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Use SFTP to Upload, Download, and Edit Server Files

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Stop Your Server

Before messing with any files on your server, make sure your server is stopped to prevent corruption. STFP still works when the server is off.

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Logging into SFTP lets you access your server files. If you don’t already have an SFTP client application installed, you’ll need to download and install one. We recommend WinSCP and these directions will feature it, but you can use other programs, such as Filezilla, instead.

Get Your SFTP Settings

  1. Login to Command Center.
  2. From the server list, choose the server that you need SFTP information for and click Manage.
  3. Click Show SFTP Information below the Start/Stop, Restart, and Force Stop buttons. Alternatively, click the gear icon and go to SFTP Information.

Connect to Your SFTP Server

  1. Open your SFTP client program. If you do not have a Login session window open, go to Sessions > New Session.
  2. Set the file protocol to SFTP.
  3. For Host, type the host in the previous section. The host is almost never your game server IP.
    4.Type the user or username in the previous section. It is in the form of your email address with a trailing . and digits. For example: [email protected]
  4. Your password will now be the same password you use to log into your Command Center.
  5. Leave port blank or use 22. Do not use your game server port.
  6. Click connect and agree to Cache warning.

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Using FileZilla

If you are using FileZilla to connect, you will need to prepend your host address with "sftp://". For example: sftp://bos-sr-1-1-1.akliz.net

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Hidden Files

To see hidden files and folders, such as ".config" for Valheim or ".local" for Terraria, Click on Options > Preferences. Inside of the Preferences window, click on the Panels section and select Show hidden files (Ctrl-Alt-H).

Uploading

These instructions assume you are using WinSCP. Uploading is when you copy files from your computer to a remote server, in this case your game server.

  1. Connect to your server using WinSCP.
  2. On the left panel, navigate to the folder on your computer that has your desired files.
  3. On the right side, navigate to the desired folder on the server. If you don’t see a folder, right-click, and then click Refresh icon (Ctrl-R).
  4. Drag and drop the desired files from the left panel into the folder on the right.

Downloading

These instructions assume you are using WinSCP. Downloading is when you copy files from a remote server, in this case your game server, to your own computer. For our purposes here, downloading a file is the reverse process of uploading.

  1. Connect to your server using WinSCP.
  2. On the right side, navigate to the desired folder on the server. If you don’t see a folder, right-click, and then click Refresh icon (Ctrl-R).
  3. On the left panel, navigate to the folder on your computer that you want to store your files.
  4. Drag and drop the desired files from the right panel into the folder on the left panel.

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Verifying Files

If you want to be extra sure your upload or download finished correctly, you can simply upload or download the same thing a second time and make sure the file sizes are the exact same for both copies. If the file sizes are different, one of the copies may have not copied correctly.

Editing Files

These instruction assume you are using WinSCP. In addition to editing files through Command Center’s files section, you can edit files directly through WinSCP. We recommend using the Command Center file editor though. It highlights configuration file syntax, converts tabs to spaces when necessary, and checks for mistakes. To configure WinSCP to edit files:

  1. Connect to your server using WinSCP.
  2. On the right side, navigate to the desired file or config on the server. If you don’t see a folder, right-click, and then click Refresh icon (Ctrl-R).
  3. Right click on the file and then go to Edit > NotePad
  4. Edit your file, save and close NotePad.

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Alternative Editing.

In addition to editing them in WinSCP, you can download the files directly and edit them using a text editor such as NotePad or VSCode. You don’t want to use a word processing program like Word, Wordpad, or similar for editing raw text files.

Word processors insert formatting information into the file that works for readability but will break when it’s loaded by a program that isn’t designed to handle it. For instance, a Minecraft mod wouldn’t have any reason to have it’s configuration files formatted with a word processor using bold, italics, or similar formatting, so if it is, the file will not load.

Updated 6 months ago