How to Host Your Own Minecraft Server (Java & Bedrock, Step by Step)

Before you start

This guide gets a server running on a machine you control — your own PC, a spare laptop, or a VPS you have rented. If you have not decided between those and a paid host, the hosting comparison comes first. You need:

• A machine with at least 4 GB of RAM free beyond whatever else it is doing. If you also want to play on the same PC, 16 GB total is comfortable.
• An ethernet connection to your router if at all possible. A server on Wi-Fi gives every player the jitter of your Wi-Fi.
• About 500 MB of disk to begin with; worlds grow by a few gigabytes over a year of play.
• An ordinary Minecraft account for yourself. The server software itself is free.

Java Edition: step by step

1. Install Java 21. Minecraft 1.20.5 and later, including 1.21, need Java 21. Download a build from Adoptium (Eclipse Temurin) or Microsoft’s OpenJDK — either is free. On Windows, run the installer and tick the option to set the JAVA_HOME variable. Confirm by opening a terminal and typing java -version; it should print 21.
2. Download the server. For most people that means Paper from papermc.io: pick the version matching what your players run and download the latest build. It is a faster, plugin-capable replacement for the official jar and behaves identically to vanilla for players. If you want unmodified vanilla, the official server.jar is on minecraft.net under Download → Server.
3. Make a folder. Something like C:\mcserver or ~/mcserver. Put the jar in it, renamed to server.jar for convenience. Everything the server creates will live here, so keep it out of your Downloads folder.
4. Create a start script. On Windows, make start.bat in the folder containing:

   @echo off
   java -Xms2G -Xmx4G -jar server.jar nogui
   pause

   On macOS/Linux, start.sh with the same java line and no pause, then chmod +x start.sh. -Xmx4G is the maximum RAM; set it to what you can spare, and never to all of the machine’s memory.
5. Run it once and accept the EULA. The first run stops almost immediately and writes eula.txt. Open it, change eula=false to eula=true, save. This is you agreeing to Mojang’s server terms.
6. Run it again. The server generates a world, which takes a minute or two, and finishes with Done (…s)! For help, type "help". It is now running. Type stop in that window to shut it down cleanly — never just close the window, which can corrupt the world.
7. Connect from the same PC. Open Minecraft, Multiplayer, Add Server, address localhost. If that joins, the server works and the rest is networking.
8. Connect from another device in the house. Find the server PC’s local IP (ipconfig on Windows, look for IPv4 Address — usually 192.168.x.x) and use that as the address on the other device. If this works and the previous step worked, the server is fully functional on your LAN.

The settings worth changing

Stop the server and open server.properties in a text editor. Most of it can stay at the default; these are the lines that matter.

Paper adds its own files in the config folder; the defaults are sensible and the one thing worth knowing about is that paper-world-defaults.yml is where per-world performance tuning lives if you ever need it.

Bedrock Dedicated Server

Bedrock players on phones, consoles and Windows cannot join a Java server directly. If everyone in your group is on Bedrock, run Mojang’s Bedrock Dedicated Server instead. It is a free download from minecraft.net (Download → Server → Bedrock), available for Windows and Ubuntu Linux, and it is lighter than the Java server.

1. Unzip the download into its own folder.
2. Windows: run bedrock_server.exe. Linux: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./bedrock_server. There is no Java involved.
3. Edit server.properties: server-name, gamemode, difficulty, max-players, and leave online-mode=true.
4. To limit who can join, set allow-list=true and add players to allowlist.json by gamertag.
5. Players add the server under Servers → Add Server with your address and port 19132. Console players cannot type a custom address in the normal UI; the workaround is a DNS trick or the BedrockTogether app, covered in the crossplay guide.

Bedrock Dedicated Server has no plugin system in the Java sense; add-ons and behaviour packs are how it is customised. If you want plugins, the crossplay setup below is the better path even for an all-Bedrock group.

Crossplay with Geyser

To let Java and Bedrock players share one world, run a Paper server and install two plugins: Geyser, which translates the Bedrock protocol into Java on the fly, and Floodgate, which lets Bedrock players join with their Xbox account instead of needing a separate Java account. Drop both jars into the plugins folder and restart. Geyser listens on UDP 19132 by default, so you open that port in addition to TCP 25565. Bedrock players then connect to the same address on port 19132 and appear in the world alongside Java players. The crossplay guide explains what does and does not translate cleanly.

