Automatic pause the server when no players are connected

Configuring Automatic Pause

The AUTO_PAUSE feature puts the PalServer process to sleep when there are no online players.

It saves data before going to sleep.

It wakes up when it detects a client connection.

When in paused state, the world time stops.

This feature can be enabled by setting the environment variable AUTO_PAUSE_ENABLED to "true".

Variable	Info	Default Values	Allowed Values
AUTO_PAUSE_ENABLED	Enables automatic pause (Puts the server to sleep to save power when there are no online players)	false	true/false
AUTO_PAUSE_TIMEOUT_EST	default 180 (seconds) describes the time between the last client disconnect and the pausing of the process (read as timeout established)	180	Integer
AUTO_PAUSE_LOG	Enable auto-pause logging	true	true/false
AUTO_PAUSE_DEBUG	Enable auto-pause debug logging	false	true/false

Resume manually

A file called .paused is created in /palworld directory when the server is paused and removed when the server is resumed.

Other services may check for this file's existence before waking the server.

Alternatively, resume with the following command:

docker exec -it palworld-server autopause resume

Service control manually

A .autopause-disabled file can be created in the /palworld directory to make the server skip autopausing, for as long as the file is present.

Alternatively, you can control with the following command:

docker exec -it palworld-server autopause stop
docker exec -it palworld-server autopause continue

This autopause stop command is also used during automatic reboots, automatic updates, and container stops. It is also used to shutdown command via REST API/RCON.

With Community Server

If the environment variable COMMUNITY is true, A proxy server is started within the container to maintain registration on the community server list.

The proxy server captures communication with api.palworldgames.com.

The auto-pause service will replay captured data in the paused state.