How to Enter Program Administration to a service that is already running?

[dj_ripcord]

Hello all,

 

Asking here because I couldn't figure out how to word this question into Google.

 

I am running a dedicated Terraria server on my linux machine. This machine also runs a webserver but that's unimportant. SSH sessions only last so long before they timeout due to inactivity. And when I start the server, I am greeted by the administration console. Problem is; if the server is already running, I don't know how to get into the admin console without starting the server again. And I'm not sure if running the start script again would cause a problem due to two instances running at once or if it simply woudn't work at all.

 

I am moderately familiar with Linux but sometimes bash gets the best of me. 

 

Do you folks know how I need to proceed? I think I can solve this using Screen but i'm not sure how to set it up.

 

Thanks!

[jake9000]

Here's a super quick 'n dirty rundown on Tmux: 

Prerequisite: have tmux installed. Should be available in every repo if you don't already have it. This is similar to screen, and most folks will prefer it since screen isn't really maintained anymore. 

 

1. enter the command tmux to enter a new session. 

2. Fire up your terraria server with your shell script or whatever. 

3. Detatch from the tmux session by hitting ctrl+B, D. Now the session is effectively in the 'background' and you are free to disconnect from ssh. 

4. When you want to get back to the server console, use tmux a to Attach to the session you left behind earlier. 

[dj_ripcord]

Just now, jake9000 said:

Here's a super quick 'n dirty rundown on Tmux: 

Prerequisite: have tmux installed. Should be available in every repo if you don't already have it. This is similar to screen, and most folks will prefer it since screen isn't really maintained anymore. 

 

1. enter the command tmux to enter a new session. 

2. Fire up your terraria server with your shell script or whatever. 

3. Detatch from the tmux session by hitting ctrl+B, D. Now the session is effectively in the 'background' and you are free to disconnect from ssh. 

4. When you want to get back to the server console, use tmux a to Attach to the session you left behind earlier. 

Yep this would work! That is.... if the server wasn't already running. I tried using rptyer to attach it to a new terminal but I was either unable to find the PID of the server or it would not give me permission. Even as sudo.

[Blake]

Screen is also an option. 

 

Use whichever you find easier

 

[Jarsky]

3 hours ago, dj_ripcord said:

Yep this would work! That is.... if the server wasn't already running. I tried using rptyer to attach it to a new terminal but I was either unable to find the PID of the server or it would not give me permission. Even as sudo.

to use a screen emulator, it needs to be started from screen/tmux first, in order to connect to the session. 

the ID is not the process id of the server, its the tmux session id. 

 

So you'd need to run ps aux | grep terraria to find the PID of the terraria server, and then kill -9 <pid> to terminate the current terraria server. 

Then restart it within a tmux session. 

 

You might be interested in this, which shows how to set it up with Screen as a systemd service https://www.linode.com/docs/game-servers/host-a-terraria-server-on-your-linode/

 

That way you can start/stop it using the 'service terraria start/stop' command. 

Basic screen commands are

screen -r (to attach, if you only have a single screen session)

screen -ls (list screen sessions)

screen -r pid/name (to attach a specific screen when more than 1 session)

 

 

[dj_ripcord]

9 hours ago, Jarsky said:

to use a screen emulator, it needs to be started from screen/tmux first, in order to connect to the session. 

the ID is not the process id of the server, its the tmux session id. 

 

So you'd need to run ps aux | grep terraria to find the PID of the terraria server, and then kill -9 <pid> to terminate the current terraria server. 

Then restart it within a tmux session. 

 

You might be interested in this, which shows how to set it up with Screen as a systemd service https://www.linode.com/docs/game-servers/host-a-terraria-server-on-your-linode/

 

That way you can start/stop it using the 'service terraria start/stop' command. 

Basic screen commands are

screen -r (to attach, if you only have a single screen session)

screen -ls (list screen sessions)

screen -r pid/name (to attach a specific screen when more than 1 session)

 

 

This ended up working.

 

I knew it would though, I just wanted to avoid using kill to terminate the process before the world could be saved. So I bit the bullet and did it anyway - ended up rolling back about 2 hours, but no one was playing so not a huge deal.