Your Terraria server runs Re-Logic's official dedicated server for Linux, downloaded from terraria.org, and it checks terraria.org for a newer build every time it restarts. There is no server list to appear in: players join by typing an address, and everything they need is on one card in your dashboard. This is the path from checkout to your group standing in your world together.
1. Find your server
Open your dashboard and select the new Terraria service. The Overview tab shows the server's status, the live console and the join card — the IP, port and password players type in. The Server Settings tab holds every value the game reads from its serverconfig.txt.
2. Read the join card
Three values, and only three, get a player in:
- IP and port — assigned at checkout and fixed for the life of the server. The game's default port is 7777, but the port on your card is the one to type; it may differ.
- Password — we generate an eight-character password at build time so a new server is not open to anyone who guesses the address. Change it or clear it on the Server Settings tab.
Send the three values by copy-and-paste. A port typed from memory is the most common reason a first join fails.
3. Check the world and player settings
While you are on Server Settings:
- World Name — taken from the server name you chose at checkout. The first start creates
saves/Worlds/<World Name>.wld. Changing the name later points the server at a different file — a new, empty world if none exists under that name — so treat it as "which world to load", not a label. Details in Backups & saves. - World Size — small, medium or large. The game reads it only when it creates a world.
- Difficulty — Classic, Expert, Master or Journey. Also fixed when the world is created; to change it you create a new world.
- Seed — optional, also creation-only.
- Max Players — 1 to 16, default 8. Sixteen is our cap on every plan.
- Password, MOTD (the message players see on joining) and Language.
- Update on restart — on by default. Leave it on; it is what keeps your server on the same version as the game.
Every change applies on the next restart. The full list is in Server Settings.
4. Restart and watch the console
Restart from the Overview tab and watch the console. With Update on restart on, the server first asks terraria.org which build is current and installs it if yours is older. On the first start it then generates the world — a medium world takes a little while, and the console shows the progress. The server is ready when the console prints Type 'help' for a list of commands.
5. Get your group in
On PC, each player opens Multiplayer → Join via IP, picks a character, and enters the IP, then the port, then the password from your card. Mobile players (iOS and Android) on the same game version can join a PC-hosted server the same way today.
Console players cannot join a dedicated server on today's version of Terraria. Re-Logic has said that joining by IP address and port is "the functionality that we plan to initially release on console" in 1.4.6, Crossplay Phase One, and as of its September 2026 State of the Game there is no release date. We keep the current position in Console crossplay status and update it when Re-Logic does.
6. Bringing a world you already have
If your group has a world on someone's PC, upload the .wld into saves/Worlds on the Files tab or over SFTP, set World Name to the file's name without the extension, and restart. Step by step in Backups & saves.
7. Before you invite everyone
- Versions must match. Re-Logic's own words for 1.4.5.8: "You will need the latest dedicated server." Players update through Steam or their store; your server updates on restart. After a game patch, restart.
- Stop and Restart save the world. The dashboard's power buttons send the game's
exitcommand, which is the one command that saves on shutdown. Pulling the plug any other way loses whatever happened since the last autosave. - Take a backup. The Backups tab snapshots the server; take one before your first experiment.
If something is not right
- Nobody can connect → work through Players can't join. It starts with the version check and the port — check those two before anything else.
- The world looks empty after a settings change → you changed the World Name, and the server made a new world. Your old one is still in
saves/Worlds; set the name back and restart. - Anything else → open a ticket from your dashboard and paste the last lines of the console.