Game and app servers
Schedules
Set up tasks that run on their own, such as a nightly restart with a warning in chat, or a backup every morning. Ten schedules per server.
Last reviewed 2026-10-04
A schedule runs a list of steps on a clock you set. Each step can send a console command, change the power state or take a backup.
Open your server and click Schedules.
Make one
- Click New schedule.
- Put a name in Name. Something you will recognise, like
Nightly restart. - Choose How often.
- Leave Let this schedule run on.
- Click Create schedule.
Then add the steps.
Choosing when it runs
Five ways to set the time, so you can usually avoid writing a cron expression.
| Option | What you set |
|---|---|
| Every day | A time, to the nearest five minutes |
| Every few hours | Every 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 or 12 hours, and the minutes past the hour |
| Once a week | A day and a time |
| Every few minutes | Every 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes |
| Advanced | A five part cron expression |
The Advanced box takes minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week, separated by spaces. Lists like 0,30, ranges like 1-5 and steps like */4 all work.
text
0 4 * * *That one runs at 04:00 every day.
Whatever you choose, a When it runs panel below shows it back to you in plain English and lists the next three times it will fire. Read that before you save. If it says nothing matches in the next two years, your expression is wrong.
The clock
Every time you set is read on the hosting network's own clock, not yours and not your browser's. So a schedule set to 04:00 fires when the server reads 04:00.
Check the next run times in the preview against your own clock the first time, so you know the offset.
Two switches
Let this schedule run. On by default. Turn it off to park a schedule without deleting it.
Skip it while the server is offline. Off by default. Turn it on for things that only make sense on a running server, such as a chat announcement. Leave it off for a backup you want whether or not the server is up.
Steps
Click Add a step. Three kinds.
Send a console command. Exactly what you would type in the console, without a leading slash. Up to 1024 characters.
Change the power state. Start the server, stop the server, restart the server, or force the server to stop.
Take a backup. Optionally with a list of patterns to leave out, one per line, written the way you would write them in an ignore file.
Every step also has:
- Wait before running, in seconds after the step before it, up to 900. The first step usually waits 0.
- Carry on with the next step even if this one fails.
Steps run in order. The waits are what let you warn players before something happens.
A worked example: a nightly restart with warnings
Name it Nightly restart, set Every day at 04:00, then add five steps.
| Step | Wait | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | Command: say The server restarts in 5 minutes |
| 2 | 240 | Command: say The server restarts in 1 minute |
| 3 | 55 | Command: say Restarting now |
| 4 | 5 | Power: Restart the server |
Turn Skip it while the server is offline on, so it does not shout at nobody and restart a server you deliberately stopped.
A worked example: a nightly backup
Name it Nightly backup, set Every day at 05:00, one step: Take a backup, waiting 0.
Leave Skip it while the server is offline off so it runs either way. Keep an eye on your backup limit, because the oldest ones are not removed for you.
Running one by hand
Each schedule has a Run now button, so you can test it without waiting. It is greyed out on a schedule with no steps. Up to ten manual runs a minute.
Limits
- 10 schedules per server.
- 10 steps per schedule.
- 900 seconds maximum wait on a step.
Deleting one
Click the bin icon and confirm. The schedule and its steps are removed. Nothing already done is undone, it simply stops happening again.