Console, File Manager, and SFTP

Three tools in the game panel cover almost all day-to-day work on a server: the console for watching and commanding it, the file manager for editing configuration in the browser, and SFTP for moving larger files with a desktop client. Reach the panel as described in Access Your Game Server Panel, then pick the tool for the job.

Console#

The Console tab shows live output from the game server process, plus a command line at the bottom for sending commands to it, exactly as if you were typing into the server's own terminal. What you can type depends on the game (Minecraft's op, whitelist, and say; Palworld and others expose their own admin commands). Server-side output, warnings, and crash messages all appear here, which makes it the first place to look when something is wrong.

The power buttons (start, restart, stop, kill) live at the top of the console and dashboard. Stop asks the game to shut down cleanly and save; Kill is a hard stop for a process that will not respond and can lose unsaved progress, so use it last.

File manager#

The Files tab is a full file browser: create, edit, rename, move, upload, download, compress and decompress archives, and delete, all in the browser without a separate client. It is ideal for:

• Editing configuration files such as server.properties or PalWorldSettings.ini in place, with a code editor.
• Dropping in a plugin or mod .jar, or unpacking a modpack archive.
• Downloading a world save before a risky change.

Stop the server (or at least save it) before editing files the game holds open, and restart afterwards so the changes load. Keep an eye on disk usage shown on the dashboard; a full allocation stops backups and can corrupt saves.

SFTP#

For bulk transfers (large worlds, big modpacks, whole-server downloads) a desktop SFTP client is faster and more robust than the browser. Open the Settings tab of your server; the SFTP connection details are listed there: host, port, and your username for that specific server (your panel username joined to the server's short ID, for example alex.7e8e8f18). Your password is your panel password, or add an SSH key to your panel account and log in with that instead; see Game Panel Account: 2FA, API and SSH Keys.

1. Install a client. FileZilla, WinSCP (Windows), and Cyberduck (macOS) all work. Any SFTP-capable client does.
2. Enter the connection details from the Settings tab, choosing the SFTP protocol (not FTP or FTPS) and the port shown there, which is not the usual 22.
3. Connect and transfer. You land in the server's root directory, the same tree you see in the file manager.

Settings and Activity#

Besides SFTP details, Settings lets you rename the server and shows which node it runs on, which is useful when a maintenance notice names a node. Activity is an audit trail of actions taken on the server and by whom, with IP addresses blurred until you hover.

Next#

Once files and console feel familiar, set up backups and schedules so a bad edit is a five-minute rollback instead of a lost weekend.