Overview

PalworldServer Tools is a PowerShell script used for administering dedicated Palworld servers running from Windows based hosts. Currently this is a tool without a GUI designed to run when called by task scheduler, sensors or other scripts. A GUI will hopefully be developed down the track, I need to learn how to create this first!

Note: This is an early version of this script and will likely have some bugs.
If you notice anything funky, would like additional functionality or have any questions, please raise an issue.
Please also see the Planned Changes section below.

Use Case:

At this stage, script is designed to be used locally with Task Scheduler (for updating/launching server)
Can also be used with HASS.Agent (or other tools) to issue and capture the results of RCON commands.
To use, call the script with launch parameters eg "& '.\PalworldServerTools.ps1' -save"

Note: It's early days, I'll look at developing a front end, auto refreshing CLI so you can server status (players online, version, update status etc).
You can also review the log file for what's happening when you're running commands that don't have a lot of CLI output.

Features:

Server Admin and RCON Calls
You can run RCON commands to retrieve data or initiate server actions.
Receive Server Information:

• INFO (or specifically Servername or server Version provided by info)
• Players online (including Player Count).

Issue Server Commands:

• Schedule a shutdown with a message
• Shutdown immediately
• Force a save
• Broadcast a message*
• Kick a player by using either their SteamID or playername.
• Ban a player by using either their steamID or playername. Script has the ability to ban player even if they're offline.

You can also check for updates (manually and at server launch), initiate updates, start and stop the server.

* Game bug not allowing messages with spaces to be sent, underscores should be used instead.
Note: An Auto Update feature is not implemented yet but I plan to add have a feature to regularly check for new versions and if so force a restart and update.

Shutdown Reminders
Want your server to restart daily or simply shutdown but want to give users some warning?
When using the script to launch the server again, it will schedule a shutdown (time to shutdown is configured by you in config.xml).
This will notify users periodically and more frequently the closer the server is to shutting down.
_{Shutting down server:
Starting Server while it's already running will initiate a graceful restart:}

Player Log
Capture a csv of all players who have visited your server, any playernames they may have used, when they were first and last seen.
This is useful if you need to ban someone who was on your server but is not currently online.
This is also useful if you want to enable whitelisting later on and need to know your players SteamID's.
You can also optionally capture who was online at what time in a daily text file (using -LogPlayers).

Server Setup Helper
Running the script with -setup will run through steps to install Palworld Dedicated server and configure Inbound & Outbound Firewall rules required.
If not setup already script will also setup SteamCMD and ARRCON.
This means you're only left with the task of configuring your Portforwarding and configuring your Palworld Server settings.

Daily Settings Switcher
Run daily events on your server! That's right you can have different settings for each day of the week.
Simply create the custom config (.ini) files and specify which day should load them. See Setup Information for more details.

Example Idea below:

Backups
When running the -backup parameter this will save a backup into a backup folder. Unless you specify a custom backup location in config, the default path for backups is "\Pal\Saved\SaveGames\Backups".
Feature is intended to be used on an hourly basis (using task scheduler) but can be used on a more frequently if desired.
This feature only works when the server is online to prevent useless backups being made. Backup feature includes an automatic cleanup to prevent disk space blowout:

• For any backups older than 30 days, the last backup of that month will be retained
• For any backups older than 7 days, the last backup of that day will be retained
• All backups taken within the last 7 days will be retained

Note: 'Days' is not taken from current date but rather by assessing how many days worth of backups you have and working backwards. EG If you go for 7 days with no backups, you'll still have 7 days worth of hourly restore points from the previous week.

Recommend that you save the backups to a Cloud sync'd location (eg. OneDrive, DropBox, Sync.com etc etc).
Optionally you can also redirect your entire SaveGames folder to the cloud using Symbolic links, see this reddit post for an old guide I wrote up on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/lxjdu7/guide_auto_cloud_backup_your_valheim_worldplayer/

Whitelisting
TBC FEATURE COMING SOON IN A FUTURE VERSION.
Ability to auto kick players who aren't in your whitelist.
Useful for if you want to have your server be passwordless for easier access or if you have people sneaking into a passworded server.

