Blacksmith's Portal Update: Exciting New Features, Enhancements, and Innovations

This Christmas, we’re thrilled to come together as a team to send our warmest wishes to you! May your holiday season be filled with joy, warmth, and unforgettable moments with loved ones.

We’ve been hard at work, just like Santa’s elves, to bring you a special gift this season: our latest panel update! It’s packed to the brim with exciting enhancements to your favorite features and delightful surprises we can’t wait to share.

So, without further ado, let’s unwrap everything our latest update has to offer! You won’t want to miss what’s inside!

General Feature Updates

We’re excited to announce that we’ve rolled out a series of updates to enhance our theme, addressing security-related bugs along the way. Your experience is our top priority, and these improvements are designed to keep it safe and enjoyable!

• Patched a rendering bug in the file manager on mobile devices
• Fixed the click to copy on several items on the Dashboard page
• Added Console to the dashboard page when an install is running
• Added input validation in several locations around the panel
• Fixed errors when navigating the Recycle Bin over SFTP
• Resolved a Cloudflare API issue with the Subdomain Manager
• Resolved syntax issue by setting a Timezone different than UTC and using either /, -, or , in your cronjob.

Database Import/Export Updates (Updated)

After our first release, our community provided fantastic feedback, and we have enhanced and added multiple features.

• Added support to import remote databases
• Added delimiter support for imports
• It is no longer slower than Santa in a room filled with cookies and milk
• Fixed SQL formatting issues with newlines when exporting a database

Server Splitter (Returning)

It is back and way better than before. Now, no longer potentially wipe your data with a weird edge case when deleting your split servers. We have massively improved the UI and several other features. We have a quick guide to walk you through your first server split. If you need any help, please let us know.

• Fixed CPU assignment
• Fixed the deleted server split that would cause data loss in the main server
• Memory and Disk can be defined in Gigabytes instead of Megabytes
• Added error highlighting to make it clear if a required input was missed or invalid
• Fixed sub-user permission issues
• Resources are now synced across all split servers
• Subusers are now synced to split servers (great for a Minecraft server network)
• You can update a split server resources with our deleting and recreating it

Game Swap Overhaul (Updated)

Game Swap has been one of our customers’ favorite features, and as such, we have done some polishing and enhancements to make it easier than ever to switch games. Check out our updated guide.

• Game Swap has been moved to the Settings page due to the size the dedicated Game Swap page had gotten to large to navigate easily
• UI overhaul
• Prompts and implications/consequences of Swapping a Game are clearly stated

Auto Port Allocations (New)

To make Game Swap even easier, we are rolling our automatic port allocations and assignments when a customer uses Game Swap to switch to another game. This completely removes the need for a ticket to get games up and running that require multiple ports. Please note that this has not yet been released for all games and may change the primary port allocation on your server so that the required port ranges can be assigned to your server.

Log Pusher (New)

We have added an easier way to send logs to our support staff. The console now has a clipboard icon, which you can click to create and copy a link to your clipboard for everything currently displayed.

Schedule Predefined Templates (New)

Cron syntax on the schedules page can be confusing, so we have implemented one of our most requested features. Now, a new button on the schedule page houses all of our predefined templates. Right now, we have two defined templates. You can always use our guide if you need to make any additions or changes to the templates.

• Daily Server Restarts
• Daily Server Backup

Templates (Major Update)

Templates are no longer limited to Minecraft servers. We can now build standard server configurations and mod setups as prepackaged builds that you can install with a single click. We do not have much here yet, but much more will come soon (e.g., Terraria Modpacks).

• Added support for all games
• Templates can now update Startup commands

Config File Editor (New)

No more searching in the file manager for game config files. Config files are now in an easy-to-find area where you can easily view and edit their contents. This will support all games and support each of our games will be rolled out of next month. Here is our guide to get you started.

