under Run select Cron Style and type in * * * * *.

You can now type exit into the console (to log out of your user and get back to root).

As root in SSH, create a new file pteroq.service in /etc/systemd/system

Make sure to set User to the one with whom you SUd into and for Group choose psacln. Also make sure to set ExecStart to the correct path.

# Pterodactyl Queue Worker File
# ----------------------------------

[Unit]
Description=Pterodactyl Queue Worker
# REPLACE with redis-server.service IF _not_ on CentOS
After=redis.service

[Service]
# REPLACE user with the SSH user of your webspace as specified in Web Hosting Access in plesk
User=gamepanel
Group=psacln
Restart=always
# ADJUST the path to your webspace directory
ExecStart=/opt/plesk/php/7.4/bin/php /var/www/vhosts/GAMES.YOURDOMAIN/httpdocs/artisan queue:work --queue=high,standard,low --sleep=3 --tries=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now start the service with the following command:

systemctl enable --now pteroq.service

Installing the Daemon

Proceed to the Daemon Docs. I don’t recommend installing the daemon on the same (v)server where Plesk is installed!

When you found an error in my documentation write a comment. You can also write me on Discord: Sapd#4930