Use the server console

The Console tab is a live view of the server's container console output plus a command box wired to RCON — not a separate chat window.

Console output vs. Download log

The live view is the server's container console output — the same thing docker logs shows, polled by the panel every few seconds. Download log is a different source entirely: it downloads the Minecraft server's own logs/latest.log file from the data directory.

Normally these overlap almost completely, since the Minecraft process's own output is what the container prints. But container output exists as soon as the container starts — including a container that dies inside the itzg startup sequence before Java ever runs. logs/latest.log is written by the Java process itself, so if the server never got that far, that file may not exist at all. In that situation the live view is the only place the failure shows up; a missing or stale logs/latest.log is not evidence that nothing went wrong.

Reading the output

The panel polls for new console lines every few seconds and appends them to the view — this runs regardless of whether the server is running, starting, stopping, or sleeping, which is exactly what makes it useful for seeing why a start failed. The view keeps the most recent 2,000 lines; older ones scroll out of it as new ones arrive.

One thing is filtered out of the live view specifically: reconnect noise from the platform's own metrics polling (it opens a fresh RCON connection every few seconds to read TPS/MSPT, and the server logs each of those). That churn doesn't appear here.

Pause stops the panel from fetching new lines — it doesn't pause the server. Clear empties what's shown in your browser; it doesn't touch anything on the server.

"No console output yet — start the server." means the panel can't find a container for this server at all — nothing has started, or it was cleaned up. A container that exists but simply hasn't printed anything new shows "Waiting for output…" instead — that's normal, not an error.

Running a command

The command box is disabled until the server is running — its placeholder says "Start the server to run commands." Once running, type a command and press Enter or click Run. The response (or an error) is appended straight into the log view below.

As you type, the box suggests matching commands from a built-in list of common ones (gamemode, whitelist add, tp, kick, ban, and similar) — it matches whether or not you include the leading /. Use the arrow keys to move through suggestions, Tab or Enter to accept one, Escape to dismiss the list. stop and restart deliberately aren't in that list: the server refuses to run them from here, since the panel's own Stop/Restart controls are the intended path for that.

Up and down arrow also step back through commands you've already run this session — that history lives only in your browser tab and resets on reload; it isn't saved anywhere.

What actually requires the server to be running

The console view itself doesn't. It keeps showing the container's own output whether the server is running, sleeping, or anywhere in between: a plain stop, by itself, doesn't remove the container, so output from before it stopped — including a crash — is still there to read. What can remove it: deleting the server outright, or starting it again after changing something that needs a new container (mods, version, extra ports, MOTD) — applying that kind of change recreates the container rather than editing it in place, so older output goes with it. The one thing genuinely gated on running is the command box: RCON has no live process to reach on a stopped server, so it's disabled until there is one. (The section's status line — "live · command autocomplete" while running, "available when running" while stopped — is a whole-section label built off that same running check, not a claim about the console output specifically.)

Troubleshooting

Command box won't accept input. See "What actually requires the server to be running" above — that's RCON's requirement, not the console output's.

"Command not allowed (use the Stop/Restart buttons)." You tried to run stop, restart, or something else the server blocks from RCON. Use the Stop/Restart controls at the top of the server page instead.

"Command failed." A generic RCON error — the command may be malformed, or the connection blipped. Retry it; if it keeps failing, check the log output above for more detail from the server itself.

Output stopped updating. Check whether Pause is on (it reads "▶ Live" when paused) — click it to resume polling. If it's already live and still frozen, the browser tab may be backgrounded or hidden (polling only runs while the Console tab panel is actually visible on screen), or poll requests may be failing — a failed fetch is silent and looks identical to "no new lines" from here, and a one-off miss self-heals on the next poll, so this only explains a stuck view if the failures keep happening. Reload the page if pausing/resuming and bringing the tab forward don't bring it back.