WatchTower

WatchTower is a local ops dashboard for NeoForge dedicated servers. It watches while the game runs and turns that into plain next steps. Data stays on your machine. No cloud account required.

Built for people who run the box: solo owners, small teams, pack maintainers.

Needs: NeoForge 1.21.x · Java 21 · usually a Linux dedicated host
Latest builds may be beta. Prefer a test pack before a season world.

Features

See if the server is okay in one place
Overview gives a health grade, live vitals, what needs attention, and restart advice (Safe / Caution / Wait). It never restarts the server for you.

Watch ticks and host load without digging logs
Live charts for TPS, MSPT, players, heap, CPU, and host stats while the server is running.

Get a fix list, not homework
Issues is a ranked inbox from continuous watching and scanning. Open a row, get a next step. No giant "run a full audit every day" ritual.

Make crash reports usable
Crashes are grouped and explained in plain English. When the host OOM-killer or panel force-kill stops the JVM with no crash file, you still get a path (Killed), not a shrug.

Catch join / pack sync failures
Failed joins map to named mod diffs. Session shows them with a player-safe copy of the fix you can send - read-only, no jar downloads.

Know what's eating the pack and the disk
Mods inventory with conflicts and optional Modrinth hints (lookup only - WatchTower never downloads jars). Soft disable/enable jars for the next boot. Edit configs under config/ from the dashboard. Insights covers busy vs quiet hours, world pressure, disk runway ("how many days left"), and a space map of what's using storage.

Prove lag when you need proof
Optional Spark support turns a profile into what ate the tick. Map view for chunk heat when the profile has it. Deep Spark workspace is still alpha.

Trust backups a bit more
See if backups look fresh, verify zip/tar integrity, and optionally test-restore only under watchtower/restore-verify/ - never into the live world.

Share evidence without dumping secrets
Support packs build a redacted zip for a helper or mod author.

Run it with a small team
Owner / admin / viewer accounts, optional 2FA, audit log. Theme and accent per account.

Survive when Minecraft won't boot
Matching CLI jar builds a local disaster-recovery bundle over SSH (java -jar). Keep it in mods/ next to WatchTower; it's not loaded as a mod.

Weekly digest, silent script/datapack fails, activity incident threads, startup watch, and log triage are in there too - same idea: less guessing, clearer next step.

Everything important lives under watchtower/ on disk.

See full feature list here

Quick start

1. Download the NeoForge jar (and the CLI jar if you want it) from Files or GitHub Releases.
2. Drop it in mods/ (replace older WatchTower jars).
3. Restart.
4. Open http://127.0.0.1:8787 on the host (or tunnel over SSH).
5. Sign in with watchtower / password, then change that password and finish setup.

Don't put port 8787 on the open internet.

More: Installation · Security

What it won't do

• Replace your host panel (start/stop, files, console)
• Track players like an analytics product
• Quietly edit your world or auto-restart anything
• Download mods from Modrinth for you

WatchTower sits beside the tools you already use.

Links

Wiki · Changelog · Issues · Discord

GPL-3.0-or-later. Local dashboard stays free.