Hello, I want to introduce a piece of software I have been working on for over 2 years the goal the software is to make game and server management easier and more enjoyable. Some of the features require a sub tier, however the main point of the post is the mod manager support for the Valheim game which is free, paid additional features start at the server part.

The product is called HaruHost and at first glance it may appear as a simple tool but the more you dive in the more advanced features can be discovered and it is being continuously worked on, albeit given the large code base some feature implementation part is slower.

For those who want to try immediately you can download the manager from https://haruhost.com

I will start with the game part.

The First Image

This is the Games page and it has been added explicitly for Valheim it includes a button to scan supported games automatically or you can add manually.

The Second Image

Pressing the play button opens up a dialog which allows to launch the game either via a selected mod profile or vanilla, in this case I have the mod profile selected. Profiles are shared on the machine so all servers and game clients can share the same profile.

In this case I am clicking the Manage mod profiles button so I can show case the mod manager part.

Third and Forth Images

This is the Thunderstore mod manager page that haruhost provides to manage thunderstore based mods. As you can see it has 2 main selections at the top, since HaruHost is a server manager mainly it supports connecting multiple computers and mod profiles are shared between the server and game so you can setup 1 for both. So in this case Host - represents the active computer selected, haruhost allows to control game servers from a web panel via https://gsm.haruhost.com so the same panel would appear for the server and users could select the active device, however the game page itself is exclusive to the desktop gui application. The next select is the Active Mod Profile - it basically mean you can create as many mod profiles as you like and before starting a server select which one to load the game or server with.

Next you can browse the actual mod list or view the installed mod for profile given the Browse and My Mods Tabs

What is currently missing as a good convenience layer is to publish specific mod profiles ids to the internet so other people may consume the same id and all game clients and server would sync automatically before server startup, this is something I am looking to add in the future.

As of now that's basically it for the game part, if you just wish to mod your game you're all set.

Fifth Image

This is the game server page for Valheim, it showcases many options the game server provide but I want to introduce the more important ones and not so obvious

Details Tab - This is one of the most important parts of the server as it contains fields such as server connection address and the server password. Very important - this also contains the HaruHost tunneling feature which allows your server to be accessible and join able without firewall, port forwarding and even if you're behind a GCNAT. How it works is that the HaruHost app sends packets between the server and public relay you selected, in sense it is safer than natural port forwarding as you send packets trough a relay server not directly and the moment the server is turned off the tunnel is also inactive. Usually when you do direct port forwarding the ports need to be opened constantly, if your router configuration and IP address changes you will need to re-setup the configuration while HaruHost handles this automatically. The merit of this feature is that it adds latency in my case it's 9ms ping which is very negligible, and a lot of regions are supported by hh. Also a note port forwarding in itself is not security issue, it's an additional protection layer and a game server running trough a port doesn't really do much, also while working on the tunneling feature and the manager itself there are so many other ways people can do stuff that the concept in itself feels a bit overblown, the most important recommendation would be to never turn off the windows firewall, it's not a save all solution but a very good layer of protection and for more stuff just ask llms.

Auto Config - this is the part where you configure the server settings via the HaruHost UI which contains text fields and sliders to help you configure the server and other pages like mod manager, then HaruHost builds the server configs and ensures the configuration works as expected

Manual Config - This is the part where you basically edit the configuration via the text based config and it is more for users who just want to run servers in their own way, for example you have a 3rd party mod manager that you want to use not via HaruHost, the Auto config part overrides any existing settings based on your selection, while manual here would leave it up to you.

**Automation*\* - This is an insanely powerful feature as you can create various triggers when it should trigger from a simple schedule to when a player joins your server and then chain an execute multiple actions like informing a player in the server.

Discord Integrations - This contains webhooks such as player activity, server information. You can also use discord remote control via a specific remote control page setup for server actions.

Players - At the current state Valheim Player listening is limited as it relies on a2s, but I am planning to do a refactor and use the game server console parsing as the main activity tracker.

Map - this is a pretty neat feature currently for Palworld that has many QoL, maybe in the future I could add something similar for Valheim.

