How to host multiple Minecraft servers on the same IP Address

Would you like to learn how to start a massive Minecraft server network? And host everything under a single IP address?

While this may sound impossible, we’ve got you covered. In this tutorial, we will explain how to host Minecraft servers on the same IP address for Windows PCs.

You will no longer need to purchase multiple plans, and can start hosting under one computer only.

Why Host Multiple Minecraft Servers under one IP Address

Hosting multiple Minecraft servers under 1 IP address is far better than separately. It not only keeps your expenses low but also prevents players from being confused with your servers.

When you have more than 1 server, it becomes tricky. Your player base will need to understand, what every server is about. Also, you need to know what is the resource usage, so you can upgrade efficiently.

Buying a separate plan for each server will assign different IP addresses, and leave a big mess. Resource allocation is harder.

The only way to prevent that is by purchasing a dedicated server, which is very expensive.

As a more affordable solution, you could make a Minecraft server at home, and self-host multiple servers with the same IP.

Benefits of Hosting Minecraft Servers with the Same IP

When self-hosting a Minecraft server network with only one IP address, you are receiving many benefits.

To help you understand better we have listed all the benefits, which would interest you.

Easy to allocate resources

Resource allocation is the most critical part of running a Minecraft server network. Depending on the type of your server and player base, you will need to have the appropriate RAM added.

Since Minecraft servers rely on 1 core of your CPU, RAM is the most important factor. Without enough RAM your servers will crash quickly.

When keeping a server network under 1 IP, you can easily track resource usage, and allocate RAM appropriately. The downtime for changing the RAM could be up to 2 minutes.

While using a shared host with different plans would require to downgrade one plan, and upgrade the other.

Different IP addresses are expensive

IP addresses are going short. People around the world are always demanding a static IP address, and starting their server.

Hosting companies do the same. They take a bunch of IP addresses and refrain from purchasing until all ports have been used.

Hosting all your servers under one IP address could be less expensive, and help you manage better.

Combining all servers together

If you want to make a server network for yourself, it would be beneficial to combine your servers. The first thing you will need is a singular IP address.

Then you can use a plugin to connect all servers together like BungeeCord. It is used as a server-linking plugin, where players can easily join other servers without disconnecting.

You can use a domain name for your Minecraft server

The last benefit is the availability of choosing a name for your Minecraft server. Using a name to connect to a server is a must nowadays.

Even the most popular servers like PurplePrison or Hypixel use names for IP addresses.

If you want to use a domain name for your Minecraft server, hosting under one IP address could help you set a specific name for each server.

Even by using different IP addresses, you could use that, but managing would be harder. Being under a single IP address helps you to easily manage and link all servers together.

How to host Multiple Minecraft servers with 1 IP address

After discovering the benefits of Minecraft server hosting with 1 IP address, perhaps you want to learn how to do it.

Open Ports

This case requires you to open ports for your Minecraft server. Start by opening the first free port, which is “25565”. If the default Minecraft port is already taken, choose the next number, which is “25566”.

You can go as high as you want. The default Minecraft server port starts with “25”, so you have hundreds of variations until the ports are used up.

Assign a port to each server

Since we have acquired all the server ports, now we need to assign each port to a Minecraft server. Make sure to choose a different port, or your server will not start.

To assign a port to a server, we need to open the Minecraft server configuration file.

Locate the server properties file and open it with your editor. You can use Notepad, Notepad++ or any other software.

The next thing we need is to find the line where “server-port” is mentioned. Add a server port after the equal sign, and save the file. Repeat the process for all servers by assigning an individual port.

After you are done, double-check what ports you have used, and make sure no duplicates exist.

Allocate resources to each server

If you want to create a Minecraft server network, you will need to allocate the least resources to your hub or lobby server.

The servers with mods can receive most of the RAM, while your servers with plugins can get the mid amount.

While allocating the resources, you will want to lock them. It’s very important to assign the whole number of your resources, since Windows can take RAM if left unused.

The easiest way to lock your resources to your servers is by using Aikar’s flags. They are good for optimizing garbage collection and assigning RAM to your server.

If you have a great understanding of flags and want to use your own, just match the Xms and Xmx values.

For example, if we have Xms 2G and Xmx 4G, it means we want to use a minimum of 2GB and a maximum of 4GB of RAM.

Whenever your server is not using the RAM, Windows takes it away and uses it. To prevent this we need to set the Xms and Xmx to an equal number.

This way even if your server doesn’t need 4GB of RAM it will still reserve them. These flags also prevent servers from crashing.

Start your servers

The last step is to start your servers and ask friends to test if they can log into every server. You can easily share your IP address, and change the port to match your preferred server.

Conclusion

By hosting multiple Minecraft servers on the same IP address, you can easily manage them. It also helps for tracking the player base, and resource usage.

Even if you don’t think of starting a network of servers, hosting under the same IP helps with a lot of features.