Use your server console and send commands

The Console tab is the first thing you see when you open a server. It's where you check that a change worked after a restart, and where the first error shows up when the server won't boot.

Find the console

1. Log in, open Servers in your dashboard and press Open on your server's card.
2. From any other tab, click Console, the first tab under Essentials in the left rail. On a phone or tablet the rail is a dropdown instead: pick Console from it.

The power buttons sit in a card below the console, with live CPU, RAM, disk and network graphs under that.

Start, stop and restart the server

The power card shows the server's state, such as Installing…, Offline, Starting…, Running or Stopping…, next to four buttons:

• Start boots the server. A new server stays off until you press it. On Minecraft, the first start asks you to accept the Minecraft End User Licence Agreement: press Accept & start.
• Restart stops the server, then starts it again. Most settings changes need one to take effect.
• Stop shuts the server down gracefully, so the game can save first.
• Force stop ends the process at once, after you confirm.

Restart and Stop need a running server, and Start an offline one. Start is locked during an install, and all four buttons are locked while a backup restores. On a phone the buttons show icons only, with a skull for Force stop.

Wait until the server is ready

When the server finishes loading, the game prints a ready line and the state changes from Starting… to Running. Players can join from then on, and commands get an answer.

The ready line depends on the game:

• Minecraft: Done (5.812s)! For help, type "help", with your own boot time in the brackets. Join your Minecraft server (and fix errors) covers joining.
• Rust: Server startup complete, which takes a few minutes on a new server and after a wipe.
• Valheim: DungeonDB Start.

For other games, watch the power card: it switches to Running once the game reports it's ready.

Read the live log

The tabs above the log filter it, with a count on each: All, Errors, Warnings, Info and History. History shows what players did: chat, joins, advancements and deaths on Minecraft, and joins and leaves on Palworld. The tabs only change the view, and on a phone they fold into one dropdown.

Also in the log:

• The latest 500 lines stay on screen. Reload the page and up to 500 lines from the last hour come back.
• Coordinates in brackets have a dotted underline, and so do online player names on Minecraft and Palworld. Click one to drop it into the command box.
• If the log matches a problem we have a guide for, a Known issue bar appears with a Read the fix link.

Download the log

1. Press Download Log at the top right of the console.
2. Pick Last 1 minute, Last 5 minutes, Last 30 minutes or Last hour.

The file comes from our own recording of your server's output, so it covers time before you opened the panel and keeps lines the on-screen console hides, such as exit codes and out-of-memory details. Attach it when you ask for help with a crash.

Send a command

1. Click the Send a command box at the bottom of the console.
2. Type the command without the leading slash that in-game chat uses.
3. Press Enter or Send. Your command shows in the log after a >, followed by the server's reply.

The Up and Down arrows step through up to 100 recent commands until you reload the page or open another panel tab.

Admin commands differ by game, and each game's guide lists them:

• Minecraft: Minecraft whitelist: add players, set ops. The Players tab makes the same changes with buttons.
• Rust: Rust server setup: connect, admin and wipes.
• Palworld: How to become admin and use admin commands on your Palworld server.
• ARK: Survival Evolved: How to set the admin password and enable cheats in ARK: Survival Evolved.
• Garry's Mod: GMod server: connect, Workshop, gamemodes. A hostname or sv_password typed in the console doesn't change server.cfg.
• Valheim: the server doesn't read commands from the panel console, so nothing you send reaches the game.

Commands sent while the server is offline

When the server is stopped, the box reads "Offline. Commands queue and send on reconnect…" and Send becomes Queue. Anything you send while it's stopped or still starting waits in a queue and goes out in order once it's Running. A bar above the box counts them, and Manage queue lets you untick or reorder them before you press Apply.

Autocomplete and the command list (Minecraft only)

On Minecraft servers, the box suggests vanilla commands and their arguments as you type, plus popular plugins it finds in your plugins folder, such as EssentialsX, LuckPerms and Multiverse. Tab or the Right arrow accepts a suggestion, and Esc closes the list. The list icon beside the box (Browse all commands) opens a searchable list of every command it knows.

Risky commands such as stop, op, ban, kick and kill ask first: press Run command or Enter to go ahead, Cancel or Esc to back out.

Other games get a plain command box with no suggestions, list or confirmation, so check each command before you press Enter.

Shortcuts for commands you repeat

Aliases work on every game. On Minecraft, /alias gm = gamemode makes gm creative Steve run gamemode creative Steve: the alias replaces the first word and keeps the rest. /alias lists your aliases and /unalias gm removes one. They keep their slash, and they're saved in this browser for this server only.

To run a command on a timer, use the Send a command action in the Schedules tab: see Schedule automatic restarts and tasks.

If a command does nothing

• The button reads Queue (a clock icon on a phone), or a "queued, will send on reconnect" bar shows - the server isn't running. Press Start and stay on the Console tab: the command goes out once it's Running.
• You can't see the reply - switch the level tabs back to All.
• Unknown or incomplete command, Paper's Unknown command or a similar error - remove the leading slash and check the spelling. Plugin and mod commands only exist once that add-on has loaded.
• The reply takes several seconds - the server is probably overloaded: see Why is my server lagging? Find the cause.