Server Importer (Updated)

• Updated UI
• Added ability to include multiple credential sets
• Added ability to paste connection strings
• Fixed File transfer time outs on servers larger than 50GB
• Added button to test credentials
• Fixed error for invalide credentials

Minecraft Feature Updates

We are excited to announce that we have significantly enhanced and updated our existing features and introduced a couple of new additions designed to simplify the management of your Minecraft server. These updates aim to improve user experience, streamline server operations, and provide you with more tools. Whether you’re managing player permissions, optimizing performance, or customizing gameplay elements, our updates are intended to make your server management more efficient and enjoyable.

Version Manager

• Added usage statistics collections of what versions and frameworks customers use so we can make an informed decision for support and enhancements going forward
• Updated the front end to polish some rough parts of the UI

Player Manager

• UI Overhaul so it is much easier to manage your player base
• You can now add operators, whitelist, and ban users without them being connected to the server
• Added Geyser player support
• Fixed Velocity and Waterfall offline mod detection
• Now correctly caches players that have connected to the server

Modpack Installer

• Fix ATLauncher listings
• Fixed Modrinth mod pack filter

Plugin Manager

• Added detection and management of currently installed plugins
• Added the ability to filter plugins by loader and Minecraft version
• Updated text color so it has better contrast for plugin descriptions

Mod Manager (New)

• Added the ability to install and manage mods from multiple websites

Choosable Startup Command (New)

• Adding the ability to switch between multiple startup commands on the Startup page without having to contact support (eg. switching between basic and Aikr’s flags)

Properties Editor

• Added Input Validation
• Added change history for all changes done to server.properties through the UI

Rust Plugin Manager

Rust is one of those games that can be challenging to set up and manage, even within our panel. To enhance user experience, we are implementing several improvements.

Our first improvement is our new config file editor, which simplifies the process of reading and editing this game’s extensive config file.

Secondly, Rust greatly benefits from mods, so we have launched our Plugin Installer for Rust. This tool installs the modding framework and allows you to install and manage your Rust plugins, just like in Minecraft. You can even set up automatic daily updates for your plugins.

We believe our Rust hosting service will surpass our competition by combining these features with the advanced settings available on the Rust Startup page—including options for recurring server wipes.

Holiday Sale

As a thank you to our customers, we are offering a holiday sale on all our game servers: 20% off your first month with code JINGLEBELLS2024. (This promotion does not include Minecraft Budget Plans.) Existing customers can open a ticket to have it applied to an existing order.

Coming Soon

The list above seems like a lot, but we have even more plans for 2024. We had a lot of feedback from our customers about DDoS and bot protection and took that feedback to heart. DDoS and bot protection for servers aren’t simple to fix or cheap to implement worldwide, which is why we have partnered with Cloudflare to use their Spectrum DDoS protection on all of our servers going forward. With their 300+ points of presence worldwide, we can remove DDoS from your concerns. Now, you may be asking, but Cloudflare doesn’t do any bot protection, and you would be correct. We will roll out a smaller proxy behind Cloudflare in each location to run an XBF rule set to remove bot traffic.

Another perk of Cloudflare proxying all of the game server traffic is that their Argo routing can improve latency to our servers by up to 20%. We don’t have much data here, but initial testing is promising, especially for users who’s traffic goes on undersea cables.

Now, this is an early announcement, so how it is rolled out may change, but we wanted to give you a taste of what is to come. Keep an eye out on our blog and Discord for more information and beta testing opportunities.

Wrap Up

As we wrap up this year and embrace the joy of the holiday season, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you. Your support and trust mean the world to us, and we are truly thankful to have you as part of our community.

Wishing you holidays filled with warmth, laughter, and precious moments with family and friends. We hope you take the time to unwind and embrace the season’s magic. As we approach the new year, we look forward to serving you and enhancing your experience with even more joy.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year! Cheers to new beginnings, countless adventures, and all the fantastic moments that await us in 2025. Thank you for being an invaluable part of our journey!

With warmest wishes,
AleForge Staff