Setting Up a Minecraft Network: Permissions, World, MOTD and Protection

What is still missing after creation

Your network is running, but it is not playable yet. The panel sets up everything technical: proxy, forwarding, tuning and plugins. Everything that turns it into your network is a decision only the operator can make, meaning permissions, world, spawn, MOTD and rules. This is where a first SMP usually stalls: the server is up, but nobody can get in, or everyone can do everything.

The checklist in the panel lists these steps. This guide works through them with the matching commands and file paths. How a network comes to exist in the first place is covered in Create a Minecraft network.

The checklist in the panel

The panel ticks three items itself. They are derived from the current state and cannot be clicked:

Item	Ticked when …
Proxy accepts connections	the proxy answers on its port. After a start that takes about half a minute
At least one server is running and registered	an instance is running and listed in the proxy configuration
Plugins installed	every planned plugin has finished

The remaining seven items are yours to tick. They are sorted from coarse to fine on purpose: first someone has to be able to join at all, then it gets pretty.

1. Give yourself admin permissions

A fresh install grants nobody any permissions, you included. Permissions run through LuckPerms. Open the console of your lobby in the panel and put yourself into an admin group:

lp group create admin
lp group admin permission set * true
lp user YourName parent add admin

In the server console the commands go in without a leading slash, in game with one.

Making LuckPerms network-wide

For a rank to apply on the lobby, on survival and on every new round, all servers point at the same MySQL database.

1. Create a MySQL database on one of your servers in the panel. Host, port, database name, user and password are shown to you there.
2. On every server (proxy and all instances), open plugins/LuckPerms/config.yml in the file manager.
3. Enter the same values everywhere:

storage-method: mysql
data:
  address: db-eu-01.respawnhost.com
  database: s123_luckperms
  username: u123_luckperms
  password: 'yourPassword'
sync-minutes: 3

4. Restart the servers. From then on they share the same groups, ranks and permissions.

The sync-minutes setting ships as -1, meaning off. With MySQL as storage LuckPerms also picks the SQL messaging service on its own, so changes reach every server without a restart. The value 3 is the fallback in case such a message does not arrive.

2. Upload your own world and set the spawn

The lobby starts on a freshly generated world. Here is how you bring in your own:

1. Upload the world as a ZIP in the file manager of the lobby and extract it there.
2. Open server.properties and put the folder name into level-name.
3. Restart the server.
4. In game, stand where players should arrive and set the spawn:

/setworldspawn
/gamerule spawnRadius 0

spawnRadius 0 makes everyone land exactly on the point you set instead of somewhere nearby. For large worlds it pays to pregenerate chunks with Chunky first, which is installed on every instance.

3. Set the server name, MOTD and icon

What shows up in the Minecraft server list comes from the proxy, not from the individual servers. MiniMOTD on the proxy handles it: its configuration appears in the proxy’s plugins directory after the first start (on Velocity the folder is called minimotd-velocity), and the file is main.conf in HOCON format. Reload after editing:

/minimotd reload

The icon is a server-icon.png of 64×64 pixels in the proxy’s root directory. Velocity loads it at startup; if it is broken the proxy still starts, just without an image.

4. Adjust the tab list and ranks

Velocitab on the proxy shows every player one shared tab list across all servers. Format and sorting live in plugins/velocitab/config.yml, the rank groups in tab_groups.yml. LuckPerms ranks can be shown as a prefix there, which does require LuckPerms to run network-wide as described above. Then:

/velocitab reload

5. Set up claim protection

On the survival server two plugins handle this, and they do different jobs:

• GriefPrevention is for your players: everyone gets claim blocks and marks their own plot. That works without you.
• WorldGuard is for you: fixed areas such as spawn where nobody may build or fight.

Here is how to create a spawn region: select the area with the WorldEdit axe (//wand, click one corner, right-click the other), then:

/rg define spawn
/rg flag spawn build deny
/rg flag spawn pvp deny

Check with a test account without permissions afterwards. As an operator you bypass protection, which makes any setup look perfect at first.

6. Set up backups

Create a schedule with a daily backup for every permanent server, in the panel under Schedules of that server. Details are in the guide Server backups.

7. Share the address with your players

Your players need exactly one address, the one of the proxy. It sits in the network overview in the panel and looks like 7bd2c2d3.respawnserver.com. No port needed, the SRV record takes care of that. It gets nicer with your own domain such as play.yourserver.com, see Custom domain for your Minecraft server.

Troubleshooting

”There are no available servers to connect you to”

Velocity has no target to pass you to, so no instance is running or the running one stopped answering. Start your lobby on the board and wait a minute until it shows as Running and registered at the proxy. The sync to the proxy happens automatically once an instance starts.

”Unable to connect” right when joining

The server is listed in the proxy configuration but is not listening yet. That is normal for the first 30 to 60 seconds after a start, while Paper loads the world and its plugins. If it persists, check the instance console: usually a plugin is stuck or the world is damaged.

The proxy shows as offline although players are on it

The display comes from a connection probe running every minute, not from the container state. After a start it can take up to a minute for the tick to appear. If nothing changes after several minutes, check the proxy console.

An instance suddenly disappeared

Check the template. If it was set to ephemeral, the instance is deleted on idle shutdown or when the max lifetime is hit, not just stopped. To keep it, switch the template to Keep data and set idle shutdown to 0.

A player lands on the wrong server

Velocity connects along the try list in its configuration. The panel maintains it: it holds every running, registered instance in alphabetical order. If your lobby should reliably come first, name its prefix accordingly, for example alobby, or stop servers that should not act as an entry point.

Permissions only apply on one server

Then LuckPerms is still on the local H2 file. See step 1: enter the shared MySQL database on every server.

A plugin is missing

The panel lists under the checklist which plugins could not be installed. In most cases they simply do not exist for your Minecraft version yet. Once the developer catches up, install them from the marketplace.

My changes to velocity.toml are gone

That is by design: velocity.toml and the [forced-hosts] section are rewritten on every sync. Plugins and their configuration stay untouched, so you are free to configure anything there.

Frequently asked questions

Question: Do I have to set the forwarding secret myself?

No. The panel generates the secret, stores it encrypted and writes it into the proxy and every instance. You never see it and you cannot get it wrong.

Question: How many servers should I run at the start?

Two are enough: a lobby and one game world. Every additional instance costs runtime and needs maintenance. Create round servers once your minigame actually works.

Question: Can I install my own plugins?

Yes, just like on any other server, through the marketplace or the file manager. Only mind the platform: the proxy takes Velocity plugins, the instances take Paper plugins. A Paper plugin on the proxy will not load.

Question: Do I need a whitelist on the instances?

It only makes sense on the proxy. On the instances it would more likely lock you out, because the Mojang check is disabled there and only the proxy knows names reliably.

Question: How do I test whether my protection works?

With a second account without permissions. As an operator you bypass GriefPrevention and WorldGuard, so any setup looks airtight at first.

More on plugins, performance and RAM is in the guides The best Minecraft plugins, Optimizing Minecraft server performance and How much RAM does a Minecraft server need?. Your own Minecraft server starts at 4.50 € per month: rent a Minecraft server.