How to set up a Minecraft server from scratch

What you need first

• An active Minecraft plan on Fatality Servers. See our Minecraft hosting plans.
• A Minecraft Java Edition license per player (for Bedrock: a Bedrock copy each). The server binary itself is free.
• Enough RAM — Minecraft is Java-based and hungry. Per-player rule-of-thumb: 100 MB base + 50 MB per concurrent player (vanilla), 200 MB + 100 MB per player (plugin-heavy Paper), 1 GB + 200 MB per player (large modpack like ATM10 or GT:NH).
• A basic SFTP client (FileZilla, WinSCP) and a text editor that won't mangle YAML (VS Code, Notepad++).

Pick a server flavor

"Minecraft server" actually means half a dozen different binaries depending on what you want to do:

Flavor	Use case	Plugins?	Mods?	Perf
Vanilla	Reference / small friends server	❌	❌	Baseline
Paper	Community survival / lobbies / most servers	✅ Bukkit/Spigot	❌	🔥 Fastest vanilla-compatible
Spigot	Older/legacy setups — use Paper instead	✅	❌	Fair
Purpur	Paper + extra configurable gameplay tweaks	✅ (Paper-compat)	❌	~Paper
Folia	Very large survival / spreads ticks across cores	✅ (Folia-specific)	❌	Only worthwhile 200+ players
Fabric	Modern mod loader (Fabric mods)	❌ (unless Bukkit bridge)	✅ Fabric	Very good
Forge	Traditional mod loader (most modpacks)	❌ (unless hybrid)	✅ Forge	Good
NeoForge	Community fork of Forge (1.20.2+)	❌	✅ NeoForge	Good
Quilt	Fabric fork with extra QoL	❌	✅ Fabric-compat	Good
Mohist / Arclight	Hybrid: plugins + Forge mods in one	✅	✅	Compromised

Deploy the server (1-click)

Our Minecraft template asks you which flavor + version on first deploy, downloads the matching jar (PaperClip for Paper, official Mojang jar for Vanilla, installer for Forge, etc.), writes a starter server.properties, accepts the EULA, and opens TCP 25565 on your plan's IP.

1. Pick the Minecraft template at checkout

   On the Minecraft hosting page, pick a plan sized for your use case. Starter = 4-10 vanilla players. Community = 20-40 Paper survival with QoL plugins. Flagship = 100+ slot public or heavy modpack.

2. Pick flavor + version

   Dropdown: Vanilla / Paper / Purpur / Fabric / Forge / NeoForge / Mohist + MC version (1.8 through latest). Swap anytime from the panel — version changes preserve your world.

3. Accept the EULA

   Mojang requires you to accept the Minecraft EULA. Panel does this automatically by setting eula=true in eula.txt. First boot without it: server refuses to start.

4. Wait for first-boot world generation

   On first run, the server generates a 256×256 spawn chunk area — takes 30-90 seconds depending on flavor and seed. Console ends with Done (12.345s)! For help, type "help".

File layout & where things go

/
├── server.jar                  — the Minecraft server binary (Paper/Vanilla/etc.)
├── server.properties           — main config
├── eula.txt                    — Mojang EULA acceptance
├── ops.json                    — operator list (admins)
├── whitelist.json              — allow-list of players
├── banned-players.json         — player bans
├── banned-ips.json             — IP bans
├── usercache.json              — UUID ↔ name cache
├── world/                      — overworld
│   ├── level.dat
│   ├── playerdata/
│   ├── region/                 — chunk data (.mca files)
│   └── data/
├── world_nether/               — Nether dim
├── world_the_end/              — End dim
├── logs/                       — rolling log files
│   └── latest.log
├── plugins/                    — Paper/Spigot plugins (.jar each)
├── mods/                       — Forge/Fabric mods (.jar each)
├── config/                     — per-plugin / per-mod configs
│   ├── paper-global.yml        — Paper's new global config (1.19+)
│   ├── paper-world-defaults.yml
│   └── <mod-name>/
├── bukkit.yml                  — Bukkit core config (CraftBukkit legacy)
├── spigot.yml                  — Spigot core config
└── banned-names.txt