Letting people in: port forwarding and CGNAT

Everything above works on your home network. For people outside the house, incoming connections have to reach the server PC through your router, and there are two very different situations depending on your ISP.

Check first: do you have a public IP?

Log into your router (the address is on its label, commonly 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1) and find the WAN or Internet IP address. Compare it with what a site like whatismyip.com shows from a browser on the same connection.

• They match, and the router address does not start with 10. or 100. — you have a public IP. Port forwarding will work.
• They differ, or the router shows an address in 100.64.0.0–100.127.255.255 or 10.x.x.x — you are behind CGNAT. Port forwarding cannot work, no matter how carefully you set it up, because the address you are forwarding on is not reachable from the internet. Skip to the tunnel section.

Port forwarding (public IP)

1. Give the server PC a fixed local IP. Either reserve it in the router’s DHCP settings by MAC address (best) or set a static IP on the PC.
2. In the router, find Port Forwarding (sometimes under NAT, Virtual Server or Applications). Add a rule: external port 25565, internal port 25565, protocol TCP, internal IP = the server PC. For Bedrock or Geyser add a second rule for 19132 UDP.
3. Allow the port through the PC’s own firewall. Windows usually prompts the first time the server runs; if you clicked Cancel, add an inbound rule for Java manually.
4. Give players your public IP. Because most home IPs change occasionally, set up a free dynamic DNS name (No-IP, DuckDNS, or your router’s built-in DDNS) so the address stays constant.

Tunnelling (CGNAT, or when you would rather not touch the router)

A tunnelling service runs a small program on the server PC that keeps an outbound connection open to the service’s own servers; players connect to an address the service gives you, and traffic is relayed through the tunnel to your PC. Because the connection is outbound from your side, CGNAT and firewalls are irrelevant. playit.gg is built specifically for game servers and has a free tier that is enough for a friends server; ngrok and Cloudflare Tunnel can do the same with more setup. Install the agent, create a Minecraft Java (or Bedrock) tunnel, and it gives you a hostname to share. Expect a few milliseconds of added latency, and check which relay region you land on — one in Europe adds more.

The other CGNAT fix is to ask your ISP for a public or static IP. Several South African fibre ISPs offer it as a monthly add-on, and some will move you off CGNAT for free if you ask support. Then port forwarding works as above.

Running it on Linux or a VPS

If you rented a VPS — say in Azure South Africa North or AWS Cape Town, as discussed in the hosting guide — the steps are the same with two additions: the server needs to survive you logging out, and it should restart itself after a crash. On Ubuntu:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y openjdk-21-jre-headless
sudo useradd -r -m -d /opt/minecraft minecraft
sudo -u minecraft mkdir -p /opt/minecraft/server
# put server.jar in /opt/minecraft/server, run once, accept the EULA, then:
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service >/dev/null <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Minecraft server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=minecraft
WorkingDirectory=/opt/minecraft/server
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xms2G -Xmx3G -jar server.jar nogui
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now minecraft
sudo ufw allow 25565/tcp

On a 4 GB VPS, leave about a gigabyte for the operating system — hence -Xmx3G. Open the same port in the cloud provider’s own firewall or security group as well; the OS firewall alone is not enough on Azure or AWS. To type commands into a systemd-managed server you need a console: the simplest approach is to run it inside tmux instead of systemd, or install a lightweight panel. For backups, a nightly tar of the world folder copied off the machine is the minimum.

Admin basics: ops, whitelist, backups

• Make yourself an operator by typing op YourName in the server console. Ops can run every command. Give it to as few people as possible.
• Whitelist for a private server: whitelist on, then whitelist add Name for each friend. On a public server, keep it off and rely on moderation plugins.
• Backups. The world is the folder named in level-name (default world, plus world_nether and world_the_end on Paper). Copy it while the server is stopped, or use save-off, copy, save-on while it runs. Do it before every plugin change and every game update.
• Updating. Back up, stop, replace server.jar with the new version, start. Players must be on a matching version; Paper accepts the same client versions as vanilla.
• Essential plugins for a friends server on Paper: a land-claiming plugin, a homes/teleport plugin, and a backup plugin. Resist adding fifty. Each one costs performance and is a potential update-day breakage.
• Watch TPS. Type tps in the Paper console. 20 is perfect; sustained values under 18 mean the machine is struggling, and lowering view distance is the first fix.

Frequently asked questions