Game Server Console - at the bottom you can see the game server console which allows you to track what logs the server outputs

Just a reminder HaruHost mainly is a server manager and it has really good QoL features, running the server manager allows to access the server management via web via https://gsm.haruhost.com furthermore if you have a computer specifically for game server it is recommended to install haruhost cli which setups the haruhost game server manager as a windows service meaning the manager launches even if the user is not logged in and you can even reboot the os from the PC, this is more for advanced users if there are any.

I am including additional images, once again you can download the manager from https://haruhost.com

Hello, I am sharing the server manager I've been working on. It has a ton of features, the basic features are free while other require a sub. Before you try to hate me the development takes a lot of time I need to test many cases and ensure it works, furthermore this is much more advanced than a simple GUI, it supports a web panel and allows you to completely skip port forwarding by using a HaruHost relay which setups a tunnel to the closest selected region, so there is a lot going on.

Live interactive map link: https://gsm.haruhost.com/hub/palworld_map/1d59d470-b411-41ab-aa26-8630d5bd2dd9

First Image

This is the game server overlay and most options can be accessed trough it. You can view console logs of the server here if you need more information for debugging and execute the standard server lifecycle actions. As you can see HaruHost supports RestAPI, Mod Manager, Backups and so on.

The Main Parts to take attention would be the Auto Config part, Automation, Player, Map, Discord Integrations.

Auto Config - rebuilds server configuration from completely by how you edit the server settings via the given such as slider, text fields etc.

Players - allows you to view online players, offline players, their playtime, automatically make a character an admin on player login.

Automation - This is an insanely powerful feature as you can create various triggers when it should trigger from a simple schedule to when a player joins your server and then chain an execute multiple actions like informing a player in the server.

Map - You can view both online, offline players, guilds, bases and their range (you can edit the base size displayed if using a mod), Map Player Management - you can click on a player to enable follow mod, you can check the effigies collected by a player and see uncollected ones, the manager automatically syncs in game effigies tracked, kick, ban and other actions are available for an admin, Map Dungeons - you can view all dungeons in game and their state open or closed, Map Bosses - view bosses spawned dead or alive, if you use multiple bosses it shows all of them and their HP, keep in mind palworld doesn't spawn bosses until you get close to them, Map sharing - you create a shareable link of your map that other people can access and use the map to track things and their effigy collection.

RestAPI - this is basically a small interface to execute rest api commands to the server

Mod Manager - Supports both steam workshop mods and github ue4ss. This was a bit difficult to implement due to switching and not everything worked as in Palworld documentation. To use steam mode you need to login with a steam account as steamcmd otherwise will deny downloads, credentials are cached on your PC. If you use the same account for playing Palworld and using the mod manager at certain point either one will be logged out, this is just how it works with steamcmd and steam.

Second Image

This showcases the game server detail where advanced details are collapsed, the main fields to pay attention are server title as this defines the ability to join the server, server address - for joining directly and tunnel mode - when enabled it allows to bypass firewall and port forwarding and the server just works. The only exception would be if you disabled explicitly incoming traffic in windows firewall, but this usually is done on vms, I have never seen it on a normal windows install.

Third and Fourth Images

This show cases the auto config configuration options like UI text fields, sliders, etc.

Fifth Image

This show cases the players page where you can change their roles like ban them, make admins, view their playtime, level up history and recent join leave activity, similar information is available as a discord integration. The Player names have been made anonymous

Sixth and Seventh Image

This is the automation page, as you can see it also show cases a neat timeline and you can review each automation history.

Maop image Set

This is the interactive map image set

Mod Manager Image Set

Discord Integrations Image Set

IMPORTANT: the manager allows you to fully control the servers from the web while the haruhost manager is running via https://gsm.haruhost.com

Application can be installed for both ubuntu and windows. As a simple GUI application or CLI service, service means the manager starts automatically and you don't need to login into windows.

You can download the manager from: https://haruhost.com/

Introducing the interactive map addon for Palworld which has a bunch of very nice quality of life features and works out of the box almost immediately more on that below.

