Minecraft Server Setup Guide — Vanilla, Paper, Fabric, Forge & NeoForge

Choosing Your Server Type

GameGrid supports all five Minecraft server types. Each has different capabilities:

You choose the server type when creating your server. To switch types, create a new server — your world save can be moved via the File Manager.

Connecting to Your Server

1. In Minecraft, click Multiplayer → Add Server
2. Enter your server IP and port from the GameGrid Dashboard
3. If the port is the Minecraft default (25565), you can omit it
4. If you set a whitelist, only listed players can join

Core server.properties Settings

The most important settings to configure:

• motd — Message shown in the multiplayer server list
• max-players — Maximum simultaneous players (match to your slot count)
• gamemode — survival, creative, adventure, or spectator
• difficulty — peaceful, easy, normal, or hard
• pvp — true or false (whether players can damage each other)
• white-list — true or false (restrict to whitelisted players)
• online-mode — should always be true (disabling allows cracked clients)
• view-distance — Chunk radius sent to players (lower = less lag, try 6-8)
• simulation-distance — Chunk radius for entity/redstone ticking (lower = less lag)
• spawn-protection — Radius around spawn only ops can build (0 = disabled)

Operator and Whitelist Management

Make yourself an admin:

• Use the GameGrid Settings tab → Player Management section
• Or run op in the Console tab

Whitelist players:

• Use Settings → Player Management
• Or run whitelist add in the Console

Ops have all admin commands. Whitelist is just access control. Both are stored in JSON files you can edit via the File Manager (stop the server first).

Learn More

For the complete guide with all server.properties options and detailed instructions, visit our Minecraft knowledge base:

• Complete Server Setup Guide
• server.properties Reference
• Admin Commands
• Performance Tuning
• Installing Mods
• Common Issues