Supported Games and Detection

1 min readUpdated Feb 26, 2026

Auto-detected games

Pink Narwhal detects games by scanning your server's files for known signatures. Here is what we look for, what we back up, and how Checkpoint™ coordinates with each game.

Rust

How we detect it: steam_appid.txt containing 252490, RustDedicated executable, or RustDedicated_Data directory.

Checkpoint™ commands: Before backup, runs server.save and server.writecfg with a 5-second wait. No post-commands needed.

Variants:

VariantBacked up
Oxideserver/, oxide/, cfg/
Carbonserver/, carbon/, cfg/
Vanillaserver/, cfg/

If HarmonyMods/ or HarmonyMods_Data/ exist, those are included too. Game binaries, Bundles/, steamcmd/, and .steam/ are always excluded.

Minecraft Java

How we detect it: server.properties and eula.txt both present.

Checkpoint™ commands: Before backup, runs save-off (pauses autosave) then save-all (flushes everything to disk) with a 3-second wait. After backup, runs save-on to resume autosave.

Variants:

VariantBacked up
Paper/Spigotworld/, world_nether/, world_the_end/, plugins/, config/, logs/, plus config files (server.properties, spigot.yml, bukkit.yml, paper.yml, ban/whitelist JSON)
Vanillaworld/, logs/, plus config files (server.properties, ban/whitelist JSON)

The libraries/, versions/, bundler/, and .cache/ directories are excluded. So are the server JARs. Those are large and easily re-downloaded.

Hytale

How we detect it: Server/HytaleServer.jar, universe/ directory, or Assets.zip.

Backed up: universe/, config.json, bans.json, permissions.json, whitelist.json. If mods/ exists, that is included too.

Assets.zip is excluded. It is 3.4 GB of game assets that do not need to be in every backup.

Custom profiles

If your game is not on this list, you can create a custom backup profile during server setup. See Custom Backup Profiles for details.

Tip

We are always adding new game profiles. If you think your game should be auto-detected, let us know.

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