Notice: The free plan is currently discontinued.
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Starting your own server can be a bit of a tricky task if you haven’t done it before. This article will walk you through planning your server, and will teach you the very basics of server administration.
Picking your plan
Oddblox offers customers a large variety of plans to better suit the individual needs of everyone. To take a look at all of the plans available, check out this page. The free server may be just right for you! It is perfect for running a vanilla server, or a server running Paper with very few plugins. It will not be able to do anything with mods. For mods, your best bet would be the Iron plan, or higher. If the server is lagging and everything is point to RAM usage, upgrade your plan. Don’t know how? This article can help you out!
Picking the perfect software
We have already written an article that goes over picking the best server software for you. Check it out here!
Giving yourself operator permissions
One of the first things you should do when starting your server is giving you and your staff/friends operator permissions. These permissions allow you to do anything and everything to a server, including kicking players, deoping other players, and stopping the server. This is a very dangerous permission to give, so only give it to those you trust!
Log into the Oddblox Control panel.
Click on your brand new server
Look for the Console button, under the System tab
Type the following into the console, replacing <NAME> with the username of the player you want to OP. op <NAME>. This command should NOT include the / if you are typing it in the console. You can remove the operator permissions by entering the following command: /deop <NAME>. You will need to be an operator on your server to run this command, or you will need to run it in console (remove the / if running it in console!)
Punishment
Players with the correct permissions can kick and ban players, which can be done simply by using the /kick <NAME> and /ban <NAME> commands. A kick just temporarily removes the player from the server, but it does not prevent the user from re-joining. A ban, however, is permanent, at least until revoked. It stops the user from joining the server until the ban is revoked. Some plugins will allow users to set a reason and a custom ban screen. A user can be unbanned by an admin who runs the /pardon <NAME> command.
Some players may have alts that they will use to access the server. This can be stopped by IP Banning the user, using the /ban-ip <NAME> command. To revoke this type of ban, use the /pardon-ip <NAME> command. This does not stop a user from joining via a VPN, though!
Uploading your world
Do you have a specific world you want to use on your server? You can upload it via SFTP (See this guide), or via the web based file manager (If it is less than 100mb). Compress the world into a ZIP file, and upload it to the server. See the steps below.
Stop the server
Remove the world folder, as you will be replacing this.
Upload your ZIP file, and unzip it using the online file manager.
Ensure your world file is named world, and restart the server.
Please note, the world must be compatible with your server! Due to the way Spigot/Paper handles world generation, worlds generated in vanilla will NOT be compatible with Spigot servers, and vice versa. Please check out this article for more information on converting worlds!
Uploading Plugins
If your server is running Spigot, Paper, or any of the other Spigot-based server software, you will be able to use plugins. (See plugin descriptions for more information regarding requirements). To upload a file, follow the steps below.
Log into the Oddblox Control panel.
Click on your brand new server
Look for the file manager option under the Management tab
Click on the plugins folder
Upload your plugins
Restart the server
Please note, some plugins may need additional setup!
Uploading datapacks
Datapacks are cool little mini-plugins that can work in vanilla. Please follow the below steps to upload them to your server!
Log into the Oddblox Control panel.
Click on your brand new server
Look for the file manager option under the Management tab
Click on the world folder
Locate and click on the datapacks folder
Upload your datapacks
Some datapacks may need to be unzipped. To do so, click the 3 dots next to the file and select “Decompress”
Delete the original file
Restart the server
