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Documentation

PufferPanel

Connect a PufferPanel installation and Provibr provisions, controls and imports game servers on it. This page covers what differs from the other game panels.

OAuth2 credentials

PufferPanel authenticates with an OAuth2 client rather than an API key: a client ID and a client secret. Create one in the panel under your account, then paste both into Provibr along with the panel URL.

  • Host: the full panel URL, for example http://panel.example.com:8080. Port 8080 is a fresh install's default; a panel behind a reverse proxy runs on 443, and there is no port Provibr can add without guessing.
  • Client ID: the OAuth2 client identifier.
  • Client secret: the secret that belongs to that client.
  • TLS fingerprint (optional): only for an https:// host, to pin the certificate.
The client secret is shown once, when the client is created. Copy it straight away: PufferPanel does not show it again, and a half-copied secret gives a plain authentication error rather than telling you it is incomplete.

What the client may do follows the account it belongs to. Give it an administrator account so it can create and remove servers.

Transport

A fresh PufferPanel serves plain HTTP on port 8080. If the panel is behind TLS with a self-signed certificate, fill in its fingerprint; the agent then trusts that one certificate instead of turning verification off. Read it with:

shell
openssl s_client -connect <host>:443 </dev/null 2>/dev/null | \
  openssl x509 -noout -fingerprint -sha256
Commands and terminal output are in English everywhere, in the panel and in these pages. One text, one truth: what you read here is literally what your host will print back.

Leave the field empty for a certificate from a public authority, and also when the panel is reachable over http only. A fingerprint next to an http address is refused, because there is no certificate to pin. A panel on plain http does work, but the client secret and everything the integration does then travel unencrypted.

Templates

PufferPanel builds a server from a community template, such as minecraft or factorio, rather than a numbered egg. Provibr lists the templates by name; the full definition, with its variables, is fetched when you order, so the plan's variable editor falls back to the template's defaults.

A community template defaults to a host environment, which needs binaries a fresh panel host does not have. Provibr switches to the template's docker variant, which carries them in its image. Otherwise the server would fail to build with a missing-binary error.

Plans

A game plan carries the template name and the resource limits. Ordering is plan-driven and there is no manual path: PufferPanel needs the full template definition inline, which is exactly what a catalogue does for you.

Placement

PufferPanel exposes its nodes but not their memory, disk or CPU. Provibr still reports the node, but with unknown capacity, because a game panel with no node at all cannot be ordered.

The engine places on such a node without ranking it on free space, because there is nothing to measure. A multi-node panel is picked by name order, not by which node has the most room.

Lifecycle

Create, start, stop, restart, kill, reinstall and delete all work. Deleting stops the server first, because the daemon refuses to remove a running container.

Suspending

PufferPanel has no suspend of its own. When Provibr suspends a game server to enforce a licence limit, it stops the container and blocks access to it in the Provibr panel.

Because the panel does not enforce the suspension, anyone with direct access to the PufferPanel installation can start the server again. The block is a Provibr concept, not a panel one, which is what makes it honest to say the provider does not enforce it.

What Provibr does not do

There is no console: PufferPanel's is poll-based rather than a live terminal. Usage graphs stop at CPU and memory, because that is all the panel's stats endpoint reports. Provibr does not manage the panel, its nodes, files, backups or users; a game server on the panel is the integration.