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BakaLoader is a Windows app that runs your Valheim dedicated server. Start it, keep the mods current, restart on a schedule, see who is online, and look at a map of your actual world. Free, self hosted on your own PC, no command line. Works with Valheim 1.0.
Download the latest release, unzip it anywhere, run ValheimBakaLoader.exe. A short setup wizard runs the first time. Install and first run has the detail.
Each screen has a plain name with its Norse name as a caption. A Show Norse names switch in Upkeep hides the captions.
| Screen | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Dashboard (Hearth) | Server status, who is online, next save, network addresses, CPU and RAM, a tail of the log, and the app's own settings. |
| Players (Vikings) | A sortable roster with platform, session time, playtime, last seen, deaths and position. Right click for promote, allow, kick, ban, heal, teleport or spawn items. |
| Mods | Scans your BepInEx folder against Thunderstore, and against Hexium when you turn that on. Update one, update all, search the table, or paste a mod link to install. |
| Configs (Runes) | Edit your mods' config files in the app. The list has a search box and the open file has a find bar. |
| Settings (World) | Name, password, port, world and seed, crossplay, backups, world modifiers, restart rules, RCON and folders. |
| Map (Atlas) | Your world drawn from its seed with no map mods, fog of war from cartography tables, portals and builds as layers, and a weather forecast. |
| Log (Saga) | The live server log with levels, search, pause on scroll, and a console line. |
| Discord (Herald) | One status post in a Discord channel that edits itself as the server changes. |
| Statistics (Skald) | Uptime, sessions, deaths and mod history, counted on your machine only. |
BakaLoader can look at a second mod site, Hexium, once you tell it to. The Also check Hexium switch in the Upkeep card is off until you move it, and while it is off the app does not contact hexium.gg at all. With it on, a scan marks any mod the site holds a newer version of, and installing one is something you do on purpose, in a dialog that says what the site is and what BakaLoader cannot tell you about it. Nothing is ever installed or updated from Hexium on its own, and a mod that came from there is left alone by Update all, by the waiting updates count and by every unattended restart. Hexium is the whole of it.
The Mods hall and the Configs file list both have a search box now, and the open config file has a find bar that never touches the text it is searching. Configs moved up the sidebar to sit beside Mods, so the two halls you move between while fitting a mod out are next to each other, and Settings and Map each moved down one. Names and messages in alphabets other than the basic Latin one now survive the trip to the server and back, where they used to arrive as question marks. Version numbers with a suffix, such as 2.0.13-beta.1, are compared properly at last. See Release notes.
Spawning works again after Valheim 1.0.12 broke it. The two spawn plugins read a line inside the game that had moved, so a spawn half happened while the app said it had worked: six meads arrived as one mead, a two star boar arrived plain, and every item arrived at base quality. Item quality now reaches the world, at the full durability for that quality, stackable items arrive as stacks rather than as a heap of separate objects, and a spawn the server turned down now says so in the server's own words instead of confirming cheerfully. See Players (Vikings) and Release notes.
Settings you save while the server is up now go in at the next restart. Every automatic restart and the Restart button read the profile off disk again immediately before they launch, where before a saved change waited for a stop and then a start. The Settings screen says as much above Save Config while the server runs, the save confirmation now tells you the running server keeps its current settings until it restarts, and a Restart pending row on the condition bar appears when what is saved differs from what the live server started with, with a warned restart attached to it. Saving a world difficulty while the dials on screen belong to another world now says so instead of passing in silence. See Release notes.
BakaLoader tells you when a newer BakaLoader is ready and can install it for you. A glowing pill in the Server card and the version at the foot of the sidebar both open an update dialog that says what installing would do before it does anything: with every server stopped it downloads the release, closes, swaps itself and opens again; with a world up the only offer is the next restart, and nothing in the dialog stops a server. It looks for a release every six hours while it is open rather than once a day. The update now waits for every server in every window instead of the one in front of you, and closes every window before the files are swapped. See Updating BakaLoader and Release notes.
Every World Modifier dial explains itself now. The option you have picked is described in a line under the dial, and the ? beside its label opens the full list of options with what each one does and the game settings it applies, on the Settings screen and in the new server dialog. Death penalty Hard says that unequipped items are deleted, because that is what it does. BakaLoader also clears the world's difficulty keys and reapplies your dials on every start, so lowering a setting really lowers it instead of leaving the old one behind in the world. On the Mods side, removing a mod takes its BepInEx\patchers folder too, so a patcher type mod stops loading instead of surviving its own removal, and patcher mods are listed with a patcher tag. See World modifiers, Mods and Release notes.
The Mods screen got four changes. Updating all mods shows a progress bar and a per mod status now, instead of one spinner, and you can right click a single mod to update just it. A new Possibly outdated column flags a mod whose newest Thunderstore version came out before Valheim last updated, as a hint to check it, not proof it is broken. Removing a mod lists the installed mods that depend on it and offers to take them too, off by default. See Mods and Release notes.
Three switches in the Upkeep card: update checking separated from installing, one switch for both automatic mod update paths, and start minimized. A password rule switch under the password box. Delete world, with a typed confirmation, in the World Saves dialog and the Barrow. Reset statistics on the Statistics screen. See Release notes.
BakaLoader can now update the Valheim server for you. When Steam has an update queued, the start prompt offers Update and start: it copies your worlds aside, runs the update through Steam or steamcmd depending on how the server was installed, then starts it. See Server updates and the launch guard.
Live player positions in the roster, the Ashlands drawn with the game's real terrain formula, damaged backup layers shown rather than hidden, and a pile of fixes to the launch guard. Full list on Release notes.
Install and first run covers requirements, the setup wizard step by step, and where every file lives.
Running the server covers what start, stop and restart actually do, the countdowns, and adopting a server that is already running. Automatic restarts covers the three that happen without you.
Server updates and the launch guard covers the three prompts the guard can raise, and Updating the server covers what Update and start actually does and what happens when it fails.
Updating BakaLoader covers the app's own updates: where the notice turns up, what the dialog offers with a world up and with nothing running, and why it sometimes refuses.
Worlds, backups and restore covers every backup layer, the restore flow and what is safe to delete. Deleting a world covers taking one off the disk for good. World file formats has the 1.0 folder format and the one way conversion.
Multiple servers covers profiles, isolated installs, ports and bringing an old world back.
Custom domain covers giving the server a name instead of an IP.
The condition bar explains every notice that can stand above the page.
Command palette and shortcuts is Ctrl+K and everything it reaches.
Privacy and network lists every connection the app makes, every file it writes, and the ports you need.
Settings reference has every field, its key in userprefs.json, and when it takes effect.
How mods are matched and updated has the folder naming rules and what an update actually replaces.
Hexium is the second mod site: what the switch turns on, what BakaLoader will never do with it on its own, and what a mod installed from there means for your updates.
How the map is drawn has the terrain generator, the caches and the save reader's limits.
The bundled plugins has the five plugins BakaLoader installs, what each does and what stops working without them.
For mod authors has what a mod needs so BakaLoader lists it, updates it and shows its items.
Troubleshooting is symptoms and causes. FAQ is the short answers.
For anything else, open an issue on the repository with the log lines around the problem, or post in Discussions.
BakaLoader is fan made and not affiliated with Iron Gate or Coffee Stain. Use at your own risk, and keep backups of worlds you care about.