How to Set Up a Plutonium T4 (World at War) Private Server

Plutonium is an open-source, community-developed project that lets people who already own the original game run private dedicated servers for older Call of Duty titles the publisher no longer operates online services for — its own tagline is "BO1, BO2, MW3, WaW redefined." This guide covers T4 — Plutonium's own name for *Call of Duty: World at War*, one of the four titles it supports.

Plutonium is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Activision. It checks that you own a legitimate copy of the game before it will run, and Nxeon never provides, sells, or distributes the game itself — you bring your own legally-owned copy.

What you'll need

• Your own legitimate copy of World at War. Plutonium enforces this itself and will refuse to run without it.
• A free Plutonium account and Server Key, generated at plutonium.pw — every Plutonium server on any host needs one; it's not a Nxeon credential.
• A Linux VM with a couple of GB of RAM — the WaW engine is light even at high player counts.

How a T4 server actually runs on Linux

Unlike a modern SteamCMD title, a T4 dedicated server is the Plutonium client/server runtime pointed at your own copy of the WaW game files, run under Wine. Rather than installing Wine and the Plutonium updater by hand, Nxeon's T4 servers run the community-maintained Plutainer Docker image, which wraps all of that and is configured entirely through environment variables — the same approach Plutonium's own community documents (see SharpTheNightmare/PlutoniumLinuxHosting and Plutonium's official T4 Linux docs).

Ports

• 28960/UDP — the game port players connect to.
• 8000/TCP *(optional)* — a FastDL HTTP mirror, if you want joining players to auto-download custom maps. This is entirely your own setup; Nxeon doesn't open it by default.

Directory layout

Your server ships with two empty, SFTP-writable folders:

• gamefiles/ — upload your own legally-owned World at War installation here. Nxeon never puts anything in this folder for you.
• server/ — holds the Plutonium runtime, logs, and your dedicated.cfg.

Setup steps

1. Deploy a Plutonium T4 plan. The VM and the Plutainer server software are provisioned within minutes.
2. Generate your Server Key. Log into your own account at plutonium.pw and create a key for your server — this authenticates your server to the Plutonium network, separate from your game ownership.
3. Upload your game files. Connect over SFTP and copy your own World at War installation into gamefiles/.
4. Configure and start. Edit dedicated.cfg with your Server Key, server name, and map rotation, then start the server from your dashboard.

FAQ

Do I need to own World at War to use this? Yes. Plutonium checks for a legitimate copy client-side and will not run without one. Nxeon does not provide the game.

Is Nxeon affiliated with Activision or the Call of Duty franchise? No. Nxeon hosts infrastructure and the open-source Plutonium/Plutainer server software only — we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Activision, and we never source, host, or distribute any Call of Duty game files, maps, or assets.

What's the difference between a Server Key and my game license? Your game license is what you already own from purchasing World at War. Your Plutonium Server Key is a separate, free authentication token from your own Plutonium account, required by every Plutonium server regardless of host.

Can I run custom maps or mods? Yes, over the same SFTP access — Plutonium's usermap and mod ecosystem is community-run, so there's no one-click installer, but nothing is blocked.

Which other Plutonium titles does Nxeon support? All four Plutonium supports: T4 (WaW), T5 (Black Ops), T6 (Black Ops II), and IW5 (Modern Warfare 3). See our combined guide to all four titles for the others. Plutonium does not support Black Ops 3 at all, so it isn't offered here.

Ready to deploy? See Plutonium T4 (WaW) server hosting for current plans and pricing.