The command box at the bottom of the Console tab lets you talk directly to your running server, and learning a few habits makes it one of the most useful tools in the panel.
The top of the Console is the live log, where you watch the server start, see players join and leave, and read any errors. At the very bottom is a text box. Whatever you type there and send with Enter goes straight to the server as a command, exactly as if you were typing into the game's own server console.
Server commands, not computer commands
An important thing to understand: these are the game server's commands, not operating-system or SSH commands. Typing ls or dir does nothing useful here. What works depends entirely on the game you are running. Where you find the exact list varies:
- Many games respond to help typed in the box, which prints the available commands to the log.
- The game's own wiki or documentation lists its full admin command set.
- Some behaviours are set as variables on the Startup tab rather than typed as commands.
Commands you will use a lot
The exact words differ per game, but most servers have an equivalent of these:
- A save command to write the world to disk, for example save-all in Minecraft.
- A list or players command to see who is online.
- A broadcast command to message everyone, for example say Welcome to the server.
- Kick and ban commands to moderate players.
- A stop command to shut the server down cleanly, which does the same job as the Stop button.
Habits that make it easier
- The box only works while the server status is Running. If your command seems to vanish, check the status pill first.
- You can press the Up arrow in the box to bring back commands you typed earlier, which saves retyping long ones.
- Read the log reaction after every command. The server almost always prints a confirmation or an error, and that line tells you whether it worked.
- You can select and copy text from the log, which is handy when you want to paste an error into Discord for help.
A couple of cautions
- Do not paste passwords, tokens or private keys into the command box. The log is visible to anyone with Console access, including sub-users.
- Before running a bulk or destructive command, such as one that clears entities or resets an area, take a snapshot on the Backups tab. Restoring overwrites current files, so a fresh backup is your undo button.
- If a command does nothing at all, it is usually a typo or a command the game does not recognise. Run help and check the spelling rather than repeating it.
Once you are comfortable typing commands by hand, you can automate the ones you run on a timer, like a nightly save or announcement, using the Send command task on the Schedules tab.
Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.