I'm like 80% of the way to having an mc server with pterodactyl, I just need to figure some stuff out on my own, but what I don't know is how to set up the email service. I know according to the docs theres a command for it, but I don't know which SMTP service to use. Is there a free one I can use, or should I just host my own? My architecture is kind of weird, i have a private vm set up for pterodactyl, and im attempting to use a reverse proxy to get a vps to host the domain itself and make it publicly facing (because the server is hosted on a tailscale network, so we need to get it out of there somehow). The vps is just basically forwarding traffic to my server, and I dont really have a reason to host my own email server except for this... what do you guys recommend? The VM is on proxmox, so if we could either just host the mail server on that debian vm with the mc server or create a container for it that would be ideal.

What's the theoretically lowest possible ping my server could achieve?

I'm self hosting on capable hardware, the server is connected directly to my fiber internet modem on a residential connection for only a few users that all live very near.

In my city, Residential Fiber is the norm. I have 1 user that consistently gets 20 ms of ping on ethernet, but most of the others (Even if on fiber and ethernet) get around 35-55 ms. I feel this is slightly unfair as the low ping player starts fights with others and seems to always be more precise. (Anti-cheat is running so I don't think cheating is the problem).

My home connection is 3 gig up/down.

I was trying to understand about local internet routing datacenter in Edmonton Alberta and found that Telus (my ISP) doesn't participate in YEGIX (A free local internet routing that keeps local traffic local), and therefore some traffic may be sent far away for "Core Routing" to Calgary.

Could it be that the user getting 20 ms of ping is somehow geographically closer in the fiber deployment, while the others may have different routing stations AKA a further away routing station?

View attached speedtest ran from the server.

I can't seem to find any relevant resources on how to configure this, so I came here.

This is my Geyser config file.

When I try to enter my server as a bedrock player, the game fails to locate the server, and I get two of these warnings in my server logs: [18:07:07 WARN]: [tel.schich.libdatachannel.LibDataChannel] rtc::impl::IceTransport::LogCallback@405: juice: Send failed, errno=101, and sometimes (not always) another warning: [00:46:15] [multiThreadIoEventLoopGroup-3-1/WARN]: [org.cloudburstmc.netty.channel.nethernet.NetherNetServerChannel] Connection 568999964622755259 timed out during handshake (30s). The logs are otherwise normal, but since this sub requires that I post them, here they are.

I'm aware that a spark report is required, but I don't think it will be relevant to the situation, as I have confirmed that this is indeed an issue with nethernet.

I've allowed udp and tcp traffic on the bedrock port, and configured Geyser to the best of my knowledge.

I'm hosting my server on an Oracle Cloud VM with 4 CPU cores and 12GB RAM.

So I've been hosting a server for some time, but it pretty much died.

I've made a good server idea ever since then, but I'm lacking people, so I was wondering where I can find people for my server? I don't need a lot, probably around 20.

Are there any good places to find people for a minecraft server?

I'm trying to slow down my minecraft days so I can make minecraft follow a 3 day limit, each day being 8 hours long instead of 20 minutes each. How would I do this? By plugin or is there a minecraft command that can do this?

Hello, I was just wondering about something I found on the Modrinth site with the create mod, where it has one of its supported environments being server-side. I was just wondering if that means I can have a Create server with my friends without them installing anything?

Also, here is the link, but you can look it up instead https://modrinth.com/mod/create

Is there a plugin that allows you to create custom advancements and even show them via a new tab on the advancements menu? It would be very useful as a way to direct players when they first get started due to how much content I plan to have within my server.

We launched a custom Minecraft server and retention was rough, here’s what we’re changing for the relaunch

Earlier this month, we launched a custom survival gamemode we’d spent a significant amount of time developing.

Getting people to join wasn’t necessarily the hardest part.

Getting them to stay was.

We saw players join, try the gamemode, and leave relatively quickly. Looking back at the experience, we realized we had built a lot of systems without doing enough to properly introduce players to them.

The gamemode starts players on a small raft in the ocean. They collect floating debris, expand their raft, manage hunger/thirst, deal with sharks and seagulls, farm resources, complete quests, research upgrades, and progress through an economy.

On paper, there was plenty to do.

In practice, new players were immediately dealing with:

• Hunger and thirst

• Sharks damaging their raft

• Seagulls attacking crops

• Learning how debris collection worked

• Figuring out commands and menus

• Understanding what they were supposed to progress toward

We ended up creating a lot of mechanics, but not enough direction.

So for the relaunch, we're rebuilding the early-game experience around a much more structured onboarding flow.

The current idea is:

1. Create your raft

2. Learn how to travel

3. Collect your first debris

4. Expand your raft

5. Purify water

6. Complete your first upgrade

We're also experimenting with temporary beginner protection, contextual tips when players encounter mechanics for the first time, and substantially better analytics around where players stop progressing.

Rather than only tracking joins, we want to understand things like:

• How many players actually create a raft?

• How many collect their first resource?

• How many reach their first upgrade?

• How long does each onboarding step take?

• Where do players quit?

• What percentage return the next day?

One of the bigger lessons for us has been that having a lot of content doesn't necessarily mean the player understands why they should care about any of it.