Useful for those with Home Assistant
For Home Assistant users, Using HASS.Agent on your windows PC you can setup PowerShell based sensors/commands to retrieve/send data to the server.
You can setup a card like this and share it with your players/mods for basic remote control functions without needing to give them the RCON password.

For more info see PalworldServerTools Home Assistant Documentation.

Setup Information

Download Script Release

1. Download Latest PalworldServerTools Release from my Github here.
   
2. Extract PalworldServerTools to any folder you want, I would recommend putting the files in the same folder as palserver.exe
   Note that ARRCON and SteamCMD will be automatically installed once script is run in a later step.
   

Optional - Configure your .ini files
If you want the script to load different server settings depending on what day it is, you'll need to create the .ini files. Otherwise you can skip this section.
Please note that the way that this feature works if the script is run with the -startthemed parameter, it will overwrite PalworldSettings.ini with the contents of your custom .ini files.

1. Copy the PalWorldSettings.ini from "\Pal\Saved\Config\WindowsServer" to "\Pal\Saved\Config\WindowsServer\CustomSettings".
   
   • Note that if you want to store the custom settings in a different location (eg a folder path that's sync'd to the cloud), this is fine but you must specify the location in the config.xml file (covered in the next section).
     
2. Rename the file you just copied to the custom folder to the name of the theme eg "Monday Funday.ini"
3. Edit this file to have the configuration options you want. See Palworld Documentation on the options available.
4. Ensure you mention the names of the .ini files you want to use in config.xml (covered in the next section). If you don't want to use this feature then set each day in config.xml to the same value as NormalSettingsName.

Configure the XML file
Configure the XML file with the settings appropriate for you. Descriptions of each config below:

• HostIP - IP of the Server.
• GamePort - Port that the server uses for connections. Default 8211.
• CommunityServer - Set to True if you want the server to be visibile in the community servers list
• RCONPort - Connection Port for RCON
• RCONPass - Administrator Password for RCON
• SteamCMDPath - Path to the folder steamcmd.exe sits in.
• ARRCONPath - Path to the folder ARRCON.exe should sit in. If left blank ARRCON will be installed to "C:\Program Files\ARRCON"
• ServerPath - Path to the folder that palserver.exe sits in. Cannot be left blank.
• BackupPath - Path of where backups are stored. Leave blank for default backup path (\Pal\Saved\SaveGames\Backup) or specify your own.
• ThemeSettingsPath - Path to where your custom.ini files live. Leave blank for the default path to be used (\Pal\Saved\Config\WindowsServer\CustomSettings")
• NormalSettingsName - Name of the file that you want your standard server settings (.ini file) to load from. Default "Normal Settings"
• AutoShutdownTimer - Used for restarting server. Time that server should wait until shutdown to give players a bit of notice.
• Monday..Sunday - Specify what settings (.ini) file you want to load from for each day of the week. Default "Normal Settings" Currently there is some basic validation to check if some of the info in the config file is valid.
  

Testing Script
You'll want to test the functions first and ensure there aren't any errors due to misconfiguration.

1. In Windows Explorer, browse to the folder where the script is sitting. In the Folder Path/Address bar type in powershell and press enter. This will open a Powershell terminal set to your scripts directory.
   
   
2. Enter in "& '.\PalworldServerTools.ps1' -info" to test (info as an example parameter). Obviously change the parameter for any other things you want to test.
3. If there are issues, you can review the log file in the folder where the script lives for further information.
4. Note that there may be some first time run setup tasks (eg installation of ARRCON and/or SteamCMD).

Optional Home Assistant Setup
See PalworldServerTools Home Assistant Documentation.

Configure Task Scheduler
If you need help or want to see examples, see PalworldServerTools Task Scheduler Documentation.

