how to host your own minecraft server for free

This will be the first time considering the region you want to host. We won’t cover it here, but this can also be done via the command line or a programming language.

This is a simple process with the AWS user interface. Creating an instanceĪfter deciding the instance type to use, we have to go ahead and create it. I’m yet to get the same performance from the general purpose instances available. So far this has been more than enough for 2–3 players, even while generating chunks. In this case, since the Minecraft server can only run on one core and generally needs a lot of memory, we’ll use an on-demand, c6g.medium instance which has 1vCPU, 2GiB of memory and up to 10GiB network performance. Generally, choosing the right EC2 instance is the hardest part, but also very easy to change - especially increasing or decreasing the specs. Technically, the instances are virtual machines run by AWS on various different hardware and with many configuration options, each with its own price points.

The AWS service used for this step is Amazon EC2, or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, which provides a computer for you to use, called an Instance. Now that we have logged in as the new IAM user we can move on to the next step of choosing and creating an instance. The important thing to note is that to log in as the user you have created, you must know the AWS Account ID. This will create the user and provide everything needed to log into the account - including a URL. Click “Add users” and follow the prompts to add a User name “admin” So we’ll briefly cover how to set up an admin user account using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to achieve this separation and we’ll also create an “admins” group to simplify administration for any future admin users who might be added.Īs the name suggests, AWS IAM is a tool that allows you to manage access to AWS services, including creating users and users groups so each user can only access the bare minimum they need to - this concept of least privilege is a security best practice in AWS that we’ll apply later on when setting up the server. Best practice with AWS accounts suggests you should never use your root account (the account you originally sign up with) if you don’t need to. Hosting A Minecraft Server: A Guide for AWSĮver wanted to run your own Minecraft server in the cloud? This guide will walk you through the process.Ĭhoosing and creating a server AWS Account

How to host your own minecraft server for free