Our goal for this tutorial is to setup and configure an Ark: Survival Evolved Pterodactyl Cluster.
Note: This guide is for ARK Survival Evolved. If you are looking for ASA directions, please see Setting up an Ark Survival Ascended Cluster on Pterodactyl Control Panel
Pterodactyl ASE Cluster Creation
The Pterodactyl Panel runs all of it’s game servers inside of a docker container. These containers are isolated from each other by default.
For this guide, we have chosen the wings host folder /etc/pterodactyl/ase_cluster. For most users, this directory should work just fine but this folder can reside anywhere on the wings host machine.
To begin, you will need to open an SSH session to your server hosting the wings instance as root, or have sudo capabilities.
Create Path and Set Permissions for Cluster Storage
sudo mkdir /etc/pterodactyl/ase_cluster
sudo chown pterodactyl:pterodactyl /etc/pterodactyl/ase_cluster
Edit Wings Configuration File
Allow Pterodactyl to mount the host cluster directory
sudo nano /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml
Towards the bottom of this file, find:
allowed_mounts: []
Change this to
allowed_mounts:
- /etc/pterodactyl/ase_cluster
Restart wings
Restarting your wings service will not interfere with any game servers still running on the host. This is only the communication daemon between wings and your panel.
sudo systemctl restart wings
Creating the Pterodactyl Mount in Administration
Mounts > Create New
Give the mount your preferred name and description as shown below, and choose Create.
Add the ARK Survival Evolved Egg and your Node to the Mount
Attach the Mount to Each Server in the Cluster
Stop your Ark Survival Ascended servers. For each of your ARK servers, go to Servers > ASE Servers > Mounts and click the + button to add the newly created Pterodactyl mount
Modify Startup Parameters for Each Server in the Cluster
In the Additional Arguments field on each of the servers you want to cluster, you will need to add 3 parameters to this field. Be sure to choose a unique clusterid, but use the same one for the servers you want to connect.
-NoTransferFromFiltering -clusterid=myuniqeclustername -ClusterDirOverride="/cluster"
Ensure GameUserSettings.ini on all servers are configured correctly
Below are 2 examples on how to setup your GameUserSettings.ini. Servers do not need to match exactly. The 2nd example shows how you would add a new server and only allow characters to transfer on and off of it. This is similar to what official servers do on new map release.
Full transfers to and from the cluster
NoTributeDownloads=False
PreventUploadSurvivors=False
PreventUploadItems=False
PreventUploadDinos=False
PreventDownloadSurvivors=False
PreventDownloadItems=False
PreventDownloadDinos=False
Character only to and from the cluster
NoTributeDownloads=False
PreventUploadSurvivors=False
PreventUploadItems=True
PreventUploadDinos=True
PreventDownloadSurvivors=False
PreventDownloadItems=True
PreventDownloadDinos=True
Start ARK Survival Ascended Servers and Enjoy!
The Ark: Survival Evolved Pterodactyl Cluster should now be working. Thanks for following my guide. If you have questions or comments, feel free to leave them here and I will do my best to answer them!
