Minecraft Server Hosting a Minecraft Server with AirVPN

[Briland 11]

 

 

 

Introduction

 

This is a guide on how to host a Minecraft server through AirVPN. Please note that this guide assumes that you already have at least a basic understanding on how to set up and run a Minecraft server. AirVPN is a good tool for people who want to run Minecraft servers and either don’t know how to port forward or can’t for any reason. It is also useful for some ISPs that block most inbound ports, making it impossible to run a Minecraft server without a VPN tool. I found AirVPN useful to help me run a server at my university because my university is its own ISP and they don’t allow any inbound ports aside from standard ones like HTTP.

 

Step #1

 

Set up the server normally. If you are running it on the same computer that you are playing on you should be able to join the server locally (IP 127.0.0.1). If you don’t know how to get this far the Minecraft wiki has a very good, albeit technical, guide on setting up a server here.

 

Step #2

 

Forward a port with AirVPN. You can do this by logging into your account on airvpn.org and clicking the “Client Area” tab then going to the “Forwarding ports” tab on the left side of the screen.

Once there you can fill in the form as shown above to reserve a port.

 

Things to note:

• The box at the top is the inbound port you want to use and you have to find a free one. The actual number of the port doesn’t matter, any will work fine. Just make sure to note which one you picked!
• Unless you have changed the Minecraft server port you should set your local port to 25565, the default port.
• DDNS is useful if you want players to players to be able to join a URL, which is easier to remember, than an IP address. In the example above you would connect to myserver.airdns.org (note that it might take up to an hour for the name servers to update and in the meantime you would need to use the IP)

Step #3

 

Connect to an AirVPN server and note your exit-IP (the exit-ip is different for each server). If you are not using the DNS service or are waiting for the name servers to update you will need this for players to connect. You can find the exit-IP of the server you are currently connected to by checking your client area on the AirVPN site or the application on your computer.

 

 

You may be finished now, you can check and see if players can connect to your server at <Server exit-IP>:<Your Port>. For example, if my server exit IP were 94.100.23.163 and my port was 22222 you would have people connect to 94.100.23.163:22222

 

If players can’t connect keep following the last two steps.

 

Step #4

 

Find the IP of your AirVPN adapter. On Windows this can be done by opening command prompt (Press  + R then type “cmd” and press Ok) and typing in “ipconfig.”

You should see something that looks like the picture above. Look for an entry that starts with 10.*.*.* if you have two, like I do, check https://airvpn.org/specs/ to see which one matches with one of the entries on the table.

 

 

You can see that because 10.247.*.* doesn’t appear on the table Local Area Connection 2 is my AirVPN connection because 10.4.*.* does.

Note the whole Address, in my case 10.4.3.194, we will need this for the next step.

 

Step #5

 

Open your Minecraft server config file (named “server.PROPERITES” in your Minecraft server directory) with notepad.

Set “server-ip=” to the IP you got from step 4.

 

 

Congratulations, people should now be able to connect to your server from around the world. If you had to do Step 4 and 5 for it to work then unfortunately you have to repeat those two steps every time you reconnect to an AirVPN server as that IP changes each time you connect.

 

Enjoy!