My puck server hosting guide

Last updated: 28 January 2026

Full credit to my friend MigoMipo for the system, just doing docs. You can find Puck at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2994020/Puck/

You’ll get an extended 1 month trial, and enough credits to run 2 to 4 Puck instances for 2 months. At the end of your trial month, you will need to make a one-time, minimum 10 euro deposit with Visa/Mastercard to continue using the account after this.

I’ll be using the 3 euro a month 1CPU/1GB developer plan here, which is good to run two 15-player 360-tick Puck instances. UpCloud only charges by the hour from your credit balance - no commitment!

Before you get started, set up your SSH keys following this guide, using PuTTY if you’re on a Windows-based PC: https://upcloud.com/docs/guides/use-ssh-keys-authentication/#putty

Any problems with SSH keys and I recommend asking questions to any AI chatbot, like Mistral’s Le Chat for example https://chat.mistral.ai/chat. Your private key file is your password - keep it safe.

I will indicate terminal commands to execute with code blocks. Please read the guide fully and carefully - I recommend to copy and paste commands where applicable.

1. Deploy your Linux server

Go to https://hub.upcloud.com/deploy
Choose your location. This should be geographically close to your playerbase
Select the €3.00 per month Developer plan
Select Debian GNU/Linux 13 (Trixie) as your operating system
Disable IPv6 and Utility networks (unless you want them for some reason)
Select the checkbox for your Public SSH key
Choose your hostname and server name
Deploy!

2. Connect to the server

Using PuTTY or your preferred SSH client, connect to the public IP address of the server as the root user. The IP should be visible under https://hub.upcloud.com/server. Check this guide for help https://upcloud.com/docs/guides/connecting-to-your-server/#putty

3. Copy and run the script from my GitHub repository

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pogsee/PuckerUp/main/PuckerUp.sh
chmod +x PuckerUp.sh
./PuckerUp.sh

4. Follow the instructions and prompts

Read the instructions carefully
Save the password provided at the end
Use this at the provided admin panel link

5. Start your servers

You can now at the admin panel link start your servers.

Final notes

The 3 euro plan cannot handle more than two Puck instances. Do not start the 3rd+4th one unless you have more cores/memory.

Overview of important fields

Server name: Self explanatory. You can even set colours and formatting - <b>name<b> for bold and <color=cyan>name</color> for colours
Max players: The maximum number of players that can join the server at once. Recommended to keep to 10 for public servers
Server password: Optionally sets a password players will need to enter to join the server
Public: Enables or disables whether the server appears in the Puck server list
Admin Steam IDs: Those with their steamID64’s here can run admin commands, like /pause, /resume, /kick, /ban etc

If you’re looking for high quality hosting, I have a promo code available for my host - sign up with promo code puck25 https://signup.upcloud.com/?promo=puck25