Game Server Setup

Make game servers on your own machine, or link the ones you already host, and start, stop and check them from Discord. The servers stay on your machine: Asbern sends start and stop, reads how many people are playing and opens the way in when you ask, and the files, the programs and the address stay yours. We host no game servers.

Game servers run on Your Asbern Box, in Docker. Everything is in /menu › Other › Admin › Game Servers.

Set Up

/menu › Other › Admin › Game Servers › Setup › Set up walks you through four steps. Each step ticks ✓ by itself once it is done, so you can stop and come back later.

1. Connect your box. Game servers live on your Asbern box. No box yet? Get one first, under /menu › Other › Admin › Box — Your Asbern Box has every step. The step ticks ✓ once your box is online.

2. Your servers. Your box makes a server from Asbern's vetted list, or links a game container you already run.

• Add a server lists the games on Asbern's vetted list that your box can run, each pinned to one exact, checked image. Pick one, choose its options, and press Create (for a game with a licence to accept, the button says so: Accept the … EULA and create). Your box downloads the game, makes the server and starts it, and the card says how it went.
• Containers already on your box's machine are listed on this step, each with Link. A linked one can be started, stopped and checked; it is not backed up, and its way in is yours to arrange.
• By address watches a server you already run, by its address: whether it is up, and how many are playing. On its own it is watch-only. Name its Docker container too, a container on your box's machine, and it can be started and stopped from Discord as well.

3. How members join. For a server your box made, this is Friends outside can join: your box opens the game's player ports on your router while it runs, and members see a name to join at — see Friends Join Automatically for every answer Check can give and its fix. For a server you linked or added by address, pick how members reach it: Private network (members install Tailscale once and no ports are opened) or I'll forward them myself (the step shows exactly which ports to forward, and to which address — see Forward Ports on Your Router). Until you pick, members are shown no address for that server.

4. Review. What members will see for each server: how they get in, and whether they can start it. It reads All set once every server has a way in.

The Games on the List

Asbern's list holds the games it has checked by hand: the image, what each setting does and which ports players use. A game whose check is not finished is not offered. Some need a value only you should know, such as a server password: the card says which, and you set it on the box, where it stays — Your Asbern Box shows the one line.

A game server has to run in Docker to be started and stopped from Discord. A server that runs as a program on a Windows PC, or from a folder of scripts, can still be watched with By address: Asbern reads whether it is up and who is playing, and you start and stop it yourself.

No Server Yet?

A game server is the game's own dedicated-server program, running on a machine that stays on, with a way in for people outside your house. On an Asbern box you do not need to fetch one: Add a server makes it from Asbern's vetted list, and your box opens the way in while it runs — see Friends Join Automatically, or Forward Ports on Your Router for the manual way.

For a server Asbern does not list, get it from the people who make the game, run it in Docker, and link it with its Link on the Servers step — no other download is linked here:

• Minecraft (Java) — Mojang's server download.
• Steam games — Valve's SteamCMD, the tool Steam dedicated servers are installed with.
• Which Steam games have one — Valve's Dedicated Servers List.

Asbern never runs it for you: it is a remote control for the server on your machine.

Start and Stop

/menu › Other › Admin › Game Servers › Power lists your servers one row each, for admins only. A row says whether the server is up or down and, while it is up, how long for and how many are playing on it. Beside it is one button:

• Start on a stopped server — brings it up. Give it a minute or two before it is joinable.
• Stop on a running one — shuts it down. The first press says how many people are playing on it; press Confirm to stop it. Everyone on it is disconnected, and nothing is deleted. The container is asked to stop and given time to save first.

Back up and Restart

Power also has three buttons for a server your box made, at the top of its first page, above the server rows:

• Back up backs one server up now, kept apart from its daily and weekly backups. Nothing leaves that machine. A game that cannot save while it runs is backed up only while it is stopped.
• Restart stops a server, backs it up and starts it again. The first screen says how many people are playing on it, and everyone on it is disconnected while it restarts. A server that is not running is only backed up, and stays stopped. If the backup cannot be made, the restart still goes ahead, and Backups says why.
• Backups lists a server's backups, newest first: when, which kind, how big, and any files it could not read. Putting one back is done on the box's own page, never from Discord.

