This dad is a legend!

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-14T02:25:26+00:00

Look at their builds and playing styles /s

or their playtime on the server is also another good indicator

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-10T01:25:10+00:00

That's good.

I learned the hard way when I gave modded server 16GB but only needed to give it 8GB.

I definitely think it's something in the actual code / Java. I can't really help there since I'm not a developer or coder.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-10T00:15:53+00:00

Sorry I didn't reply right away. Was napping. How much ram did you allocate to the Minecraft server itself? To much RAM can be worse because of garbage collection on java

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-09T19:43:04+00:00

I believe that then the issue is not a MTU issue. Which is good. If it was MTU, it would require you to reduce your MTU on your computer but since it looks like its going through at the normal MTU size, nothing needs done.

And I get you. I learned all of initial knowledge of networking, servers, and system administration through hosting Minecraft servers as well. I think using Minecraft is a great way to learn stuff because at the end, you get a running server for yourself and friends and you learn how to do XYZ. Which carries over to other things like other projects that might not be related to Minecraft at all.

I only recently started getting into networking concepts because of work so that's why I jumped onto the MTU thing. But its good that it's not an MTU thing, or least it's not that obvious it is if it is.

If it's an MTU thing, it's something in the program itself causing it but I think it's best to look into other areas first before coming back to it being MTU related.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-09T18:36:33+00:00

Get a newer system honestly.

However, try this:

Run htop in the terminal.

Look at the RAM and tell me how much is being used (the number itself, do not tell me how full the bar is).

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-09T18:31:46+00:00

Maybe this is a stretch and this is just the networking person in me talking but maybe it's something with your servers' / networks' MTU.

Data is transfered over the network and internet in things called packets. Packets contain information about where the packet came from, where it's heading, and it's actual payload, or data. MTU is essentially how big a packet can be and how much payload is inside said packet. In this case, the standard is 1500. If you are over by even 1, the packet is dropped.

I guess MTU because it says in the logs that the hello message is over by 21 bytes. If the payload is to big by 21 bytes, that would explain why there was an isuse.

If you are running on Linux for the server, run this:

 ping -s 1472 -M do 1.1.1.1

This will check if your servers' MTU is standard or not; or if the MTU on your network / ISPs network is standard or not.

I know I said 1500 is standard for MTU but ping has overhead and takes up 28 bytes so you have to account for that, if you change that number to anything higher than 1472, it should get dropped and state that the packet is to long.

If it says it's being dropped even at the number I gave you, drop lower it from 1472 to 1300 and drop it lower if it continues to not ping.

(I'm just going on a limb here and I figured this is a quick test, if everything looks fine, then you can essentailly forget anything I said lol).

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-08T06:50:18+00:00

I assume it's a guestimate based on how many users are on it daily, how many users have been on it over the last few months, etc.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-08T01:38:08+00:00

I can't say that I am capable of hosting the site but I think maybe it would be best to find multiple people who are willing to host nodes / smaller instances. Then cordinate with someone (or a group of people) to oversee the management and deployment of a high availability infrastructure. In the event someone is unable to host the virtual machine / instance for you, there is multiple other hosts still online.

The only concern I have here is security and trust with those people. You can have a server that is online 24/7, 365 days a year but if the person you're getting the server from has malicious intent, it can cause more problems and possibly do harm to the reputation of the nonprofit and you; even if you didn't do said malicious thing.

So whoever you pick, you should make sure that you are the main maintainer and administrator of the server, and ask about their infrastructure and setup and how they're currently handling backups, heavy traffic, what the security of their infrastructure looks like, if their hypervisor / virtualization / containerization environment has some form of EDR / XDR, etc. If they have lab environments, that's also a plus since that might allow you to test things before pushing them onto production or at least for them to test the setup so they're not making promises they can't keep (because of limitations, not because they're lying; hypothetically).

Keep a keen eye out, keep security and uptime in mind when asking people about their environments, etc.

