Safely host a minecraft server.

[Commander_Dork]

Howdy! I plan to run a Minecraft server on my windows PC for some friends... but I want to do it safely. Some people recommend Cloudflare, and some people recommend a VPN or some just using a firewall with exceptions for the Minecraft port. Does anyone have experience or knowledge of how to safely port forward it? My initial plan was to port forward a VPN as I would also be running a homelab with a NAS and a couple other resources I'd like to access outside of my home network, but some people say it's still not safe and I just want to know the opinion of someone who has done similar themselves and could give me advice. Thanks in advance!

[TheLANguy]

18 minutes ago, Commander_Dork said:

Howdy! I plan to run a Minecraft server on my windows PC for some friends... but I want to do it safely. Some people recommend Cloudflare, and some people recommend a VPN or some just using a firewall with exceptions for the Minecraft port. Does anyone have experience or knowledge of how to safely port forward it? My initial plan was to port forward a VPN as I would also be running a homelab with a NAS and a couple other resources I'd like to access outside of my home network, but some people say it's still not safe and I just want to know the opinion of someone who has done similar themselves and could give me advice. Thanks in advance!

I do not have much experience with the Minecraft, but I do know a thing or two about routers.

There is minimal risk opening a port on your router.

You can open a port by going to your router's IP address. Just open CMD and type "ipconfig". The "Default Gateway" is your routers IP. Open that IP in your browser and you can open a port. 

You could also use OpenVPN to access your network from elsewhere.

[Commander_Dork]

11 minutes ago, TheLANguy said:

I do not have much experience with the Minecraft, but I do know a thing or two about routers.

There is minimal risk opening a port on your router.

You can open a port by going to your router's IP address. Just open CMD and type "ipconfig". The "Default Gateway" is your routers IP. Open that IP in your browser and you can open a port. 

You could also use OpenVPN to access your network from elsewhere.

I understand port forwarding and what VPN I can use but I am however concerned about is different people telling me that just because I use a VPN doesn't mean that my network is safe and I am super confused because it technically would depending on the encryption level as long as I don't give them access to my VPN... right? I felt like I had a grasp on this whole thing already and then multiple YouTubers keep contradicting each other or I am severely misunderstanding

[Needfuldoer]

18 minutes ago, Commander_Dork said:

I understand port forwarding and what VPN I can use but I am however concerned about is different people telling me that just because I use a VPN doesn't mean that my network is safe and I am super confused because it technically would depending on the encryption level as long as I don't give them access to my VPN... right? I felt like I had a grasp on this whole thing already and then multiple YouTubers keep contradicting each other or I am severely misunderstanding

Making your friends VPN into your machine to play would be safest, but not as convenient. (If you host at home, you'll want to set up some sort of dynamic DNS anyway.)

 

If you want to be safe and relatively convenient, rent an instance from a hosting provider, or run Minecraft on a VPS. Oracle has a free tier on their AWS/Azure competitor.

 

https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/post/how-to-set-up-and-run-a-really-powerful-free-minecraft-server-in-the-cloud

[Commander_Dork]

15 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Making your friends VPN into your machine to play would be safest, but not as convenient. (If you host at home, you'll want to set up some sort of dynamic DNS anyway.)

 

If you want to be safe and relatively convenient, rent an instance from a hosting provider, or run Minecraft on a VPS. Oracle has a free tier on their AWS/Azure competitor.

 

https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/post/how-to-set-up-and-run-a-really-powerful-free-minecraft-server-in-the-cloud

I'm looking for an alternative however that I don't have to pay a service for and isn't the bare minimum. I want to have the room for multiple people running multiple mods without fear of performance issues. I used to use a VPS but even running with just two people the world started to freeze up and glitch.

[Mitch117]

In regards to having friends on your Minecraft server, I just forward the port on my router to the specific machine and port that my Minecraft server runs on.  I use a different port than the default Minecraft server port.

 

For all other access that I want, I connect through a VPN.

[Commander_Dork]

What are all the ports Minecraft Java uses? Dyk by chance?

21 minutes ago, Mitch117 said:

In regards to having friends on your Minecraft server, I just forward the port on my router to the specific machine and port that my Minecraft server runs on.  I use a different port than the default Minecraft server port.

 

For all other access that I want, I connect through a VPN.

 

[Mitch117]

2 minutes ago, Commander_Dork said:

What are all the ports Minecraft Java uses? Dyk by chance?

 

25565 is the default server port

[jsnotlout1]

On 10/16/2023 at 6:04 PM, Commander_Dork said:

Howdy! I plan to run a Minecraft server on my windows PC for some friends... but I want to do it safely. Some people recommend Cloudflare, and some people recommend a VPN or some just using a firewall with exceptions for the Minecraft port. Does anyone have experience or knowledge of how to safely port forward it? My initial plan was to port forward a VPN as I would also be running a homelab with a NAS and a couple other resources I'd like to access outside of my home network, but some people say it's still not safe and I just want to know the opinion of someone who has done similar themselves and could give me advice. Thanks in advance!

As long as you only open the port for the server, and have up-to-date software you should be ok. And if sharing your IP makes you uncomfortable you can use a free DNS provider. I use NO IP. But be aware, people can still see your IP through that if they know what they are doing. It does make the IP easier to remember though.

[tmgkopczyk]

On 10/31/2023 at 4:34 PM, jsnotlout1 said:

As long as you only open the port for the server, and have up-to-date software you should be ok. And if sharing your IP makes you uncomfortable you can use a free DNS provider. I use NO IP. But be aware, people can still see your IP through that if they know what they are doing. It does make the IP easier to remember though.

