How to create your own Minecraft Server 2023 – Step by Step Guide

Even tho there are countless tutorials to setting up and hosting your own Minecraft server it is still a bit confusing expecially when it comes to port forwarding. Here we will show you how you can set up your server and how your friends can connect to it with and without port forwarding.

1. Download the server files

To create your own Minecraft server, you will need to download the server software from the official Minecraft website. Go to the Minecraft downloads page and click on “minecraft server.x.x.x.jar” to download the latest version of the server software.

Alternative server files

Apart from the official server there are also many modified versions with improvements regarding the performance especially on low end hardware. One of the best and easiest options I have come across is PaperMC as it offers a lot more speed if you are for example hosting you server on a RaspberryPI.

2. Install Java

Minecraft requires Java to run, so you will need to install Java on your computer if you haven’t already (make sure its the jdk version). To install Java, go to the official Java website and download the latest version of Java for your operating system. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Java on your computer.

3. Set up folder structure

Create a new folder on your computer to hold all the server files. You can name the folder whatever you like. It’s a good idea to use a new and empty folder so that all the server files are organized in one place. This will also make it easier to find and manage the server files later.

To start the server later on, it is also advised to create a new .bat file that can be executed. It should contain:

java -Xmx1G -jar SERVER_FILE_NAME.jar 

and should be saved as start.bat it in the same directory where the minecraft SERVER_FILE_NAME.jar file is located. Before doing this make sure that you have changed the placeholder “SERVER_FILE_NAME.jar” to the real name of your .jar file!

Your folder should now look like this:

4. Configure server settings

After you’ve finished setting the start script up, execute it and wait for the server to generate the settings file and the EULA.txt file. Open the EULA file with a text editor like Notepad or Wordpad, change the value to eula=true and save it again.

The other file is the settings file of the server named server.properties.

There are many settings you can change, but some of the most important ones are:

• Game mode: This determines whether the game is in survival mode, creative mode, or adventure mode.
• Difficulty level: This determines how many mobs are spawned and the general difficulty.
• Max players: This sets the maximum number of players that can join the server at one time.
• Server name: This sets the displayed name of your server.

You can also set other settings like game rules, spawn settings, and more but this is not all to important at the moment. Once you’ve configured the settings to your liking, save the file and close the text editor.

5. Start the server

Upon executing the start.bat file the server should now start without any problems and you should be greeted by the simple server user interface showing you the current RAM usage as well as the log and chat on the right.

To test the Minecraft server and connect with it you need to know its IP meaning the IP of your server PC. Open your command line and type

ipconfig

which prints out all the IP addresses of your machine.

After finding your IPv4 address go into Minecraft and connect to your very own server to ensure that it is running fine. Do this by going on the multiplayer button > add server > enter your IP and hit connect.

6. Ports

Even tho having done the server part itself, the most problems will probably occur when trying to give friends access to your new Minecraft server. This is because you need to give devices from the internet permission to access a device within your home network. In this case that’s your Minecraft server with the IP address you found earlier.

Port forwarding

This can be done with port forwarding which tells your router which devices are allowed to be accessed (and on which port). For Minecraft Java Edition these ports are TCP 25565 and UDP 25565. The IP address is the same as above.

IPv4 tunnel server

Although that sounds fairly easy there is an increasing number of internet connections that don’t get there own IPv4 addresses anymore which means that the server will only be accessible over IPv6. To fix this you could rent a server with a public IPv4 address to tunnel the IPv6 packages from your home minecraft server through it resulting in your minecraft server being accessible by anyone.

Because it is mostly complete overkill to rent and set up a whole root server to tunnel your packages we offer you this service for a fair price. You will simply get a script from us that will tell the tunnel server your minecraft servers current IPv6 address which it will then tunnel to a static non changing IPv4 address.

Note: you will still need port forwarding and your server will still need to be accessible from outside your home for this to work in the first place.

Should you be interested in this offer write an E-Mail to lj.server.info@gmail.com and we will try our best to give you an affordable public and static IPv4 address for your server.

NGrok

NGrok is a good alternative if you don’t want to open any ports on your router at all. Although it doesn’t offer the same convenience as a static IP because you have to tell your friends the new IP every time you restart the server. You can install it here and run it in the command line by typing:

ngrok tcp 25565

7. Giving it more power!

If you want to have more than 3 people on your server it is advised to allocate more RAM to the server which make the whole experience a lot smother for the users. This can simple be done by modifying the start.bat file:

java -Xmx_AMOUNT_OF_RAM_G -jar SERVER_FILE_NAME.jar 

Having done this you can now put your desired amount of RAM in Gigabytes where the placeholder _AMOUNT_OF_RAM_ is. Make sure to leave a bit free room for the rest of your PC!

8. Enjoy!

Enjoy playing Minecraft with your friends on your new server! If your asking yourself why this blocky game even became so popular you might be interested in our article regarding the indisputable success of the game. Or if you are interested in more pixel games check out our article on Knights of Pen and Paper 2. Have fun!

Get Minecraft here: