A game server panel for your own machine

You pick a game, set memory, CPU, disk and ports, and Zelie installs it using the egg’s own install script. From then on the server has a page with everything you need to run it.

Console

Live output with colours, the last 500 lines when you open it, and a command line with history. Start, stop, restart and kill.

Files and editor

A file manager in the browser with upload by dragging, archives and a code editor that colours C#, JavaScript, Lua, JSON, YAML and config files.

SFTP

Log in with an SSH key or a password made for that one server. Your account password never works over SFTP.

Schedules

Cron times for console commands, power actions and backups, run in order.

Backups

The server’s files on a schedule, encrypted on the server, with a copy in any S3-compatible storage.

Steam updates

Zelie checks once an hour which build is the latest and can update the game when nobody is playing.

Ports

Choose which port of your pool each use gets. Zelie opens them in the firewall and closes them when the server is deleted.

Metrics

CPU, memory and network for each server, with usage in the header coloured so a server running hot stands out.

Zelie lists 21 games, taken from the Pelican egg repositories at a fixed commit that each Zelie release names. Every entry is downloaded and checked automatically on each change.

Any other egg works too. Paste the https address of an egg file, in the Pterodactyl or the Pelican format, and Zelie imports it.

A note on how far this has been proven. Zelie is in early development. Minecraft runs end to end in its automated tests. The other games are listed and their eggs are checked, but not every game has been played on a live server yet.

Two games have their own guides: the Minecraft server panel and the Rust server panel.

Game servers take their ports from a pool you set up once, on one IP address or several. Each use has its own port: the game, the query port, RCON, and for Rust the companion app. You choose which port of the pool each one gets, when you create the server and later on the Network tab.

Zelie forwards the ports to the container with nftables and allows them in ufw when it is on. Players connect straight to the server, and game traffic never goes through a tunnel. The Server page shows the address players should use, found from the machine’s network cards.

• An RCON or admin password that the egg leaves empty, or sets to a placeholder such as changeme, gets a long random value when the server is made.
• Every game server runs in its own container with its own user namespace. Nothing runs privileged.
• The file manager cannot leave the server’s own folder, even through a symbolic link left in the volume.
• Every administrator needs a passkey or an authenticator app to log in.

The architecture page explains how the panel, the core and the containers are kept apart.

Zelie suits a friend group that wants a Minecraft or Valheim server on a rented machine, and a small host that runs a handful of servers and wants them in one place. It also suits anyone who wants a website, its database and a game server on the same machine without three separate tools.

It does not fit everyone yet. Zelie manages one server, and only administrators can log in. Players cannot get their own limited login for a single game server, and one panel cannot run several machines. Both are on the list; several servers are planned as a paid edition.

Pterodactyl and Pelican are made for game servers and do that well. They are mature, they manage many machines and they let you give players their own access. They also come as several parts: a PHP panel with a database, a web server and Redis, plus a daemon on each machine that uses Docker.

Zelie is one binary with its own containerd, and it runs apps and databases next to the game servers. If you need several machines or sub-users today, stay with Pterodactyl or Pelican. The Pterodactyl comparison goes through the differences in more detail.