A container you linked rather than made is only started and stopped, so it is not offered here.

Friends Outside

Power has a Friends outside row for each server the box made. Turn on lets friends outside your home join: the box opens that server's player ports on your router while it runs, and players who join can see your home's internet address. Turn off closes them within a minute. If your box is offline when you turn it off, its join name is taken down at once, but the ports stay open while the server runs until the box hears it, so press Turn off again once the box is back. A game with its own join code also has a Join by code row: friends join with a code through the game's own join service, and no router ports are opened. A game with its own public server list also has a List publicly row, off by default: turned on, anyone can find the server in that list, with your home's address. Turn on asks once and Turn off acts at once; either way the box remakes the server, so a running one restarts. A server friends join by code is never listed. Friends join automatically has the rest.

Steam Servers

A Steam dedicated server in Docker is read on your own machine, over Steam's own status protocol (A2S), never dialled from our servers. Some games do not answer that protocol; for those, Power shows only whether the server is running, and an empty one is never stopped for being empty.

A Steam server on another computer — LinuxGSM, a panel, a NAS — can still be watched: add it with By address using the address it answers on inside your network, such as 192.168.1.20:27015. Your box reads it there. It cannot be started or stopped from Discord.

A Steam server's first start can take a while, because it may download the game. Asbern's list of games gives each game its own start-up window, so a slow first start is not taken for a failure.

The Quicker Routes

These sit under /menu › Other › Admin › Game Servers › Setup beside Set up:

• Detect — lists the game containers on your box's machine and names the games. It adds nothing; Set up adds them with one press.
• By address — point it at a server you already run and it works out which game answered, on which protocol and port. Watch-only on its own; give it the name of its container on your box's machine too and it can start and stop it.

How the Bot Reaches Your Servers

The hosted bot reaches your servers only through Your Asbern Box.

• A server your box made is a container named game-… that your box created from Asbern's vetted list. Your box starts, stops, backs up and re-creates it, and opens its way in when you ask.
• A container you linked is started, stopped and checked, and nothing else. Your box never links a container that runs privileged, or that could reach Docker itself, the machine's devices or its system folders: a Start button on one of those would hand the whole machine to anyone who pressed it.
• Discord names a server; it never sends a folder, a file or a command. Nothing in Discord can make your box run something that is not on Asbern's list or that you did not link.
• Only the agent holds Docker's socket. No game server, and not even the companion, is given it.

What Members Can Do

Members open /menu › Gaming › Servers — the last door on the Gaming row. It is always there: greyed out, with the reason, until this server has servers to show, and live once it does.

• Start boots a stopped server. The card in chat shows how to join the moment it answers.
• View opens a running server: whether it is up yet, how many people are on it, and where to join. A server's name is shown only while it runs; stopped, it reads "Joinable while the server is running".
• Get Access says how to connect, including the Tailscale invite for a server on your private network.

A server that cannot start yet is still listed, with Start greyed out and the reason beside it.

Admins set how many run at once and how long an empty server stays up before it stops itself. Members cannot stop a server: stopping one by hand is an admin's job, under Power above.

Removing One

Remove makes the bot forget a server. On your box it also stops the server, closes its router ports and takes its join name down. The game's folder and world are left on your box: the card shows the one line that deletes its container there. Once you have run it, open Remove again and pick the server, now marked left on your box, to free its name.

Troubleshooting

Add a server lists nothing your box can run. Each greyed game says why: not enough memory or disk, or a machine the game's image does not support.

A row says it cannot start. It says why, with the fix. A game that still needs a value set on the box says which one.

A Power row keeps saying it is asking your box. For a moment after you open Power that is normal. If it stays, your box is not checking in: its machine is asleep, off or offline. Your servers are not counted as empty while it is away, so nothing is stopped because of it.

Friends cannot join. Friends Join Automatically lists every answer and its fix.

A Steam server reads "no answer". Your box asked it and nothing came back: it may still be starting, or its status port is not the one saved.

It shows offline but the game works. That is the status check, not the server. Players connect on one port and the status is asked on another; check the second.

What it Costs

Nothing. Asbern is free: every feature on this page is included in every server, and no card is needed.