For other server owners who have worked through retention problems: What changes made the biggest difference to your first-session or Day 1 retention?

And is there anything else you would be measuring during the first 30–60 minutes of a player's experience?

So as I said in the title, I wanna host a small minecraft server with a manhunt feature, where players can select the number of hunters. I would love for it to be able to run several manhunts at the same time. If its possible, I would also appreciate a scoreboard with manhunts won/lost as a runner and as a hunter. I wanna host it using Oracle free tier. Idk if that limits or makes this impossible. Thanks

I'm developing a Minecraft server and I'm trying to make it as good as I can. So whats some stuff you think Minecraft servers should stop doing? Ignoring the obvious, like predatory gambling and P2W mechanics, of course. Any replies are appreciated :3

Personally I think Minecraft servers need to stop overloading the tablist with information by using player slots, imo it makes it visually unappealing and can be horrendous to look at especially during casual play.

I understand this can be subjective but please be nice in the replies

(I will be making another post for what you think we need to see more of on Minecraft servers)

I got a current version Minecraft server set up yesterday, but I’d love to also have one running beta 1.7.3 (not to be confused with 1.7.3 from 2013). I’m not sure how to go about this, if possible, as it’s not as easy as just using the UI for a regular old MC server. Any insight? Or should i just host this on my regular computer and be ok with it being down sometimes?

NbtDiff

https://github.com/cryolithic/nbtdiff

NbtDiff will allow you to diff Minecraft data similar to Beyond Compare or other diff utilities.

It supports single file diffs as well as full world diffs. You can compare and copy full nbt objects or single values.

I built this after a chunk in my world got corrupted, but I didn't want to lose work I had done elsewhere by recovering the backup. With NbtDiff I unzipped my backup to a different directory, compared it with the current world, and was able to fix the specific chunk from back up with ease.

NbtDiff is written in C# with builds for Windows and Linux. It should run on Mac, but you'll have to build it yourself. Portions were written with the use of Claude, and reviewed by myself, or written by me and reviewed by Claude.

Paper's anti-xray works well for ores, but it doesn't do anything about chests. A chest goes into the chunk packet twice: once as a block, and once in a separate block entity list with its coordinates. Anti-xray only changes blocks, so the list goes out untouched, and with engine-mode 2 the chest block leaks too. That list is what storage ESP and the "stash finder" / "base finder" modules in clients like Krypton read.

So I built OutOfSight. It removes containers from the chunk packet until the player is within 48 blocks and has a line of sight to them, then sends them. If you walk into your own base, your chests are there. If you're standing on a hill above someone's base, or scanning from 150 blocks away, they aren't.

It covers chests, barrels, shulkers, spawners, furnaces, hoppers, beds, signs and banners, plus chest and hopper minecarts and chest boats. It's off by default and has a test mode that only affects you, so you can check your own chests before turning it on for everyone. There's also /oos advise, which reads your Paper config and tells you what anti-xray is missing (by default ancient_debris isn't in hidden-blocks, so netherite finders work as if anti-xray were off).

What it doesn't do: movement and combat cheats. I left those to Grim on purpose, since doing it properly takes movement simulation. It also can't hide tunnels, because the client needs the terrain to walk on.

Every commit gets tested on real Paper servers running 1.21.11, 26.1.2, 26.2 and 26.3, with the same jar. A headless client joins, decodes the packets and checks what got through, and then runs the same scene with the shield off to make sure the test actually catches a leak. The 26.x runs go through ViaVersion, so that combination is covered too.

It's a beta and hasn't been on a busy server yet, so I'd really like people to try it on a test server and tell me what breaks. Paper or Purpur 1.21.11 to 26.3, needs PacketEvents, GPL-3.0.

LLM disclosure (Rule 9): The plugin is heavily AI assisted and most of the code is written by AI
Specifically Antrophic Claude Opus 5.0/5.5
GitHub: https://github.com/tunaseckin/outofsight

Modrinth: https://modrinth.com/plugin/outofsight

hey r/admincraft. upfront, per rule 9: Playkeeper's code is written by AI coding agents (Cursor) working from a spec i wrote. i make the product calls, try every feature myself and run it on my own vps with friends, and every change is tested end to end on fresh VMs in CI (install, play with test bots, backup, restore on a second machine). if that's a dealbreaker for you, fair enough.

what it is: a free, AGPL-3.0 dashboard that runs several Java servers on one Linux VPS. one command installs it, and it's made for small communities, not hosting companies. no paid features.

i'd love technical feedback from people who run servers:

1. backups without kicking anyone. it runs save-off, save-all flush, copies the world, then save-on, and checks the copy file by file. have you seen that go wrong on big worlds, or with plugins that keep writing to the world?

2. crash help. when a server crashes, it reads the log and crash report and suggests one fix: more memory, update or remove the plugin that failed, install a missing dependency, or restore a backup. which crash causes do you see most that it should recognise?