Core server.properties settings

Plain key=value pairs. The values most people tweak:

motd=A Minecraft Server
server-port=25565
max-players=20
online-mode=true
enforce-secure-profile=true

gamemode=survival
difficulty=normal
hardcore=false
pvp=true
allow-flight=false
allow-nether=true
force-gamemode=false
spawn-protection=16
spawn-monsters=true
spawn-animals=true
spawn-npcs=true

view-distance=10
simulation-distance=10
entity-broadcast-range-percentage=100
network-compression-threshold=256

level-name=world
level-type=minecraft:normal
level-seed=
generate-structures=true

white-list=false
enforce-whitelist=false

enable-rcon=true
rcon.password=change-me-very-strong
rcon.port=25575

enable-query=false
query.port=25565

# Paper-specific (ignored on vanilla)
use-native-transport=true
prevent-proxy-connections=false

Values to know:

• motd — the text shown in the server list. Supports § color codes. 59-char limit.
• max-players — slot count. Match your plan.
• online-mode — keep true for public servers; checks Mojang auth. false = "cracked" mode, allows pirated clients but breaks skins/auth on some plugins.
• view-distance — chunk radius sent to each client. Every +1 increases memory use exponentially. 10 is Mojang default; 16 is common for community servers; 32 is lag city.
• simulation-distance — how far from players entities/redstone tick. Usually equal or slightly less than view-distance.
• difficulty — peaceful, easy, normal, hard. Peaceful disables mob spawns entirely.
• level-seed — leave empty for random. Paste a seed string to regenerate a specific world.
• enable-rcon + rcon.password — enable for remote admin tools (RCON, Discord bots).
• network-compression-threshold — packet size above which gzip kicks in. 256 for most servers; set to -1 to disable if you're running Velocity with TCP offload.

Performance tuning (Paper)

Paper is the performance-tuned fork most servers run. Its real config lives in config/paper-global.yml and config/paper-world-defaults.yml (since 1.19). Highlights to tune:

# config/paper-world-defaults.yml (excerpt)
chunks:
  prevent-moving-into-unloaded-chunks: true
  delay-chunk-unloads-by: 10s

collisions:
  max-entity-collisions: 8

entities:
  armor-stands:
    do-collision-entity-lookups: false
    tick: false
  behavior:
    disable-chest-cat-detection: true
    phantoms-do-not-spawn-on-creative-players: true
  spawning:
    despawn-ranges:
      ambient:
        hard: 128
        soft: 32
      animal:
        hard: 128
        soft: 32
      axolotls:
        hard: 128
        soft: 32
      creature:
        hard: 128
        soft: 32
      misc:
        hard: 128
        soft: 32
      monster:
        hard: 128
        soft: 32

environment:
  optimize-explosions: true
  treasure-maps:
    enabled: true
    find-already-discovered:
      loot-tables: default
      villager-trade: false

hopper:
  cooldown-when-full: true
  disable-move-event: false

lootables:
  auto-replenish: false

spawn:
  allow-using-signs-inside-spawn-protection: false
  keep-spawn-loaded: true
  keep-spawn-loaded-range: 10
  per-player-mob-spawns: true

Three tuning knobs that move the needle most:

1. per-player-mob-spawns: true — distributes mob cap per-player instead of globally. Huge for multi-base survival servers.
2. despawn-ranges — lower both values to reduce entity count. Default is already ok; some modpacks need aggressive cuts.
3. view-distance / simulation-distance — the single biggest perf lever. Lower simulation-distance first (to 6-8) if TPS drops below 18.

