Minecraft server

A Minecraft server is a player or business-owned multiplayer game server for the 2011 Mojang Studios video game Minecraft. In this context, the term "server" often refers to a network of connected servers, rather than a single machine. Players can start their own server either by setting one up on a computer using software provided by Mojang, or by using a hosting provider so they can have their server run on dedicated machines with guaranteed uptime. The largest server is widely accepted to be the minigame server Hypixel, and previously, Mineplex.

Minecraft multiplayer servers are controlled by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day, teleporting players, setting the world spawn, and changing players' gamemode. The server owner (or users that have access to the live server files) can also set up and install plugins to change the mechanics of the server, and can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the game server.

Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities: with some servers having unique premises, rules, and customs. Player versus player (PvP) combat can be enabled to allow fighting between players. Custom mods and plugins (server side mods) can be used with modified servers to allow actions that are not normally possible in the vanilla (unmodded) form of the game. There also exists a modification of the server software that can allow crossplay between the Java and Bedrock editions of the game.

Getting started#

Requirements#

Downloading Paper#

Paper provides runnable server JARs directly from our website's downloads page.

Click on the build number to download a file.

Running the server#

To run the server you will need to either create a startup script or run a command in your terminal.

You can generate a startup script using our Startup Script Generator. You can also obtain the optimized terminal command to run the server there.

If you're just looking for a short command:

java -Xms4G -Xmx4G -jar paper.jar --nogui

Ensure you navigated your terminal to the directory of your server and that you have replaced paper.jar with the name of the JAR you have downloaded.

The amount of RAM can be set by changing the numbers in the Xmx and Xms arguments. --nogui disables Vanilla's GUI, so you don't get double interfaces when using the command line.

To configure your server, see the Global Configuration and Per World Configuration pages.

Updating#

Updating Paper is an important part of running every server. With new features and fixes coming every day, we recommend updating at least once per week to keep your server patched for the latest bugs. Installing updates is very simple, but it's important to know how to do it correctly.

Step 1. Backup#

This is the most important step, and yet the most frequently skipped. While it is unlikely that updating Paper itself will cause any issues requiring you to restore from a backup, plugin malfunctions or other accidents might! Updating is a great time to work in a backup. Having functioning backups is essential to every server, big or small. The main things to back up are:

• The world folders
• Server Configuration Files
• Plugin Configuration Files & Plugin JARs

You should aim to have backups from multiple times, and keep them in a safe place. A common approach is to keep rolling backups, so you always have a certain number of backups from a set amount of time.

Step 2. Update plugins#

Just like it's important to update Paper, it's equally important to keep plugins up to date. You never know what plugin authors may be working on, be it bugfixes or new features.

A little known feature of Paper servers is the update folder. Here's how you use it.

1. Create a folder called update within the plugins folder.
2. One by one, download plugins you would like to update and put them in the update folder.
3. Restart your server, do not remove or modify any plugins outside the update folder.

By doing this, you are able to update all of your plugins at the same time without having the server off, or replacing plugin JARs while the server is running. You do not need to restart your server before updating Paper itself. This feature allows you to update both Paper and plugins all at the same time, without needing any additional downtime.

Step 3. Update Paper#

Updating Paper itself is very simple.

1. Download a new JAR from our downloads page.
2. Stop your server. It is not recommended and may cause issues to replace your Paper JAR while the server is running.
3. Rename the downloaded file to match the name specified in the start command.
4. Replace your old Paper JAR file with the new renamed one.
5. Start your server. Watch the startup log to ensure everything goes to plan. If there are any plugin conflicts or issues, you will see them here.

To minimize downtime caused by updates, some server owners will, rather than replacing their server JAR, upload a new one and set their start script to use the new one on the next restart. Both of these are valid update strategies.

Next steps#

Security#

Whitelisting#

If you want to restrict who can join your server, you can use the whitelist feature. This allows you to specify who can join your server, and stops anyone else from joining. You can use the whitelist from the server console, or by editing the whitelist.json file in your server directory.

Permissions#

Permissions are a way to control what players can and cannot do on your server. You can use permissions to restrict who can use certain commands, or who can access certain areas of your server. It is common for plugins to use permissions to control who can use their features. You can use permission plugins such as LuckPerms to manage the permissions which players will be granted.

Backups#

It's important to keep backups of your server. If something goes wrong, you can restore your server to a previous state. We cover how to do this in the Updating guide.

Making your server public#

If you want to make your server public, you will need to port forward your server. This allows people from outside your network to connect to your server. There is a guide made by NordVPN which explains what port forwarding is and how to do it for your Paper server.

Adding plugins#

Plugins are the most powerful way to extend the functionality of Paper beyond the configuration files. Functionality added by plugins can range from making milk restore hunger or dead bushes grow, to adding entirely new and original game modes or items.

Finding plugins#

Before installing a plugin, you'll need to find what you want to install. The best place to find plugins is Hangar, Paper's plugin repository, but you can also find plugins on Modrinth or BukkitDev. Many plugins may release on GitHub. Instead of checking each site directly, you can also use a search engine. Searching for the function you desire, followed by Paper plugin will often yield good results.

Installing plugins#

1. Once you've found the plugin you'd like to install, download it. Ensure the file you have downloaded ends in .jar. Some plugins also distribute as .zip files, in which case you will need to extract the file and locate the .jar for your platform, often labeled bukkit or paper.
2. Once you have the plugin downloaded locally, locate the plugins folder from the root directory of your Paper server.
3. Drag and drop the plugin file (.jar) into the plugins folder. If you are using a shared hosting service, you may need to use their web panel or SFTP to upload the plugin; however, the procedure will be the same.
4. Restart your server. The plugin should load.
5. Check your work. Once the server has finished loading, run the /plugins command in-game or type plugins into the console. You should see your freshly installed plugin listed in green. If it is not listed or is colored red, continue to troubleshooting. A plugin listed in red means that it is not currently enabled. For a freshly installed plugin, this often means that the plugin failed to load.

itzg/docker-minecraft-server#

This docker image provides a Minecraft Server that will automatically download the latest stable version at startup. You can also run/upgrade to any specific version or the latest snapshot. See the Versions section below for more information.

To simply use the latest stable version, run

docker run -d -it -p 25565:25565 -e EULA=TRUE itzg/minecraft-server

where, in this case, the standard server port 25565 will be exposed on your host machine.

By default, the container will download the latest version of the "vanilla" Minecraft: Java Edition server provided by Mojang. The VERSION and the TYPE can be configured to create many variations of desired Minecraft server.

Using Docker Compose#

1. Create a new directory
2. Put the contents of the file below in a file called compose.yaml
3. Run docker compose up -d in that directory
4. Done! Point your client at your host's name/IP address and port 25565.

 
services:
  mc:
    image: itzg/minecraft-server:latest
    pull_policy: daily
    tty: true
    stdin_open: true
    ports:
      - "25565:25565"
    environment:
      EULA: "TRUE"
    volumes:
      # attach the relative directory 'data' to the container's /data path
      - ./data:/data

To apply changes made to the compose file, just run docker compose up -d again.

Follow the logs of the container using docker compose logs -f, check on the status with docker compose ps, and stop the container using docker compose stop.