How to Install PufferPanel on Alpine Linux

PufferPanel is a free, open source game server management panel that allows you to easily manage game servers on your server. In this tutorial, we will cover how to install PufferPanel on Alpine Linux.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with the installation process, make sure you have the following prerequisites installed:

  • A VPS or dedicated server running Alpine Linux
  • Root access to your server

Step 1: Update your System

It is important to have your Alpine Linux system up to date before installing PufferPanel. Run the following command to update your system:

apk update && apk upgrade

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Now, you need to install the dependencies required for PufferPanel. Run the following command to install Apache, PHP and other required dependencies:

apk add apache2 apache2-utils openssl \
    php7 php7-apache2 php7-json php7-curl php7-openssl \
    php7-mysqli php7-pdo_mysql php7-zlib php7-zip \
    curl tar ca-certificates unzip

Step 3: Download and Install PufferPanel

To download and install PufferPanel on Alpine Linux, you need to follow the steps below:

  1. Download the latest version of PufferPanel from the official website using wget. Replace 0.8.7 with the latest release version at the time of installation.
wget https://github.com/PufferPanel/PufferPanel/releases/download/0.8.7/pufferpanel.tar.gz
  1. Unpack the downloaded file using the following command:
tar -zxvf pufferpanel.tar.gz
  1. Move the extracted files to /var/www/:
mv -f PufferPanel-* /var/www/pufferpanel
  1. Change the ownership of the PufferPanel directory to the www-data user:
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pufferpanel
  1. Change the permissions of the PufferPanel directory to allow read/write access:
chmod -R 755 /var/www/pufferpanel

Step 4: Configure PufferPanel

Now that you have installed PufferPanel, you need to configure it as per your server requirements. Follow the below steps to configure PufferPanel:

  1. Navigate to /var/www/pufferpanel:
cd /var/www/pufferpanel
  1. Rename the file .env.example to .env:
mv .env.example .env
  1. Open the .env file and change the following variables:
    • APP_URL should match the URL you'll be accessing pufferpanel at.
    • APP_KEY should be changed to a random string of 32 characters. You can generate this with openssl rand -hex 16.
    • APP_ENV should be set to prod if using in production.
  2. Save the file and exit.

Step 5: Set up PufferPanel Web Service

To run PufferPanel as a web service, you need to create an Apache virtual host for PufferPanel. Follow the below steps to create a virtual host:

  1. Create a virtual host configuration file /etc/apache2/conf.d/pufferpanel.conf:
vi /etc/apache2/conf.d/pufferpanel.conf
  1. Add the following content to the file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/pufferpanel/public
    ServerName your-domain.com
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/pufferpanel-error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/pufferpanel-access.log combined
    <Directory /var/www/pufferpanel/public>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
  1. Save the file and exit.

Step 6: Restart Apache

After creating the virtual host for PufferPanel, you need to restart Apache to apply changes. Run the following command to restart Apache: 

rc-service apache2 restart

Step 7: Accessing PufferPanel

PufferPanel is now installed and configured on your Alpine Linux server. To access PufferPanel, navigate to the URL you specified in the APP_URL variable in the PufferPanel .env file.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered the steps required to install and configure PufferPanel on Alpine Linux. You can now use PufferPanel to manage your game servers easily.