Terraria server quickstart

Terraria multiplayer on Falix is close to a one-button job: pick a flavor, set a couple of variables, press Start, and the server builds your world for you on the first boot. This guide gets you from an empty panel to friends digging next to you in about ten minutes.

Step 1: create the server

Go to Servers → Create server, open the Games tab, and choose Terraria. Terraria comes in three flavors, offered as separate software — pick the one that fits:

💡 Tip: Not sure which flavor? Start with Vanilla — you can always create another server later.

For a walkthrough of the create page itself, see the Knowledge Base: creating a server.

Step 2: set your world variables

Open the Settings page and its Environment tab — this is where a server's variables live, and they're editable on every plan. Terraria's Vanilla server gives you three worth setting:

• WORLD_NAME — the name of the world file that gets created.
• MAX_PLAYERS — how many people can be online at once.
• WORLD_SIZE — how large the generated world is.

Set them to whatever you like before the first start, since that's when the world is built. You can leave the defaults, too — the server will still create a playable world.

Step 3: start it (the world builds itself)

Press Start and watch the Console page. On this first boot, with no world file present yet, the server generates one using the name and size you set — TShock does this via its -autocreate, and the others create the world for you as well. World generation takes a moment; let it finish. Once it's done, the console settles into the running server, ready for players.

Step 4: get your friends in

Terraria has no SRV shortcut, so players always need the address and the port. Open the Network page, copy the address and port shown there, and share both.

⚠️ Heads up: Terraria has no SRV shortcut — players always need both the address and the port from the Network page. In Terraria, your friends choose Multiplayer → Join via IP, enter the address, then enter the port when asked. That's the whole join flow.

What survives, and what doesn't

Your world lives in the server's files and rides through everything you do day to day: restarts, stops, and the free-plan sleep all keep it. The one thing that can wipe it is a reinstall — the Reinstall action on the Settings page's Danger tab re-runs the install (and offers a "delete all files" option), and switching the server to a different game reinstalls it too. Either can take your world with it.

⚠️ Heads up: Before you reinstall or switch games, take a backup — on the free plan, backups save to your own Google Drive. A world file is small; there's no reason to lose one.

Verify it works

Two signals tell you everything's good: the Console shows the world finishing generation and the server listening for players, and when someone joins, the console prints their arrival. If a friend can connect and see your world, you're done.

Troubleshooting

• Friends can't connect — the most common miss is leaving off the port. Terraria needs the address and the port from the Network page, every time. If the address is right and it still fails, check the server is actually started: I can't reach my server.
• No world was created — make sure the server actually reached the running state on that first boot (watch the console for generation to complete). Confirm WORLD_NAME and WORLD_SIZE are set on the Environment tab, then restart.
• Server stopped while nobody was playing — that's the free plan working as designed. Free Terraria-family servers get roughly a 60-minute grace window when unreachable, and they stop when empty; bring the session back from the Timer page. Full details in How free game servers work.
• Mods aren't loading (tModLoader) — mods live in the ~/mods folder; upload them there with the File Manager, and remember every player needs the same mods to join.

Next steps

• How free game servers work
• Factorio server quickstart
• More games you can host