How did you get it to work with NoIP? I tried the other day, but I can't access the server outside of the home network, even when using the server address 

[m9x3mos]

On 10/16/2023 at 6:50 PM, Needfuldoer said:

Making your friends VPN into your machine to play would be safest, but not as convenient. (If you host at home, you'll want to set up some sort of dynamic DNS anyway.)

 

If you want to be safe and relatively convenient, rent an instance from a hosting provider, or run Minecraft on a VPS. Oracle has a free tier on their AWS/Azure competitor.

 

https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/post/how-to-set-up-and-run-a-really-powerful-free-minecraft-server-in-the-cloud

Not to mention them they have access to the ops network. 

[m9x3mos]

2 hours ago, tmgkopczyk said:

How did you get it to work with NoIP? I tried the other day, but I can't access the server outside of the home network, even when using the server address 

Noip just gives you a name to your home ip.

You would need to allow it in through your router. 

I would setup port forwarding on the router and then the firewall on the host, only allow access to that port from ip addresses that I want to access it and not the entire internet. 

That would be the simplest way of doing it. 

Can run it through a reverse proxy as well, but that makes it more complicated. 

[BoomerDutch]

1 hour ago, m9x3mos said:

Noip just gives you a name to your home ip.

You would need to allow it in through your router. 

I would setup port forwarding on the router and then the firewall on the host, only allow access to that port from ip addresses that I want to access it and not the entire internet. 

That would be the simplest way of doing it. 

Can run it through a reverse proxy as well, but that makes it more complicated. 

Its kinda stupid and useless.

No-ip basically gives a domain (domain like server583.linustechtips.com) and attached to your ip. All it does is redirect it.

It reveals your ip address anyway.

 

It's just a cover thus all you need is to use command and resolve host/domain and you got IP address.

 

Just give your ip address to your friends only and use online Minecraft and use whitelist system and you'll need only one port 25565 that's all.

 

And don't start fights or do stupid acts then you don't know what will happen.

 

If you do want keep safety just ask people for which service is cheap and trusted to buy and host it.

 

I'm sure there are some service that you have wallet feature that you only need to charge it and set how you want.

[tmgkopczyk]

1 hour ago, BoomerDutch said:

Its kinda stupid and useless.

No-ip basically gives a domain (domain like server583.linustechtips.com) and attached to your ip. All it does is redirect it.

It reveals your ip address anyway.

 

It's just a cover thus all you need is to use command and resolve host/domain and you got IP address.

 

Just give your ip address to your friends only and use online Minecraft and use whitelist system and you'll need only one port 25565 that's all.

 

And don't start fights or do stupid acts then you don't know what will happen.

 

If you do want keep safety just ask people for which service is cheap and trusted to buy and host it.

 

I'm sure there are some service that you have wallet feature that you only need to charge it and set how you want.

I even tried just pinging routerIP:25565 while outside the network, and it didn't give me any response

[BoomerDutch]

14 minutes ago, tmgkopczyk said:

I even tried just pinging routerIP:25565 while outside the network, and it didn't give me any response

That's because modem is not passing through to your server.

 

You can certainly ping the ip address and get response.

[tmgkopczyk]

17 minutes ago, BoomerDutch said:

That's because modem is not passing through to your server.

 

You can certainly ping the ip address and get response.

This is what I'm getting when I ping the hostname while outside the network.

[BoomerDutch]

14 minutes ago, tmgkopczyk said:

This is what I'm getting when I ping the hostname while outside the network.

That means its not assigned to your ip adress yet or you accidentally cancelled process.

 

Try ping your public adress.

Not your no-ip adress.

[tmgkopczyk]

But I was pinging the address that it gave me

[tmgkopczyk]

2 minutes ago, tmgkopczyk said:

But I was pinging the address that it gave me

That is the address that IP Chicken gave me as my public address as well

[m9x3mos]

34 minutes ago, tmgkopczyk said:

This is what I'm getting when I ping the hostname while outside the network.

Did your go into your modem / router settings and forward the port to the server? 

[m9x3mos]

2 hours ago, BoomerDutch said:

Its kinda stupid and useless.

No-ip basically gives a domain (domain like server583.linustechtips.com) and attached to your ip. All it does is redirect it.

It reveals your ip address anyway.

 

It's just a cover thus all you need is to use command and resolve host/domain and you got IP address.

 

Just give your ip address to your friends only and use online Minecraft and use whitelist system and you'll need only one port 25565 that's all.

 

And don't start fights or do stupid acts then you don't know what will happen.

 

If you do want keep safety just ask people for which service is cheap and trusted to buy and host it.

 

I'm sure there are some service that you have wallet feature that you only need to charge it and set how you want.

While that is true, a fqdn like that is easier to remember, type, and write down. 

[tmgkopczyk]

9 minutes ago, m9x3mos said:

Did your go into your modem / router settings and forward the port to the server? 

Yep 

[m9x3mos]

3 minutes ago, tmgkopczyk said:

Yep 

I would also check the firewall on the host then to make sure it is fully open as well. 

[BoomerDutch]

1 hour ago, tmgkopczyk said:

But I was pinging the address that it gave me

Try connect on minecraft like that

public_ip:25565

It should work first then no-ip service

 

 

1 hour ago, m9x3mos said:

While that is true, a fqdn like that is easier to remember, type, and write down. 

True but it's more for community or bigger.

Why all hassle just to play with friends.

 

 

Also reminder to OP

Close port once you're done hosting server.

Edited February 13 by BoomerDutch
ip adress removal

[BoomerDutch]

OP i would suggest to delete top 2 as sensitive information is shown.

 

As i seem to think you solved the problem.