This is not an official project and I'm not affiliated with developers or publishers of the game. Head to https://www.returntomoria.com/news-updates/dedicated-server for official information / FAQ. Join the game Discord server at https://www.returntomoria.com/community to get help. This image is versioned separately and the image version is not in sync with either the game or the dedicated server.
Checked that it's working with 1.5.3 on 25 June 2025.
| Exposed Container port | Type |
|---|---|
| 7777 | UDP |
In order for others to connect to your server you will most likely need to configure port forwarding on your router.
| Volume | Container path | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Steam install path | /server | the server files are downloaded into this directory, and settings files are created here on the first start. server logs and saves are located under /server/Moria/Saved |
| Steam cache | /root/Steam | This is where Steam credentials are cached by steam, so they do not need to be entered on each restart |
In the folder containing docker-compose.yaml run
docker compose up -d --force-recreateYou can watch the logs with:
docker compose logs -fNote: this readme assumes that you are using supplied docker-compose.yaml to start the server. Some parts of this readme may be inaccurate if your settings differ from the provided.
To attach to the console run:
docker compose attach moria
Then hit enter once or twice.
To detach, press:
CTRL+p, CTRL+q
This may or may not work depending on your terminal, and on whether or not you are using ssh. It worked for me in most scenarios.
Technical note: this docker image patches the dedicated server executable windows subsystem from GUI (2) to CUI (3) in order to provide access to the server console
Once the server fully started for the f
985B
irst time it will copy the default server settings to ./server/MoriaServerConfig.ini, ./server/MoriaServerPermissions.txt,./server/MoriaServerRules.txt files.
Edit the files to your liking and restart the containers:
docker compose up -d --force-recreateLogs are found in ./server/Moria/Saved/Logs/ directory, and Saves are in ./server/Moria/Saved/SaveGamesDedicated/ directory.
You can now connect to your server from the game (providing that the port forwarding is set up correctly).
Note: read the official notes linked at the top of this README, they will tell you how to set up a password, copy the game world from your single player playthrough and more
In game, after clicking "Join Other World", select "Advanced Join options". Use "Direct Join" section. Enter the server IP or domain name and the port number in the format prompted on that screen, and enter password if any. Click Join Server. You can also join via an invite code. The invite code is dumped in the container log, you can search for it with docker compose logs | grep Invite after the server has completed start up.
Restart the container. It will check steam for the newer server version on start and update if required. My preferred method of restarting is running docker compose up -d --force-recreate but simple docker restart moria would suffice.
If you change port in docker-compose.yaml from 7777 to somethings else, e.g.:
ports:
- '12345:7777/udp'You will also need to update MoriaServerConfig.ini accordingly:
AdvertisePort=12345Detailed port forwarding guide is out of scope of this document, there are a lot of variations between routers in how this is done. However here is a few important point to keep in mind:
- You need to forward port
7777(unless you changed it to something else) on UDP protocol. Without this your server won't be accessible from the internet. You can use https://mcheck.bat.nz/ to check if your server is accessible. - It is possible, that the server is accessible from the internet but not from the same (home) network where your server is in. This is called a hairpin NAT problem. Either google how to configure it on your router (if it supports it), or use local IP address for connecting to the server within the same network (as opposed to your external IP address).
- Some internet providers employ CGNAT. If yours does, you won't be able to make your server accessible externally, unless you and other users use a VPN or a tunneling service such as https://playit.gg/ (this is not an endorsement, I have never used this service myself).
There are a couple of things that can break this docker image, if you edit them in MoriaServerConfig.ini so please be aware:
docker-compose.yamland the docker image health check, expect the server port to be7777. You can easily change the mapped port to any value you want indocker-compose.yaml(e.g. to change port to12345use1234:7777/udp) which will work, but if you changeListenPortinMoriaServerConfig.iniit will break bothdocker-compose.yamland the health check. I cannot think of a case where the internal container port needs changing, since changing the external container port is so easy, but if you must, you will have to make the adjustments to bothdocker-compose.yamlandDockerfileand rebuild the image.- If you change
[Console]section from the default ofEnabled=true, graceful termination and attaching to the console will stop working. The former because nothing can processSIGINTany more, and the latter because there is no console to attach to any longer. When graceful termination is not working, when you restart or down you container, the online session is not cleaned up which will prevent the server from starting until the session expires, which can take around 5 minutes
The patcher folder contains a patcher used by the image in order to make attaching to the console possible. It changes a single byte in the game server executable. Naturally, during the container start up, when steam verifies the integrity of the files it would be detected and some time would be spent on the "repair". To avoid that, before the integrity check a backup of the unpatched executable kept in server/Moria/Binaries/Win64/MoriaServer-Win64-Shipping.bak is moved over the patched executable before the verification. After verification/update the executable is patched again (and the backup is taken) before the server starts.
The healthcheck folder contains an utility, which sends a UDP message to the server and checks if it receives a response. If no response is received the health check is assumed to fail. Please refer to the HEALTHCHECK directive in Dockerfile to see how the health check is configured. This can be overridden in your docker-compose.yaml if desired.
By and large the health check does not change how the image works. When you do docker compose ps or docker ps you will be able to see the health check result of the most recent health check. If you run docker inspect --format='{{json .State.Health}}' moria | jq (assuming you have jq installed), you will see the last few entries of health check log.
I've added the health check, because the server cannot function and shuts down if the connection to Epic Online Services goes down. Unfortunately, the community seeing this happening quite often recently (several times a week). When this happens, all the Moria servers no longer work, until EOS goes back up again.
Docker does not have a facility to restart unhealthy containers, but there are external solutions that can achieve the same. This is not an endorsement of any of the below.
- https://github.com/willfarrell/docker-autoheal - restarts unhealthy containers
- https://github.com/petersem/monocker - sends a notification on container change status
See APPROACH.md