Ops, whitelist, bans

Ops (admins)

Grant operator permissions via console:

/op YourUsername

Or edit ops.json directly:

[
  {
    "uuid": "f7c77d99-9f15-4a66-a87d-c4a51ef30d19",
    "name": "YourUsername",
    "level": 4,
    "bypassesPlayerLimit": true
  }
]

Levels: 1 (spawn protection bypass), 2 (commands like /kick, /gamemode), 3 (/ban, /op), 4 (all commands including /stop). Most admins run level 4.

Whitelist

/whitelist on
/whitelist add YourFriend
/whitelist remove someone
/whitelist list

Or flip white-list=true in server.properties and edit whitelist.json directly. Whitelisted servers stay public in the server list but reject non-whitelisted joins.

Bans

/ban PlayerName Reason
/ban-ip 1.2.3.4 Reason
/pardon PlayerName
/pardon-ip 1.2.3.4

Plugins (Paper/Spigot) & mods (Fabric/Forge)

Paper/Spigot plugins

Download .jar files from Modrinth, SpigotMC Resources, or Paper's Hangar. Drop into plugins/, restart. On boot, Paper creates plugins/<PluginName>/config.yml for each.

Essential plugins for most community servers:

• EssentialsX — homes, warps, kits, tpa, economy foundation
• LuckPerms — group permissions, prefixes, suffixes (replaces legacy PEX)
• Vault — economy/perms abstraction, required by many plugins
• WorldEdit + WorldGuard — world editing + region protection
• CoreProtect — block/item logger, /co inspect is a lifesaver
• DiscordSRV — Discord ↔ server chat bridge
• PlaceholderAPI — plugin-interop placeholder system
• ViaVersion + ViaBackwards — lets older/newer clients connect to your server

Forge / NeoForge mods

1. Deploy the Forge flavor

   Panel → set flavor to Forge (or NeoForge for 1.20.2+) + Minecraft version. The installer runs automatically.

2. Upload .jar files to mods/

   From CurseForge or Modrinth, grab the Forge-compatible .jar for your MC version. Drop into mods/, restart.

3. Match client mods

   Clients must have the exact same mods + versions. Tell players to install them (we recommend Modrinth's App or CurseForge's for easy one-click syncs), or distribute a modpack manifest.

Fabric mods

Same workflow as Forge, but use Fabric-compatible mods. The overlap is: Fabric mods are NOT Forge-compatible and vice-versa. Fabric API is a required dependency for most Fabric mods — drop it in mods/ first.

Running a prebuilt modpack (ATM, FTB, Create, GT:NH)

Our panel has a Modpack Installer that fetches directly from CurseForge's API — see our separate modpack install guide. Supports all CurseForge modpacks by ID.

BungeeCord / Velocity proxies

Running more than one Minecraft server (lobby → survival → minigames → creative)? Put a proxy in front. Clients connect to the proxy; it routes them between backend servers invisibly.

Velocity (recommended)

Velocity is PaperMC's modern proxy — faster, better-documented, actively maintained. Install steps:

1. Spawn a Velocity instance

   On our panel, add a sibling under your subscription and pick Velocity as the template. Tiny plan (512 MB RAM) is enough.

2. Configure velocity.toml

   bind = "0.0.0.0:25565"
   motd = "&6My Network"
   show-max-players = 1000
   online-mode = true
   player-info-forwarding-mode = "modern"
   
   [servers]
   lobby = "127.0.0.1:25566"
   survival = "127.0.0.1:25567"
   minigames = "127.0.0.1:25568"
   try = ["lobby"]

3. Configure each backend server

   On every Paper backend, set online-mode=false in server.properties and enable Velocity modern forwarding in config/paper-global.yml:

   proxies:
     velocity:
       enabled: true
       online-mode: true
       secret: "copy-this-from-velocity/forwarding.secret"

   Backends now trust the proxy for auth — never expose them on a public port.

BungeeCord (legacy)

Still works, still maintained by SpigotMC. Use only if you're running plugins that need BungeeCord-specific APIs and haven't been ported to Velocity.

