Manage your hosted server

Sign in

1. Open snug.chat/hosting/login, enter your email, and choose Email a sign-in link.
2. Open the email "Sign in to snug hosting" and follow its link.
3. Choose Continue to hosting.

The link works once, for 15 minutes.

To skip the email, add a password. Open Account from your email address at the top of the page and choose Add password. It needs at least 15 characters. Next time, choose Use a password instead.

Two-step sign-in asks for a code from an authenticator app after the password or the email link:

1. In Account, under Two-step sign-in, choose Set up.
2. Scan the code with your authenticator app, or enter the key it shows.
3. Enter the code the app shows and choose Turn on.
4. Save the ten recovery codes. Each signs you in once if you lose your phone, and they're shown only this once.

Changing a password or two-step sign-in needs a sign-in from the last 15 minutes. You get an email about every change. Five wrong codes end that sign-in and send you an email. After 100 wrong codes in a row, the account stops taking codes, recovery codes included. If you're locked out, or you lost both your phone and your recovery codes, email the support address on the code page from your account's address. snug hosting support can turn two-step sign-in off.

Check on your server

Servers lists every server you own with its health, seats, and storage. Open one to reach its Overview, Storage, Backups, and Settings.

Overview leads with seats taken out of 50 and storage used out of 25 GB. From 45 seats taken, it says how many are left and how to free one. Below those come the last backup, how many people are online, and how long the server has been up. Logs and controls opens the version it runs, its CPU and memory use, Server logs with the last 60 lines and credentials filtered out, and the restart and stop buttons.

The page keeps itself current while it's open. Readings older than two minutes show as out of date. The small refresh buttons ask the server for new ones.

Restart the server

Restart when friends can't connect, when calls fail for everyone, or when the page says Your server needs attention. Restart server is under Logs and controls, and in that notice. Choose it and confirm. Everyone is disconnected, and their apps reconnect on their own after about a minute. Messages and files are kept.

Stop keeps everyone out until you choose Start server. A paid server is still billed while it's stopped.

See what's using space

Storage splits what the server keeps into four parts:

• Files: uploads, including files waiting to be deleted.
• Chat messages: messages, reactions, polls, and events.
• Member records: profiles, devices, and preferences.
• Other data: channels, permissions, and search.

All four count toward the plan's 25 GB. Backups don't. Files usually fill a server first. When storage is full, uploads stop. Chat keeps working. Admins make room inside snug: free up space.

Restore a backup

Every night, in the update hour your admins set under Settings > Admin > Server, snug backs up your server's messages and uploads to storage apart from the machine it runs on. Backups lists the automatic ones from the last 7 days and the last one from each of the 4 weeks before, and up to three saved ones, which stay until you delete one. Save a backup makes one now. Keep on an automatic one, such as the night before something went wrong, saves that one instead. Checked on a backup means every file matched and the database passed its integrity checks.

Restoring puts the whole server back to that moment, for everyone: messages, files, and accounts. Anything newer is replaced.

1. Open Backups and choose Restore on the backup you want.
2. Check the time in the dialog and choose Restore backup.

Restoring backs up the server as it is first, so you can go back. The backup downloads while friends keep chatting; then the server restarts, and everyone reconnects. Restoring needs hosting to be active.

Use your own domain

Every server starts at an address on snug.chat. Using a domain you own is included; registering it is separate.

1. Open Settings, enter the domain under Your domain, and choose Save domain.
2. At your DNS provider, add the CNAME record the page shows, and remove any other A, AAAA, or CNAME records for that name.
3. Add the TXT record the page shows. It proves the domain is yours.
4. Choose Verify and use domain.

DNS changes can take a while to appear. Until both records check out, the address stays as it was.

A bare domain such as example.org can't take a CNAME. Give it an A record for the IP address the page shows instead. A CNAME follows the server when it moves to another machine. An A record doesn't, so you'd update it then.

The old address stops working once the new one is in use. Send everyone the new one, because friends may need to add it in their apps. To go back, choose Use the snug.chat address.

Update now

New releases install on their own in the update hour, and a hosted server can't hold them back. Update now under Settings installs the next one sooner.

Restore admin access

If nobody in the group can reach Settings > Admin in snug anymore, make someone an admin from snug hosting. The server's Settings lists the current admins under Admin access. Choose someone who has joined under Member, then choose Make admin. They can then make sign-in codes for anyone else who's locked out.

Get help from snug hosting support

Choose Get help on a server's page, or Support at the top. Write what happened and choose Send to snug support. Replies appear under Support and arrive by email. Reply to reopen a request, or choose Mark resolved when it's done.

Along with what you write, snug hosting support sees the server's page in snug hosting: its health, logs, backups, and recent operations. Questions about people and moderation go to your admins. Contact snug hosting support says what a request carries and how members write in.

If your server doesn't answer

While the server restarts, or after it crashes, its address shows This snug server isn't answering, with a link to snug hosting support. A stopped or paused server doesn't answer at all.

1. Open the server's page and read the notice at the top:
   • Moving to a new machine: friends can't connect for a few minutes, then it comes back on its own.
   • Hosting is paused: a payment failed. See if a payment fails.
   • Free hosting ended: its free time is over. See if snug gave you a free server.
   • Free hosting is paused: snug paused it. Choose Get help.
2. If it says Your server is stopped, choose Start server.
3. If it says Your server needs attention or We can't confirm your server's health, choose Restart server and wait about a minute.
4. If friends still can't connect, choose Get help. Say what they see and when it started.