You need self-control in this out-of-control world...

So it's really handy to be able to control your servers from any web browser, at home or on the move! Welcome to the Southnode.net Control Panel experience!

To preface - what IS a control panel as it relates to games? Don't they just run?

A control panel for the purposes of gaming is how you - the client - control your services. The control panel contains every gaming/bot service you have through us regardless of game or type! In the grand scheme of things the control panel allows you to do things you would otherwise need RDP/SSH access to a server to do:

• Start, Stop or Restart your server
• Update your server
• View the Game Server/Bot console
• View/Enact RCON (Remote Console) commands for your server
• Access files related to your server such as configs, logs, and other setup items.

So where do we start?

When you order a service through Southnode you will receive an email with the details related to the control panel. The link provided in the email will be one of many options which you choose based on your location. The options are:

• For Australia and New Zealand based customers - https://au-control.southnode.net - this is the control panel based in Australia.
• For South East Asia and Asia based customers - https://sea-control.southnode.net - this is the control panel based in Singapore.
• For Western Europe based customers - https://euw-control.southnode.net - this is the control panel based in Germany.

With the slew of emails you will receive from us once your order and payment goes through, you will also receive your login username - this is generally your email that you use for our website. Your password is provided by yourself during the ordering process - however if you left the box blank a random password is generated for you to keep your login safe. You will need to change this once you are logged in (If you did not specify a password, you can SSO Login by clicking on your new service within the client area of our website, and selecting the "Game Control Panel Login" button. Please reach out to our support team if you need this password reset.

Once you're in, you'll be presented with your servers! For this example, we have a Test User logged in with a single Mordhau server:

We can see here our server's "Friendly Name" (That is the name this instance is called within the control panel for organisation purposes - not in the game - we explain this later), its status via the Status Button (here it is a green play button, indicating the server is on and running, a "Management" drop-down menu which is the blue Wrench icon, the Info which is queried directly from the server from the panel (In this instance it is showing the server is currently playing a map called "The Pit" and there are 0/10 players active on the server"), and a quick server IP:Port for your reference. Starting with the Status Button this can have multiple states available to it - the following are some you will see quite often:

Server Turned Off:

We can see that the server is still responsive, however it is turned off. The Info column is empty as the server is not turned on, and would not have loaded a map. Other functions such as the File tool and changing config files are still available, however the server will not be visible in-game. Pressing the Status Button in this state (represented by the yellow button with a white Stop symbol in the middle) will turn the server on.

Server Turned On:

We can see here that the server is on, the server is responsive, and you're off to the races! The Info column contains the last reported statistics that were present when you last refreshed. All functionality is available to you, and the server will be visible in-game. Pressing the Status Button in this state (represented by the green button with a white Play symbol in the middle) will turn the server off.

Server Updating:

Here we can see the server is updating! This can be either via Automatic Update (you will receive an email when this occurs) or you have manually pushed for an update. This can take as little as seconds or up to 10 minutes depending on how large the update is. The server will not be visible in-game whilst it is updating, nor will there be anything in the Info column (it is effectively stopped during the update), and you should be wary not to update configuration files during this time. Pressing the Status Button in this state (represented by the light-blue button with the IO symbol in the middle) will do nothing. You will need to refresh this page to see when the server will be available for configuration/status change.

Server Installing:

This will be what you may see when you first login to the control panel, or if you initiate a Reinstall of your server. This can take as little as seconds in most cases, but can be up to 10-15 minutes depending on how large the game is, or if the game is not cached on the server. The server will not be visible in-game whilst it is installing, nor will there be anything in the Info column (the server doesn't exist yet), and you should be wary not to update configuration files during this time. Pressing the Status Button in this state (represented by the light-blue button with the Building Blocks symbol in the middle with a universal No symbol next to it) will do nothing. You will need to refresh this page to see when the server will be available for configuration/status change.

We follow this Knowledgebase article with a more in-depth look at your game/bot server within the panel and how to control it.