Set Up an ARK: Survival Ascended Server on a VPS (2026): SteamCMD, Ports, Configuration, Backups and Updates

ARK: Survival Ascended and the older ARK: Survival Evolved are two different server sets. Do not mix their App IDs, executables or configuration directories.

The official ARK community Wiki's dedicated server notes also mention a commercial restriction: without the appropriate dedicated server license, self-hosted ASA servers should only be used for personal, non-commercial purposes. Before you plan to sell membership benefits, paid items, whitelist access or other services for consideration, you should check the latest EULA and licensing requirements yourself; you cannot treat a private friends-server tutorial as a compliant commercial-server solution.

SteamCMD's 2430930, map names and launch parameters may change in later updates. Before each major version update, check the official documentation and patch notes, then upgrade after making a backup.

ASA uses Unreal Engine 5, and the server is more sensitive to memory, single-core performance and disk than many older game servers. Below are more reliable starting points for actual purchases, not official player-count guarantees:

Don't just look at the "8 cores" label. When shared CPU is heavily oversold, startup, world saves and areas near large bases can all stutter. The data center should be close to the main players, and you should confirm in advance that the provider allows game servers, supports UDP, has enough monthly traffic, and has clear rules for DDoS scrubbing, bans and IP changes. Before buying, you can read Game Server VPS Configuration and Network Line Selection.

Windows Server itself also uses some memory, so an 8GB plan is not recommended for running ASA long-term. Besides the installation package, the disk also needs space for maps, mods, logs, saves and local backups.

Log in to the VPS via Remote Desktop and complete the following preparation first:

1. Install Windows Update and restart until there are no pending updates.
2. Confirm the system is 64-bit and that the time and time zone are correct.
3. Keep a working remote console in the cloud provider's console to avoid locking yourself out of RDP with a wrong firewall rule.
4. Open an administrator PowerShell; all subsequent commands are run there.

Create the installation, backup and script directories:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force C:\steamcmd | Out-Null
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force C:\ark-asa | Out-Null
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force C:\ark-backups | Out-Null
Get-Volume -DriveLetter C | Select-Object DriveLetter, SizeRemaining, Size

If the system disk is short on space, expand it before installing. Do not keep backups only on the same C drive long-term; a local archive only restores quickly, and truly protecting against accidental VPS deletion still requires an off-site copy.

Download the Windows version of SteamCMD from Valve's Steam CDN:

Invoke-WebRequest `
  -Uri 'https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steamcmd.zip' `
  -OutFile 'C:\steamcmd\steamcmd.zip'

Expand-Archive `
  -Path 'C:\steamcmd\steamcmd.zip' `
  -DestinationPath 'C:\steamcmd' `
  -Force

& 'C:\steamcmd\steamcmd.exe' +quit

The first run updates SteamCMD itself. After it completes, check the files:

Get-Item C:\steamcmd\steamcmd.exe

If Invoke-WebRequest reports a TLS or connection error, first complete Windows Update, confirm the system date is correct, then check whether outbound HTTPS is blocked by security software or the cloud firewall. Do not download packaged SteamCMD or server files from unknown cloud drives.

Run an anonymous login install:

& 'C:\steamcmd\steamcmd.exe' `
  +force_install_dir 'C:\ark-asa' `
  +login anonymous `
  +app_update 2430930 validate `
  +quit

The download is large, and completion time depends on VPS bandwidth and the Steam CDN. After installation, check the key files:

$serverExe = 'C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64\ArkAscendedServer.exe'
Test-Path $serverExe
Get-Item $serverExe | Select-Object FullName, Length, LastWriteTime
Get-ChildItem C:\ark-asa -Recurse -File |
  Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum

Test-Path should return True. If you mistakenly used the client App ID 2399830 or the old server App ID 376030, the directory structure and program names will both be wrong; deleting the wrong directory and reinstalling is more reliable than trying to fix it in place.

Create a new C:\ark-asa\start-asa.bat:

@echo off
cd /d C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64
ArkAscendedServer.exe TheIsland_WP?listen -port=7777 -WinLiveMaxPlayers=10 -servergamelog
exit /b %errorlevel%

There are three easy-to-get-wrong points here:

• ASA's The Island map name is TheIsland_WP, not the older TheIsland.
• ASA uses -port=7777; do not copy old tutorials and write ?Port=7777.
• The player limit uses -WinLiveMaxPlayers=10; changing only MaxPlayers in the INI may be reset to the default value.