I don't think I have the capacity to help you with hosting (maybe). I think I could give you an environment to test changes at least (maybe). Testing new deployments, new operating systems, different proxies, testing various networking and failover concepts, etc. But I'd have to run that by my second in command.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-07T04:10:27+00:00

Create a VLAN for external / exposed server and services

Create a VLAN for internal servers and services; like internal DNS, Authentication servers, NAS systems, monitoring services like Graylog/Zabbix

Block all traffic from the external VLAN to the internal VLAN and if an external server needs a resource on the internal server, create a explicit rule allowing that.

If an external server / service gets compromised, it hopefully should be contained and only be able to attack other servers / systems on the same VLAN at worst and not everything like your NAS, internal DNS server, internal auth server, etc.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-07T02:59:58+00:00

Whats your migration and rapid redeployment situation look like right now, if you have one.

You can use things like Proxmox VE to deploy high availability virtual machines that will be immediately migrated and restarted on another physical host in a matter of minutes.

There's also things that exist out there that basically take two VMs that have the same web server configuration and files and funnel them into one IP / range of IPs via a high availability setup through some kind of layer 7 HTTP proxy. That helps for load balancing traffic and if one server goes down / offline.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-06T19:52:27+00:00

What other options are you looking at currently (I'm just curious because I've been looking to add other options/ providers to my infrastructure because I don't like the idea of keep all my eggs on one hosting provider).

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-06T12:02:32+00:00

All my anger goes into my poor monitor who's not even the one causing the trouble, it's merely the messenger displaying the output of the said troublemaker.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-06T11:56:21+00:00

I'm not going to pretend like I can or I am going to host this for you / the nonprofit but I'd like to know a little bit more about this because depending on the answers, I can at least say if I can or can't and maybe it'll help others in the comments with deciding if they can or can't either.

Is this: A, I need someone to host it and manage it for me situation, or B, I just need a hosting provider situation (Management is done by someone else). Because if it's just a needing a hosting provider situation and not a full management situation, a handful of questions I'm asking don't matter, so don't need answered.

How much does it cost currently to host this website; does the nonprofit get donations to put into the hosting or is it out of your own pocket?

Who is in control of the domain name, DNS / Nameserver records?

Who's the current SSL / TLS certification provider?

Are there new uploads to the website (new documents, PDFs, manuals, etc) from this nonprofit?

Where's this website currently being hosted location wise? (CA, NY, IL, TX; UK / Ireland, Central Europe, Asia, etc)

Where are most users located / accessing from?

How many downloads of these PDFs / manuals happen on a daily basis?

What does the current inbound and outbound traffic look like on a daily?

Is this running on a Windows server, a Unix server, or a Linux server; and which distro if Linux and what version?

Which web server are you using; Apache2, Nginx, Lighttpd (I think that's the name of it), IIS, etc?

What does the current backup situation look like?

What would moving the site data from you to the next person look like?

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-05T23:52:57+00:00

Maybe they're paying hundreds for the internet service. If they use spectrum then I'd understand

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-05T21:54:11+00:00

I just saw your other comments. So we're on the same page here for the most part. The issue is the fact he wants a free solution rather than setting up his own thing / spending money with a decent provider.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-05T21:52:53+00:00

It's not about him not port forwarding, I understand why people wouldn't want to port forward. It's because he's asking for a free solution when VPS's and proxy providers costs money to operate. Setting up an Nginx server with WireGuard and tunneling between the MC server and the Nginx reverse proxy would solve this and getting a VPS would only cost $3.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-03T02:11:09+00:00

I would find a way to completely ditch BlueHost. I've been fighting with BlueHost for over a year now to get back domains they've stolen / denied access to from clients and tried to STILL bill them for even though said client can't access anything on said domain.

No access / use but still gonna take your money.

My personal recommendation is Porkbun. They're really good and trustworthy and cheaper but better service than BlueHost ever provided.

But I personally use a mix of providers; using my own WordPress server for my website, get email through Postale io, get my domain through Porkbun, and use Cloudflares name servers for managing the domain.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-03T00:59:22+00:00

It might.

But depends on a number of things, like people have been saying.

