How to Set Up a Private Minecraft Server for Friends

A private server is an ordinary Minecraft server with the door locked: only people you've added can join, a few trusted friends can manage it, and it's backed up. Here's how to set one up, in the order that matters.

1. Turn on the whitelist

This is what makes a server private. With the whitelist on, nobody joins unless you've added them, even if they have the address.

Run these in Console:

whitelist on
whitelist add FriendName

Add each friend by their exact Minecraft username. To keep it on after a restart, set white-list (and enforce-whitelist, to kick anyone not on the list) to true in server.properties. You can see and remove whitelisted players on the Players page. Full steps: How to Whitelist a Minecraft Server.

2. Decide who's in charge

There are two kinds of control, and it's worth keeping them separate.

In the game: operators

Operators can run commands such as gamemode, tp, kick and whitelist. Make yourself one first:

op YourName

Only op the people you'd trust with your world. op-permission-level in server.properties sets how much ops can do: 4 (the default) can run every command including stop; 2 allows game commands but not server management. See How to Grant OP Permissions.

For finer control, such as letting friends use /home and /tpa without op, run Paper and install LuckPerms: see How to Install LuckPerms.

In the panel: subusers

If a friend should be able to restart the server, change files or make backups when you're not around, give them panel access instead of your password. On Beacon, open Users in the sidebar, add them by email, and tick only what they need.

3. Set the rules

The usual choices for a group of friends, all in server.properties or as commands in Console:

• Difficulty: difficulty set to easy, normal or hard. See How to Change the Difficulty.
• Keep inventory: gamerule keepInventory true if you'd rather not lose items on death. See How to Turn On Keep Inventory.
• PvP: pvp=false to stop friends hurting each other. See How to Turn Off PvP.
• Spawn protection: spawn-protection=0 so everyone can build near spawn (it doesn't apply to ops anyway). See How to Change the Spawn Protection.
• Max players: set max-players to roughly the size of your group.

4. Keep strangers out of sight

The whitelist stops strangers joining, but you can also make the server less visible:

• Don't post the address publicly. Share it in your group chat only.
• Leave online-mode=true. Turning it off lets anyone join with any name, including yours, and makes the whitelist easy to get around.
• Hide who's online: hide-online-players=true stops the server list showing player names.
• Hide it from the server list completely: enable-status=false makes it show as offline in the multiplayer list. Your friends can still join; they just won't see the player count or MOTD.

5. Back it up

Friends' servers lose worlds to griefing, a bad mod update or a mistyped command more often than to hardware. Set backups up on day one:

1. Make a backup now from Backups.
2. In Schedules, create a daily schedule with a Send Command task (save-all) and a Create Backup task a few seconds later.
3. Lock a backup before any big change, so it can't be removed by mistake.

See How to Back Up and Restore a Minecraft World.

6. Keep it online when you're not

A server for friends is most useful when anyone can play at any time, not just when the owner is on.

• Open to LAN and LAN-sharing mods stop the moment the host quits.
• A server on your own PC stops whenever the PC sleeps, restarts or is switched off.
• A hosted server runs in a data centre around the clock. Your friends can play at 3 a.m. without you.

On a hosted server, add a daily restart in Schedules to keep it fresh (see How to Schedule Automatic Server Restarts), and it will look after itself between your visits.

Run your friends' server on Beacon

Beacon servers stay online 24/7 with backups and DDoS protection included, so your group can play whenever they like. Plans start at 1 GB, and 2–4 GB suits most groups of friends. Compare plans in the store.