Factorio Headless Server on GCP with Terraform

Deploy Factorio headless server on Google Cloud Platform using Terraform with HTTP API controls. Designed for small gaming groups with remote server management via HTTP endpoints.

Setup

1. Authentication

Login to GCP and set up your environment:

gcloud auth login

Set your project:

gcloud config set project YOUR_PROJECT_ID

Authenticate application default credentials so that Terraform can use them:

gcloud auth application-default login

Enable required APIs:

gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable iam.googleapis.com

You might want to connect the project to your billing account.

2. Configuration

Create and configure: terraform.tfvars you only need to update project_id to run the server.

cp terraform.tfvars.example terraform.tfvars

3. Deploy

Note that the terraform state file will be created in the current directory and is not configured for remote storage.

terraform init
terraform apply

Deployment takes a couple of minutes.

Then you need to wait a couple of minutes for the Factorio server to start.

4. Get Server Information

After deployment, get connection details:

# Get server IP for Factorio game connections
terraform output connection_string

# Get HTTP API URL for management
terraform output http_api_url

# Get server IP only
terraform output server_ip

# API Usage
terraform output api_usage

Server Control

If you want to pass management commands using a service account key instead of application default credentials, create a json key for the service account created by Terraform:

gcloud iam service-accounts keys create ./factorio-management-key.json \
  --iam-account=factorio-management-sa@YOUR_PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com 

The management key can be used on any machine with gcloud installed:

gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=factorio-management-key.json
gcloud config set project YOUR_PROJECT_ID

Commands:

• ./scripts/start-server.sh - Start the Factorio server
• ./scripts/stop-server.sh - Stop the Factorio server

Server Management via HTTP API

Once deployed, the server exposes an HTTP API on port 8080 for remote management. Get the API URL from terraform outputs:

terraform output http_api_url

Game Controls

Check Server Status:

curl http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/status

Pause/Unpause Game:

curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/pause
curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/unpause

Control Game Speed:

curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/speed/slow
curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/speed/normal
curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/speed/fast

Save File Management

List Save Files:

curl http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/saves

Load Existing Save:

curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/load/SAVE_NAME

Upload and Load Save File:

curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/upload-save \
  -F "saveFile=@/path/to/your/save.zip" \
  -F "autoLoad=true"

Trigger Manual Save:

curl -X POST http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/save

Get Server Time:

curl http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8080/factorio/time

Troubleshooting

• gcloud compute ssh factorio-server --zone=europe-west4-a --tunnel-through-iap ssh using IAP
• sudo systemctl status docker check Docker status
• sudo docker logs factorio view Factorio container logs
• cat /factorio/config/server-adminlist.json view Factorio admin list
• sudo docker ps | grep factorio check container status
• sudo docker logs $(sudo docker ps -q | head -1) --tail 50 view recent container logs