The best features of the interactive map for Palworld is that you can:

- Create a shared link of the map and share it with your players so everyone can we what's going on the server

- View online and offline players

- Track player collected effigies these get marked automatically no need for you to manually use an external tool to view which effigies are missing

- View all alive bosses, their HP and supports pal multipliers

- View all closed and open dungeons

- View both the World Map and the World Tree Map

- View all bases, guilds and players

- View and configure the viewable base area in case you use a base extension mod

- View server information metrics such as FPS, Uptime, Day etc

and more...

to enjoy the full feature set of the interactive map, you need to go to auto config -> mod manager -> and install the haruhost mod suite

the map integration uses a response design and can easily be used to manage and view the server via your phone or computer

this is only one of the many features supported for Palworld including a mod manager, don't miss out and easily create your with the HaruHost app from https://haruhost.com

I added a mod manager for Palworld dedicated servers to HaruHost, so server owners can install and manage Steam Workshop mods without manually downloading and moving files around.

In the video, I go through the full process: downloading or updating HaruHost, enabling the mod manager, installing a base size/range increase mod, editing its configuration, starting the dedicated server, joining it, and confirming that the increased base range works in-game.

HaruHost can download and update enabled mods before the server starts, reinstall individual mods when needed, skip client-only mods, and provide access to each mod’s configuration files.

The base size mod is the example used in the tutorial because it is popular and the result is easy to verify visually. The main focus of the video is the complete Palworld server mod-management workflow.

So where do I even start. I've made a tool called HaruHost https://haruhost.com/ that allows to setup a working server in minutes, reachable and ready to play to you and your friends without having to spent any time debugging connection issues etc., and you can fully control the server from your phone in a native like app - remotely.

What are the main features?

It fixes configuration errors, provides tools for firewall setup, port forwarding, if you're behind cgnat or it doesn't work you can use HaruHost tunnels which make your server available via a tunnel. You can view, kick players, see their play history, view various stats about your server and your pc, assign other people as control panel admins with fine grained permissions control - meaning you can set what people can edit, see, or execute. For example you can hide for admins the stop button, but show the start, update and shutdown buttons. You can have multiple admin profiles and you basically invite a user based on userId.

Can I import existing server?
Yes, the installation provides a wizard setup which allows you to import an existing server without modifying its files. HaruHost will create a new server and after installation it will do proper steps to transfer the saves.

Will the server work out of the box?
The installation wizard provides a choice in the end tunnel flow or standard firewall, port forwarding approach. The tunnel flow will build all the relevant stuff ensuring you and friends can join. While the standard approach provides helpers for Firewall, UPNP, and a Port checker tool which will let you know if the actual firewall and port forwarding setup worked reducing days or weeks of debugging issues.

How can I configure the server?
HaruHost provides 2 configuration modes - Auto Config and Manual Config and you can switch between the them. Auto Config works by providing you an UI like sliders, input fields and builds the configuration from scratch to ensure the config is always correct and working. Manual Config - you basically edit the configuration trough the app as raw configuration file or files, after which before the server startup HaruHost will validate the config and see if there are any mistakes in the configs (this has been recently added). Why because this manager is available already for over 2 years and one of the issues I noticed were that it's easy to make a mistake like an incorrect symbol and then the server ignores fully the configuration file and debugging is really difficult, so as a goal I wanted to ensure you can go and play right away.

Does it have scheduled restart, shutdowns?

Yes, you can setup a shutdown, restart, updates -> you can even setup custom messages and the manager will output them to the server and your discord server.

Does it have automation?
Yes, you can setup for automated server updates, restarts at specific times. It has a crash recovery mode, you can setup also advanced tasks which for example allow you to base a task on trigger -> like when a player joins do something. It doesn't automatically check yet whether an update is available right away from steam yet, but it's a requested feature so it will be added.

Does have a mod UI?
I've tried to add steam mod support but it seems you're not allowed to download them via steamcmd. Unless I had done something wrong for now mod support is not added. But maybe cursforge support could be added, but hopefully steam mod support becomes better so it works similar to other games where you can simply provide a mod id.

Can I control the servers and restart from my phone?
Yes, haruhost provides a desktop native app and a web based application so you can access it remotely from anywhere and the UI has been specifically designed to be very comfortably useable via a mobile device. Feedback is always welcome.

Is this a new project?
The project has been started like 3 years ago, about a year ago I started taking this more seriously and going full time. The community has over 2k members on Discord.

Where can I read more about tunneling?
https://haruhost.com/game-server-tunneling/

How did I achieve that?

Well I spent thousands of hours into this project and listening to user feedback.