Order and set up a Minecraft server: Paper, plugins and your own domain

Your own Minecraft server for you and your friends is ready in a few minutes. This guide walks you through ordering and the first settings, and shows how players find your server by name instead of an IP address.

Order

1. Open Order → Game servers and choose Minecraft: Java Edition.
2. Choose the variant:

Variant	For
Paper	plugins (Bukkit/Spigot), best performance for most servers
Folia	Paper with multithreading for very large servers
Fabric	lightweight mods, also for snapshots
Forge	large modpacks

You can change the variant later, but that triggers a reinstall.

1. Choose a plan or configure freely. Minecraft needs at least 2 GB of memory; for more than a handful of players or plugins, 4 GB is better.
2. Your server gets a free port on the host's address. If you want the default port 25565, add an Extra IP with standard port.

First start

Open the server under Game servers and start it in the Console. On the first start the panel asks you to accept Mojang's Minecraft EULA. Accept and start gets the server going. The console shows when it is ready:

[Server thread/INFO]: Done (8.531s)! For help, type "help"

Type commands directly into the console, without a slash:

op YourPlayerName
whitelist on
whitelist add FriendName

Change settings

The most important settings are in the file server.properties. Open it in the Files tab, change it and restart the server.

motd=Our server
max-players=20
view-distance=8
simulation-distance=6

A smaller view distance (view-distance) noticeably relieves the server without being very visible in game.

Install plugins (Paper)

1. Download the plugin as a .jar, for example from Modrinth or Hangar.
2. In the Files tab go to the plugins folder and click Upload.
3. Restart the server.

For many files at once, SFTP is easier: under Settings → SFTP access set your own SFTP password and connect with FileZilla or WinSCP, for example.

Your own domain instead of IP and port

If your domain is with TryNxt, open it, go to the Connect tab, choose Game server and your Minecraft server. We set an A record and an SRV record with the right port. Players then just type mc.example.com, even if your server is not on the default port.

Backups and tasks

• Create a backup in the Backups tab before larger changes.
• Under Schedules you can schedule a nightly backup and restart, for example.
• Under Subusers you invite friends who may help manage the server, with exactly the permissions you give them.