Usage

Launch Parameters available
At this stage this script is mostly a backend tool so these Parameters are the main means of performing tasks.
Parameters utilizing RCON:

• -Info - RCON request to return server Info.
• -Version - Used to specifically return server version text provided by -info
• -ServerName - Used to specifically return server name text provided by -info
• -ShowPlayers - Show the Names, PlayerUID and SteamID of all logged in players.
• -ShowPlayerNames - Show comma separated names of all logged in players.
• -ShowPlayerCount - Number of players online.
• -Shutdown - Used to initiate a planned shutdown. For general usage use: -Shutdown . Can also be used with -ShutdownTimer & -ShutdownMessage
• -Broadcast - To use this use -broadcast . Sends a message to all players. Note that as of the time of writing, it's not possible to send messages with spaces in them (game limitation).
• -DoExit - Schedule an immediate shutdown of the server.
• -Kick (or -kickplayer) - Used to kick a player. Script allows you to specify either steam ID or playername to kick.
• -Ban (or -banplayer) - Used to ban a player. Script allows you to specify either steam ID or playername to ban eg -ban shupershuff or -ban 1234567890123. If specified player isn't online, script will check against playernames and steam ID's of players who have previously joined the server. Note that if used from a web front end (eg Home Assistant) where CLI prompts can't be seen, playername or steamID MUST be typed perfectly.
• -Save - Force server to save data.

Server Launch and misc Parameters:

• -Setup - Run through steps to setup SteamCMD, Install Palworld Dedicated server, install ARRCON and configure Inbound & Outbound Firewall rules required.
• -Backup - If server is online, this will initiate a backup and save it to "<Year><MonthName><Day><TimeOfBackup>"
• -Start - Will check for updates and start the server using your "Normal" settings
• -StartThemed - Will check for updates and start the server using the 'themed' settings for whatever day it is. NOTE that this will overwrite PalworldSettings.ini with the contents of the .ini file you've specified in config.xml
• -LogPlayers - Write to PlayersOnline.txt so you can see who was online at what time. You can use this alongside any of the ShowPlayers parameters.
• -NoUpdate - To be used in conjuntion with -StartNoTheme or -StartThemed so that server starts immediately without checking for updates.
• -UpdateOnly - Will launch the script to update the Palworld server.
• -UpdateCheck - Used to check if there's updates available (but not update) and return either "Version Up to date" or "Update Available"
• -TodaysTheme - This will display the name of the settings (.ini) that has been loaded
• -NoLogging - This disables entries being written to the log file. Useful if you want to prevent sensors from writing to the log file every minute.

Parameters you'll likely not need, but they're here if you need them:

• -ServerPath - Used to specify server path. Parameter only useful if you're hosting more than one server.
• -ShowPlayersNoHeader - Show the names of all logged in players, but without the CSV header.
• -LaunchParameters - Used to specify custom launch parameters if they differ from the default. Can be left blank.
• -HostIP - Used to specify server address/domain. Parameter only useful if you're hosting more than one server.
• -RCONPort - Used to specify RCON Port. Parameter only useful if you're hosting more than one server.
• -RCONPass - Used to specify RCON Password. Parameter only useful if you're hosting more than one server.
• -ShutdownTimer - Used to specify how many seconds until shutdown should occur. If not specified it will use the value from the config file. Doesn't need to be explicitly used as -Shutdown also works.
• -ShutdownMessage - Used to customise the shutdown message. Doesn't need to be explicitly used as -Shutdown also works.

FAQ

• Nothing Yet!

Not seeing something here? Go to GitHub issues and log a request or issue.
Alternatively if you just want to have a yarn, head over to GitHub Discussions.

Planned Changes, Features & Fixes

• Automated Server update checks
• Add a means of checking whether there's a script update available from GitHub.
• Front End CLI or better yet a proper GUI (would love help if you're any good with this sort of thing).
• Fix stuff that doesn't work :)
• Not seeing something here? Go to GitHub issues and log a request, issue or question.

Known Issues

• Unable to broadcast any messages with spaces in them for broadcast or shutdownmessage. Appears to be a game bug.

Usage and Limitations

Happy for you to make any modifications this script for your own needs providing:

• Any variants of this script are never sold.
• Any variants of this script published online should always be open source.
• Any variants of this script are never modifed to enable or assist in any malicious behaviour including (but not limited to): Bannable Mods, Cheats, Exploits, Phishing, Botting.

Thanks and Credit for things I stole

• ARRCON - This tool makes use of another tool someone else on the internet made: https://github.com/radj307/ARRCON
• ChatGPT for helping with regex patterns.
• Google.com
• Thanks to Nintendo for releasing this game.

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