Minecraft Server Setup

This guide covers choosing a server type, accepting the EULA, configuring server.properties, installing plugins or mods, and managing your whitelist.

Choosing a server type

When you purchase a Minecraft plan you'll be asked which server type you want. Here's what each one means:

Type	Best for	Supports plugins?	Supports mods?
Paper	Most servers, best performance	✅ Yes (Spigot API)	❌ No
Vanilla	Pure Minecraft, no extras	❌ No	❌ No
Forge	Mod-heavy servers, CurseForge packs	❌ No	✅ Yes
Fabric	Modern mods (Sodium, Iris, etc.)	❌ No	✅ Yes

You can change server type at any time via Dashboard → Startup. Your world data is always preserved.

Accepting the EULA

Mojang requires you to accept their End User License Agreement before the server will run. If you see a EULA error on first start:

1. Go to Files in your Dashboard
2. Open eula.txt
3. Change eula=false to eula=true
4. Click Save and start the server again

Configuring server.properties

The server.properties file in your Files tab controls most server behaviour. Key settings:

Setting	Default	What it does
max-players	20	Maximum concurrent players
view-distance	10	Chunks loaded per player. Lower values use less RAM.
simulation-distance	10	Range entities are ticked. Lower values improve performance.
gamemode	survival	Default gamemode for new players
difficulty	easy	Game difficulty (peaceful/easy/normal/hard)
level-seed	(blank)	Set a specific world seed
online-mode	true	Require players to have a paid Minecraft account
white-list	false	Set to true to enable whitelist
pvp	true	Allow player vs player combat

Installing plugins (Paper)

Plugins add features to your server without replacing vanilla gameplay: economy, permissions, minigames, and more.

1. Download a .jar plugin file from Hangar or SpigotMC
2. In your Dashboard, go to Files → plugins
3. Upload the .jar file
4. Restart the server. The plugin loads automatically.

To check loaded plugins, run /plugins in the console. Green = active, red = failed to load.

Installing mods (Forge / Fabric)

1. Make sure your server type matches the mod loader your mods require
2. Download .jar mod files: CurseForge for Forge, Modrinth for Fabric
3. In your Dashboard, go to Files → mods
4. Upload all mod files
5. Restart the server

Whitelist & operators

Run these commands directly in the Console tab of your Dashboard:

# Enable whitelist
whitelist on

# Add a player to the whitelist
whitelist add PlayerName

# Remove a player
whitelist remove PlayerName

# Give a player operator (admin) access
op PlayerName

# Remove operator access
deop PlayerName

Performance tips

• Use Paper. It has significant optimisations over Vanilla and Spigot.
• Lower view-distance to 6–8 for a 2GB plan with 10+ players
• Lower simulation-distance to 4–6 to reduce entity processing
• Avoid plugins that run heavy async tasks (e.g. some anti-cheat plugins)
• Upgrade to the 4GB or 8GB plan for modpacks, as mods need significantly more memory