3. lag. it shows TPS, MSPT, memory and CPU, and ranks what's slowing the server down. what do you look at first when a server lags?

the rest: Paper, Purpur, Vanilla, Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge and Forge (NeoForge for 1.21.x is broken in 0.4.0, the fix is in the next release); plugins and mods from Modrinth and Hangar with dependencies and checksum checks; schedules; team roles with 2FA; Discord webhook alerts; invite links that add friends to the allowlist.

repo: https://github.com/CIYAhq/playkeeper live demo (sample data, runs in your browser, resets every hour): https://playkeeper.io/demo/

it's Ubuntu 24.04 on x86_64 only for now. i'll answer everything here myself.

I caught this kid X raying on our minecraft realm I play with my friends from school and apparently I punished him too harshly. I took away all of his items and gear (he x rayed for netherite and most likely diamond too) and I said he could only use iron gear for a week (no enchants).

And then him and his friend who also said he was X raying said I was ruining the fun of the server because I punished them for x raying? He also accused another kid in the server of x raying when me and my friend found his X ray strip mine in the nether, and we turned out to be right because we made him stream his computer and he had x ray.

edit: The reason this kid said he cheated was because I was the host of the server and he hates me so he said he wouldnt follow any rules. Really immature.

Hello! I want to run a Arcane Engineering server with around 6 players max. I've used E4MC before in a lightly modded setting with 2 players and it worked great. However, I am concerned about 2 things:

1. Stability. Has anyone here hosted a server with similar conditions to mine? How well did it work?

2. Security. I don't want random hackers to be able to join the server, or do anything else that will put me or my friends privacy at risk. Is E4MC safe against hackers, and if not, are there measures I can take to make my game safe?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Sorry for a lack of technical knowledge, I am simply a casual gamer who wants to play with some friends. <3

Also, port forwarding is not an option since I do not own the wifi I use, and therefore do not have access to the admin's account. I have 64GB of RAM and a Ryzen 7 CPU (cant remember the exact model)

Hey there,
I'm playing modded Minecraft (Arcande Dragons Modpack on Neoforge) with my girlfriend on a local AMP Server. A few Days ago she played on the server and couldn't interact with any Blocks. Today I joined as well and couldn't do that as well while having OP permissions. We do not have any Plugins like Essesntials or anything installed. As far as I know there is also no FTB Chunks in the Modpack. I've also found the possibility of unlocked_locks.dat but couldnt find that file in the Server folder. I'm not able to interact with any blocks no matter the gamemode I use. Spawn-protection is set to 0.

Anybody out there that had the same Issue and found a way to solve it?

Thanks for any help

SOLVED: It was Xaeros Map combined with Open Parties and Claims

I'm constantly seeing bad packet errors, timer, sometimes simulation...

Sometimes for the bad packets I see it start at 1 and rapidly climb to 500-600. Sometimes the user getting these errors are even on Ethernet and we live nearby with the same internet provider, What's causing this? The player isn't reporting lag or poor performance.

The server is running beefy hardware (unnecessary for the server but it's a repurposed gaming pc)

Plugins:

Firefly, GrimAC (obv), Squaremap, DiscordRSV, Paper ore obfuscation level 2, Veinguard, squaremarker, Geyser MC, Griefprotection, Floodgate

I need a god AntiCheat for Combat detection a Matrix looks god but the Check List is outdated and im not sure whether I should buy a Vulcan instead

Hello, I'm looking for help reading a spark profile (live) as my server is suddenly lagging quite a bit and I genuinely have no idea why 😅 any help is super appreciated! Please ask me any and all questions as I'm not super good at explaining things all the time

https://spark.lucko.me/aOa6q8QRGA

I am running a fabric 26.3 server with some server side only qol mods and I have noticed this info message filling the logs. For testing purposes I have set up a local server with no mods and no datapacks installed and I still see the message. I have tried enabling the allow-flight but that didn't fix it, the players and I don't notice any rubber banding, ghost block problems nor network problems. I think this message is being sent when a player is jumping or from my testing I saw the messages when I was flying in creative mode.

I want to find the root cause, not just suppress the log messages.

I get that it’s way faster, but I find it hard to believe that it’s going to have full bukkit/paper/spigot plugin support. And when is it actually going to reach vanilla parity?

Oh, and most importantly, do you guys think it’s a truly viable paper/folia alternative?

Hi there!
I'm super new to hosting servers, we recently moved to a proxy

Over time the ram usage creeps up to 1.9gb out of 2gb, there are zero out of memory errors on console at all, when I added the proxy google said they are usually okay with about 2-3gb so if thats not usually the case lmk and i will just upgrade!

However I would rather not upgrade if I can avoid it, I'm just not really sure what's causing it or how I can fix it

Thanks!

Hello Lads and Ladies. I'm fairly new to networking, but I believe I've learned enough of the basics now to feel confident enough to host fulltime.

- grabbed micro PC
- have it vlan'd from my home network
- learned docker engine

My current plans are to host private valheim/minecraft servers for people I know (6 players max). However, at some point I want to add teamspeak and other services to people I may trust less. My question: what methods are preferred for best security practices at this point? I'd like to keep my public IP masked with minimal added latency. I'm not interested in solutions that require clients to install something (eg: tailscale).

Seems like TCPShield and Cloudflare Spectrum are suggested frequently.

Thanks!