First run it in the foreground in PowerShell:

& 'C:\ark-asa\start-asa.bat'

The first startup needs to generate directories, initialize the world and connect to online services, which may take several minutes. Wait until you see the world finish loading before closing the window. Confirm that the configuration and save directories were generated:

Get-ChildItem 'C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Saved' -Force
Get-ChildItem 'C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Saved\Logs' -Filter '*.log' |
  Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending |
  Select-Object -First 5 Name, Length, LastWriteTime

The configuration files are located at:

C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsServer\GameUserSettings.ini

First generate two sets of unique random passwords, then write a basic PvE configuration. PowerShell will display the passwords once on screen; save them to a password manager immediately:

$alphabet = 'abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ23456789!@#$%'.ToCharArray()
$playerPassword = -join (1..24 | ForEach-Object { $alphabet | Get-Random })
$adminPassword = -join (1..32 | ForEach-Object { $alphabet | Get-Random })

$configDir = 'C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsServer'
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force $configDir | Out-Null

@"
[ServerSettings]
ServerPassword=$playerPassword
ServerAdminPassword=$adminPassword
serverPVE=True
AllowThirdPersonPlayer=True
ShowMapPlayerLocation=True
DifficultyOffset=1.0
OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0
AutoSavePeriodMinutes=15.0
RCONEnabled=False
RCONPort=27020

[SessionSettings]
SessionName=My ASA Private Server
Port=7777
QueryPort=27015
"@ | Set-Content `
  -Path "$configDir\GameUserSettings.ini" `
  -Encoding ascii

Write-Host "玩家密码：$playerPassword"
Write-Host "管理员密码：$adminPassword"

The player password and admin password should not be the same, and should not reuse the Windows administrator or RDP password. RCONEnabled=False means this article does not open the remote management port by default; if you really need RCON later, only allow fixed admin IPs, and never expose 27020/TCP directly to the entire internet.

Restart once to confirm the configuration is read:

& 'C:\ark-asa\start-asa.bat'

If the server name or rates do not take effect, stop the server normally first, then check whether you edited the wrong WindowsServer directory. Editing the INI while the server is running may be overwritten by the old configuration on exit.

Official maps must use their corresponding internal names. For example:

When changing maps, modify the first parameter on line 3 of the startup script. Do not use old ARK map names, and do not switch a long-term save directly without a backup.

ASA allows cross-platform connections by default. If you need to explicitly restrict or declare platforms, you can use -ServerPlatform; the values currently listed by the official community Wiki include PC, PS5, XSX, WINGDK and ALL. When unsure, keep the default first; a wrong platform restriction will make some friends unable to find the server.

This article uses:

Create Windows firewall rules in administrator PowerShell:

New-NetFirewallRule `
  -DisplayName 'ARK ASA Game UDP 7777' `
  -Direction Inbound `
  -Protocol UDP `
  -LocalPort 7777 `
  -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule `
  -DisplayName 'ARK ASA Query UDP 27015' `
  -Direction Inbound `
  -Protocol UDP `
  -LocalPort 27015 `
  -Action Allow

Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'ARK ASA*' |
  Get-NetFirewallPortFilter |
  Format-Table Protocol, LocalPort

Then go to the cloud provider console security group and add the same inbound rules for 7777/UDP and 27015/UDP. Windows firewall and the cloud security group are two layers; missing either one can cause "the program is running but the outside world cannot get in". You can check layer by layer with the Ports, Firewall and Security Group Troubleshooting Checklist.

Do not open all ports just to save effort, and do not mistakenly write UDP as TCP. RDP's 3389/TCP should be limited to your own fixed IP as much as possible; at the very least, do not expose it to the whole internet alongside the game ports.

After confirming the foreground startup has no errors, register a boot task. First close the running foreground service, then run:

$action = New-ScheduledTaskAction `
  -Execute 'cmd.exe' `
  -Argument '/c "C:\ark-asa\start-asa.bat"' `
  -WorkingDirectory 'C:\ark-asa'

$trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -AtStartup

$principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal `
  -UserId 'SYSTEM' `
  -LogonType ServiceAccount `
  -RunLevel Highest

$settings = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet `
  -StartWhenAvailable `
  -RestartCount 5 `
  -RestartInterval (New-TimeSpan -Minutes 2) `
  -ExecutionTimeLimit (New-TimeSpan -Seconds 0)

