Terraria

A Terraria world is more fun when it keeps existing while you're asleep. Normally that means leaving a PC on for the whole playthrough and forwarding a port through your router, which is why most groups end up playing on whoever's machine happens to be awake.

This is a dedicated Terraria server running TShock, always on, at a fixed address your friends can save. Your world lives on backed-up storage rather than someone's desktop, and TShock adds the server-side tooling vanilla lacks: player accounts and permissions, regions you can protect from griefing, bans, and a long list of commands for running a world other people play in.

Get a 7-day trial of ElfHosted Terraria!

How do I connect?

Terraria is not a web app, so there is nothing to open in a browser. You connect from the game itself.

In Terraria: Multiplayer → Join via IP, then enter your server's address, your-username-terraria.direct.elfhosted.com, and its port when prompted.

Where do I find my port?

Your port is in your welcome email, and on your account page in the store. It is assigned to you and does not change, so once your friends have saved the address and port they never need to change either.

Your password

Your server ships password protected, because it is reachable from the internet and the address is predictable. The default is:

changemeelfie

Change it. It is the same for every new server, so until you change it, anyone who knows the convention can wander into your world.

Set TERRARIA_PASSWORD to whatever you like using ElfBot. Your server restarts and picks it up in a few seconds.

If you'd rather run an open server, set TERRARIA_PASSWORD to an empty value. Bear in mind that "nobody will find it" is not true of a public address.

Using your own domain

Prefer terraria.example.com to the address above? Point a CNAME at it from any domain you own:

terraria.example.com.  CNAME  yourname-terraria.direct.elfhosted.com.

(substituting your own ElfHosted username for yourname)

Then your friends connect to terraria.example.com on the same port. There's nothing to buy or configure on our side, because Terraria speaks raw TCP with no certificates involved, so a plain DNS record is all it takes.

How do I use it?

First launch takes a few minutes

Your world is generated the first time the server starts, and generating a large world takes several minutes. The server isn't reachable until it finishes. Later restarts load the existing world in seconds.

Worlds default to large. Set TERRARIA_WORLD_SIZE to 1 (small), 2 (medium) or 3 (large) via ElfBot before first launch. Changing it afterwards does nothing on its own, because the world already exists.

TERRARIA_WORLD_NAME names the world, and TERRARIA_SEED sets a specific seed if you want a particular world layout.

Becoming the server admin

TShock's permissions are separate from the game. On first join, the server log prints a /setup command with a one-time numeric code. Run that in the game's chat to claim superadmin, then create yourself an account with /user add. TShock's documentation covers accounts, groups and regions in depth.

Region protection is the feature most groups end up wanting: it prevents anyone (invited friends included) from editing the bits of the world you'd rather keep intact.

Backups

Your world is on backed-up storage, and TShock takes its own periodic world saves alongside. If something goes catastrophically wrong, the world file can be restored like any other file in your storage.

What this is not

Terraria's dedicated server is not modded Terraria: tModLoader is a different program and this isn't it. TShock is server-side only, so every player connects with an ordinary, unmodified Terraria client. That's a feature: nobody has to install anything.

Terraria also works with

• FoundryVTT

• DungeonRevealer

How do I get support for Terraria?

1. For general use of Terraria, refer to the official site or to one of the links in the resources section below.

2. For specific support re your ElfHosted configuration / account, see the ElfHosted support options!

Terraria resources

• Terraria (official site)

• Terraria TShock Documentation

• Terraria Terraria Wiki (Server)

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