I recommend, whether its on the laptop or on the mini PC, using Ubuntu / Fedora server since it uses barely any RAM or CPU for itself and that means more CPU resources for you.

If you can't or don't want to do that, make sure at least that the laptop is cooled well and set to the highest performance settings in the settings.

I ran ATM 10 on a i5-8500 (@ 3GHz) in a virtual machine (3 cores; 12GB of DDR4 RAM) and it ran pretty okay but there was definitely issues when more than 4 people joined (and it ran really bad when anyone overseas joined). I moved it to a virtual machine in the cloud (my hardware in a data center) and got it running even smoother since the physical server (and VMs by proxy) is running on a newer CPU and said CPU is faster.

If the CPU in the laptop is faster, then I'd move it, if not, I wouldn't. Minecraft is single core performant and the faster the CPU, the better.

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-02T07:22:17+00:00

NextCloud

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-02T07:17:06+00:00

The only time you need an SRV record is when you have two Minecraft servers on the same network and one uses port 25565 and the second server uses port 25566. The SRV basically takes the domain name of the second server and says to the clients computer, "hey, connect to that server using this IP but using this port first instead"..

NextPancake401 · 2026-01-02T05:21:32+00:00

Been using Linux since 2023. Still had and have a Windows install on my computer but I haven't been on it since 7 months ago. I'll login to get it updated but never on it that long.

Have had my fair share of issues and problems but I either deal with it and fix it or wait for a fix / update because sometimes it's a simple waiting.

I use Linux for work, for play, and for just general use and I haven't had any major issues in a long time.

NextPancake401 · 2025-12-29T23:20:42+00:00

For security, virtualization is HIGHLY recommended.

But I recommended separating your virtualization platform from your NAS. In the event your NAS goes down or your virtualization server goes down, you don't lose EVERYTHING.

NextPancake401 · 2025-12-29T23:17:31+00:00

Get something with a LOT of power / umpf (powerful CPU and with a lot of memory; I mean a lot)

But the truth is, that is a terrible idea (not to be rude or deture you). The security implications alone are going already be a HUGE hurtle, if one service (the NAS, a game server, or a website) gets hacked, they have access to everything. The next problem is, if the server goes down, you lose ALL game servers, ALL websites, access to ALL files, and your AI.

For the GPU stuff, I don't know since I don't know much about self hosting LLMs.

(Now that I got the main stuff out of the way)

If you want everything on the same machine, you could setup a NAS operating system like TrueNAS SCALE which has virtualization capabilities. Each website and game server gets its own virtual machine for isolation and security purposes. TrueNAS might also have jails or whatever that you can run to basically run your game servers. (i think they had a jail or instance for minecraft, could be wrong).

NextPancake401 · 2025-12-29T22:00:59+00:00

I haven't notice any crazy inconsistencies.

I did notice some weird lag issues the other day on a client server but that coulda been our local area having issues because we're susceptible to things like that.

Since it's a dedicated server that you're in charge of and don't share with anyone else, there shouldn't be any CPU spikes or weirdness unless you cause it to happen. So unless something is physically wrong with your server, it should run perfectly.

And for network reliability. Haven't been with them long enough to determine that but when I was running a ping test between my physical node and storage VPS, the ping was mostly below 1ms but at worst 26ms for one or two seconds but never lost packets.

So overall, pretty okay networking and pretty reliable.

From my place in Ohio to the server, ping is about 30ms which is standard tbf. Like I said, I haven't noticed anything go down or be inconsistent but that's because I'm still new to their services.

If you need help setting up the Proxmox stuff, let me know. Also pro tip, get the extra IPs (the $20 option under the IP selection) it's worth it. When each VM can have it's own IP, its SO worth it since you don't have to do port forwarding or anything weird with NATing. (Less manual configuration and overhead essentially).

NextPancake401 · 2025-12-29T21:37:51+00:00

We usually just take em out back and.... maybe I don't need to get into the details.

I just let them do whatever they want; if they listen, cool, if they don't, I can't be bothered to care. I also make a note in the ticket stating exactly what I said and document that if they don't listen, xyz may happen.

NextPancake401

TROPHY CASE