WINGS SETUP

Wings is the lightweight Go daemon that runs on every node server. It communicates with the panel over a secure WebSocket connection and manages Docker containers for each game server.

Architecture overview

The panel itself does not run game servers — it only coordinates. Wings runs on separate node machines (can be the same VPS or different ones) and receives instructions from the panel API. Each node requires its own Wings installation.

Node requirements

1 — Install Docker

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | bash
systemctl enable --now docker

2 — Create Wings directory

mkdir -p /etc/pterodactyl
mkdir -p /var/lib/pterodactyl/{volumes,backups,logs}

3 — Download Wings binary

curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/wings \
  "https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings/releases/download/v1.12.1/wings_linux_amd64"
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/wings

4 — Create the node in the panel

1. Log into the wolfXcore admin area at /admin/nodes.
2. Click Create New.
3. Fill in: name, FQDN (node.xwolf.space), port (8080), memory & disk allocations.
4. Set Communication over SSL to Yes if Wings is behind SSL.
5. Save. Then navigate to the Configuration tab of the new node.
6. Click Generate Token — copy the YAML config block.

5 — Write the Wings config

Paste the generated YAML into /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml.

A typical config looks like:

debug: false
uuid: NODE-UUID-HERE
token_id: TOKEN-ID-HERE
token: TOKEN-SECRET-HERE
api:
  host: 0.0.0.0
  port: 8080
  ssl:
    enabled: true
    cert: /etc/letsencrypt/live/node.xwolf.space/fullchain.pem
    key:  /etc/letsencrypt/live/node.xwolf.space/privkey.pem
  upload_limit: 100
system:
  data: /var/lib/pterodactyl/volumes
  sftp:
    bind_port: 2022
remote: 'https://panel.xwolf.space'
remote_configuration: 'https://panel.xwolf.space'

6 — SSL certificate for the node

apt install -y certbot
certbot certonly --standalone -d node.xwolf.space \
  --agree-tos -m admin@xwolf.space --no-eff-email

Add a cron to auto-renew:

echo "0 3 * * * root certbot renew --quiet \
  --deploy-hook 'systemctl restart wings'" \
  >> /etc/cron.d/certbot-renew

7 — Systemd service

[Unit]
Description=Pterodactyl Wings Daemon
After=docker.service
Requires=docker.service
PartOf=docker.service

[Service]
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/etc/pterodactyl
LimitNOFILE=4096
PIDFile=/var/run/wings/daemon.pid
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/wings
Restart=on-failure
StartLimitInterval=180
StartLimitBurst=30
RestartSec=5s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemctl enable --now wings
systemctl status wings

8 — Port allocations

Allocations are the IP + port combinations that Wings can assign to game servers. Without them the panel refuses to create servers ("allocation id is required"). Add them once per node; they are shared across all servers on that node.

Go to Admin → Nodes → xwolf-node-1 → Allocations and enter the node IP with a port or range, then click Submit. Alternatively, insert them directly via SQL (fastest for bulk setup):

-- Run inside the wolfxcore database
INSERT INTO allocations (node_id, ip, ip_alias, port, created_at, updated_at)
VALUES
  (1, '161.97.100.158', 'node.xwolf.space', 25565, NOW(), NOW()),
  (1, '161.97.100.158', 'node.xwolf.space', 25566, NOW(), NOW());
-- Or use a range — see installation guide for the full loop query

xwolf-node-1 — current allocation ranges

9 — Firewall rules

ufw allow 8080/tcp   # Wings API
ufw allow 2022/tcp   # SFTP
ufw allow 443/tcp    # HTTPS (if panel on same node)
ufw allow 80/tcp     # HTTP (cert renewal)
ufw enable

Verifying the connection

After Wings starts, check it connected successfully:

1. In the panel admin area, go to Nodes.
2. The node should show a green heartbeat dot.
3. If red — check journalctl -u wings -f for errors.
4. Verify the panel's URL is reachable from the node machine.

Updating Wings

systemctl stop wings
curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/wings \
  "https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings/releases/download/vX.Y.Z/wings_linux_amd64"
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/wings
systemctl start wings