Daemon Mode

Sliver supports running in daemon mode, which automatically starts the multiplayer listener but does not provide an interactive console. To connect to a daemonized server, use multiplayer mode operator configs.

By default, daemon mode starts the same WireGuard-protected multiplayer listener used by the interactive multiplayer command. That means the outer listener is UDP on 31337 by default, while the authenticated gRPC/mTLS service stays inside the WireGuard tunnel.

There are two ways to run in daemon mode:

1. Start daemon directly from CLI: sliver-server daemon
2. Set daemon_mode: true in ~/.sliver/configs/server.yaml, then start normally with sliver-server

If server.yaml does not exist, Sliver generates it. If a legacy server.json exists, Sliver migrates it to YAML.

CLI Behavior

• sliver-server daemon supports:
• -l, --lhost multiplayer listener host
• -p, --lport multiplayer listener port
• -t, --tailscale enable Tailscale listener
• --enable-wg wrap multiplayer in WireGuard instead of exposing it directly over mTLS
• -f, --force force unpack static assets
• For sliver-server daemon, --lhost and --lport override config values. If omitted, Sliver uses daemon.host and daemon.port from server.yaml.
• For normal startup (sliver-server) with daemon_mode: true, Sliver uses daemon.tailscale and daemon.enable_wg from server.yaml.
• With --enable-wg or daemon.enable_wg: true, multiplayer is wrapped in WireGuard. Otherwise it stays on direct TCP mTLS.

Example Config

daemon_mode: true
daemon:
    host: ""
    port: 31337
    tailscale: false
    enable_wg: false
logs:
    level: 4
    grpc_unary_payloads: false
    grpc_stream_payloads: false
    tls_key_logger: false
grpc:
    keepalive:
        min_time_seconds: 30
        permit_without_stream: true

Generating Operator Configs Without Console

Since daemon mode does not provide an interactive server console, generate operator configs using the server CLI:

./sliver-server operator --name zer0cool --lhost 1.2.3.4 --permissions all --save zer0cool.cfg

The operator CLI generates direct multiplayer profiles by default. Add --enable-wg when the daemon is running with the WireGuard wrapper.

Shutdown Behavior

On Unix-like systems, daemon mode handles SIGTERM and exits cleanly.

systemd

With daemon mode enabled in server.yaml, you can run Sliver under systemd or another init system. See the Linux install script for an example.