Register-ScheduledTask `
  -TaskName 'ARK ASA Server' `
  -Action $action `
  -Trigger $trigger `
  -Principal $principal `
  -Settings $settings

Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'ARK ASA Server'

Check the task and process:

Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'ARK ASA Server' |
  Get-ScheduledTaskInfo

Get-Process ArkAscendedServer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
  Select-Object Id, CPU, WorkingSet64, StartTime

A task showing as started does not mean the world is joinable. Also check the latest log and wait for the map to finish loading:

$latestLog = Get-ChildItem 'C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Saved\Logs' -Filter '*.log' |
  Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending |
  Select-Object -First 1

Get-Content $latestLog.FullName -Tail 200 -Wait

After the server finishes loading, search for SessionName in the game's unofficial server list. List synchronization may be delayed; wait a few minutes first, then confirm that the search criteria, platform filter and password-server filter are not hiding it.

After the admin enters the game, open the console and authenticate first:

enablecheats 管理员密码

Manually save the world:

cheat SaveWorld

Before maintenance, notify players first, save the world, then exit the server normally:

cheat DoExit

Do not treat Windows "End task" as your daily way to stop the server. Force-killing the process may leave the last world save incomplete, and you should especially exit normally before updates and backups.

The official documentation recommends backing up the entire ShooterGame\Saved, which contains the world, characters, tribes, configuration, logs and cluster data. First run cheat SaveWorld and cheat DoExit in-game, and confirm the process has exited:

Get-Process ArkAscendedServer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Once there is no output, compress:

$stamp = Get-Date -Format 'yyyyMMdd-HHmmss'
$source = 'C:\ark-asa\ShooterGame\Saved\*'
$target = "C:\ark-backups\ark-asa-$stamp.zip"

Compress-Archive `
  -Path $source `
  -DestinationPath $target `
  -CompressionLevel Optimal

Get-Item $target | Select-Object FullName, Length, LastWriteTime

After the backup completes, start the task:

Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'ARK ASA Server'

At minimum, regularly sync the archive to object storage or another machine, and actually perform a recovery drill. For more complete retention periods, off-site copies and recovery verification methods, see VPS Automated Backup Solutions.

When restoring, stop the server first, rename and keep the current Saved, then extract the chosen backup; do not directly overwrite old files onto a running server.

When client and server versions do not match, players usually cannot join. The update process should be fixed as: notify players, save the world, exit normally, back up, update with SteamCMD, start, check logs, actually connect.

After confirming the process has exited and the backup succeeded, run:

& 'C:\steamcmd\steamcmd.exe' `
  +force_install_dir 'C:\ark-asa' `
  +login anonymous `
  +app_update 2430930 validate `
  +quit

Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'ARK ASA Server'

Do not set validate to run automatically every few minutes. It creates disk and network load, and updating while the server is running may cause file locks or mixed versions. After a large patch, check the logs, map, configuration and mods first, then let all players return.

ASA mods no longer follow the old Steam Workshop process. The official community Wiki currently recommends using the -mods launch parameter, with multiple mod IDs separated by English commas. The example structure is as follows:

-mods=模组ID1,模组ID2,模组ID3

Do not directly copy a long mod list from an unfamiliar server. The correct order is:

1. Stop the server and back up the entire Saved.
2. Add only one mod or a small group at a time.
3. After starting, check downloads, load order and dependency errors.
4. Actually enter the map and confirm items, structures and creatures are normal.
5. Record the mod ID, version and date added.

Removing mods that contain custom items or creatures may cause permanent loss. Verify in a restored test copy first; do not experiment on your only save.

If the goal is 5–10 players long-term PvE, you can start with this combination:

• Windows Server 2022, 6 high-performance vCPUs, 24GB RAM, 150GB NVMe;
• 2430930 dedicated server, The Island using TheIsland_WP;
• 7777/UDP game port, 27015/UDP query port;
• RCON disabled by default, RDP only allowing trusted admin IPs;
• Task Scheduler handles startup on boot and retry on failure;
• Before each update, run SaveWorld, stop the server normally and back up the entire ShooterGame\Saved;
• Keep short-term backups locally, keep another copy off-site, and do regular recovery drills;
• Run a clean server first, and add mods in small amounts after confirming stability.

The point of this setup is not to get the startup script running once, but to make updates, saves, ports, security and recovery all form a fixed process. Before formally inviting friends to join, complete at least one external connection, one normal restart and one backup recovery test.