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Server Manual

Environment

The server is affected by the state of various external parameters:

  • The "Resources" folder
  • The ENV (process environment)
  • The commandline arguments
  • The ServerConfig.toml file
  • The working directory

Resources Folder

The resources folder is created upon startup of the server, together with the "Client" and "Server" subdirectories. The "Server" subdirectory accepts folders within it, each containing at least one .lua file. Each of these folders in the "Server" subdirectory is called a "Plugin". .lua files contained in the top-level directory of a plugin are hot-reloaded on change. The "Client" subdirectory accepts only .zip files, which are loaded when the server starts, and assumed to not change during runtime.

ENV

General Settings

As of Server release v3.2.0, the BeamMP Server accepts environment variables, which override settings in the ServerConfig.toml. All ServerConfig variables which exist in the "General" category/section are PascalCase, the environment variables are ALL_CAPS and prefixed with BEAMMP_. For example, the MaxPlayers setting converted to ALL_CAPS is MAX_PLAYERS (note the _ where a new word starts), and prefixed it becomes BEAMMP_MAX_PLAYERS. This is the format followed for all "General" settings. The follwing ENV variables exist:

  • BEAMMP_DEBUG
  • BEAMMP_PRIVATE
  • BEAMMP_PORT
  • BEAMMP_MAX_CARS
  • BEAMMP_MAX_PLAYERS
  • BEAMMP_MAP
  • BEAMMP_NAME
  • BEAMMP_DESCRIPTION
  • BEAMMP_TAGS
  • BEAMMP_RESOURCE_FOLDER
  • BEAMMP_AUTH_KEY
  • BEAMMP_LOG_CHAT

Any environment variables corresponding to config parameters which are strings or numbers must be strings, for example BEAMMP_NAME="Cool Server", BEAMMP_NAME=Server1, BEAMMP_PORT=12345. Environment variables corresponding to config parameters which are booleans (true/false, on/off) must be either true or 1 (both meaning ON), or any other value (meaning OFF).

Provider Settings

These environment variables allow hosting providers (and other users with a larger number of servers), here called "providers", to overwrite certain provider-specific settings.

BEAMMP_PROVIDER_UPDATE_MESSAGE (since v3.2.2)

When set to a non-empty string, this replaces the entire update message, which by default is "NEW VERSION IS OUT! Please update to the new..." etc. It is REQUIRED that the update message you provide contains {} somewhere, which the server will replace with the new version number. For example, your update message could look like:

BEAMMP_PROVIDER_UPDATE_MESSAGE="NEW VERSION of the BeamMP-Server has been released: {}! Please follow the update guide here: https://example.com/update-guide"
Which would result in an update message like
NEW VERSION of the BeamMP-Server has been released: v5.0.2! Please follow the update guide here: https://example.com/update-guide

Please take care to make it clear to the users that they should update, and explain how to update.

Commandline arguments

Run the BeamMP Server with the --help argument to learn more. For example: ./BeamMP-Server --help.

ServerConfig.toml

This file is generated on first startup. Comments inside the file are the most up-to-date way to understand what each setting does.

Working directory

The working directory of the server, not the location of the server executable, is the deciding factor on where the ServerConfig.toml, server log files, and Resources folder, are generated.

Limitations

The following limitations are enforced in the BeamMP Backend, which affects the Servers:

  • Name is limited to 250 characters
  • Description is limited to 1000 characters
  • Map is limited to 100 characters
  • Tags are limited to 100 characters