Bedrock Edition notes

Bedrock is a different binary entirely — Mojang ships bedrock-server separately. On our platform, pick the Bedrock template instead of Java. Key differences:

• Port: UDP 19132 (not TCP 25565).
• Config file: server.properties (same name, different values).
• No plugins in the Bukkit sense. Scripts are authored in JavaScript using Bedrock's scripting API.
• Hybrid Java + Bedrock access: use Geyser (a Paper plugin) to let Bedrock clients connect to your Java server.

For most server owners, running Java + Geyser + Floodgate on a Paper server is better than running Bedrock natively — you get plugin support, cross-play, and one world for both editions.

Connect and test

1. Launch Minecraft on your PC

   Main menu → Multiplayer → Add Server.

2. Enter your server address

   YOUR-SERVER-IP (default port 25565) or your-ip:port for custom ports. If you've pointed a domain, enter that instead.

3. Op yourself on first join

   From the panel console:

   op YourUsername

   Rejoin if you were already in — op status takes effect on next login.

4. Smoke-test admin commands

   /gamemode creative
   /tp @s ~ 100 ~
   /save-all
   /whitelist on

Common errors and fixes

"Failed to verify username"

Player's session is stale or online-mode=true is rejecting their client. Fixes:

• Have player log out and back into the Minecraft launcher
• Check your server's internet — if Mojang's auth servers are unreachable, all joins fail
• Check status.minecraft.net for Mojang-side outages

"Server is Out of Memory"

• Bump RAM allocation via the panel's Memory slider
• Use Aikar's Flags in the startup command (G1GC tuning)
• Install Spark plugin (/spark heap) to identify what's eating memory
• If modded: a specific mod is leaking — check its issues page

Server lagging / low TPS

Install Spark (profiling plugin) and run:

/spark profiler start --timeout 120
# ... wait 2 minutes while lag reproduces ...
/spark profiler stop

Spark uploads a flame-graph URL. 95% of the time it points you directly at a bad plugin or an entity hotspot.

"Outdated server" / "Outdated client"

Client and server MC version mismatch. Two options:

• Change the client's version in the launcher profile
• Install ViaVersion + ViaBackwards + ViaRewind on the server to let multiple client versions connect

"Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded?"

Server tick took > 50 ms. Not fatal by itself, but if it repeats:

• Reduce view-distance and simulation-distance
• Run /spark profiler to identify the hotspot
• Upgrade CPU plan — MC's main-tick thread is single-threaded, raw clock matters

World corruption ("Failed to load chunk")

1. Stop the server immediately — continued writes compound corruption
2. Rollback from the panel's backup tab (daily snapshots + 30-day retention on all managed plans)
3. If the backup is too old, try MCA Selector or RegionFixer to delete just the broken chunks

RCON connects but commands silent

• enable-rcon=true missing from server.properties
• Wrong rcon.password
• Firewall blocking TCP on rcon.port (25575 by default, different from game port)

Plugin doesn't load

• Wrong Minecraft version — check the plugin's listed compat on Modrinth/Hangar
• Wrong Paper flavor — a Fabric-only plugin won't load on Paper
• Missing dependency — check logs/latest.log for "Unknown dependency: XYZ"
• Plugin jar is corrupted — re-download

Forge modpack won't start

• Wrong Java version — MC 1.17+ needs Java 17, 1.20.5+ needs Java 21. Panel has a JVM dropdown.
• Modpack's recommended RAM isn't met — ATM10 wants 10+ GB just to boot
• Forge/NeoForge version mismatch — check crash-reports/ for the exact version the pack wants
• Mixin conflict — one mod's mixin is clashing with another's. Usually a specific pair; check the crash report's mixin section.

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Stuck on something specific? Email support with your server IP, the last 200 lines of logs/latest.log, and any relevant crash report — we'll usually have an answer within the hour.