Paper and Purpur Servers: Setup and Best Practices

Setup checklist

• [ ] Minecraft version pinned on Startup (not latest), and the right Java picked. Versions and Java
• [ ] EULA accepted on the first start. First start
• [ ] View and simulation distance lowered before players arrive. Settings
• [ ] World pre-generated inside a world border. Pre-generate
• [ ] Core plugins: a permissions plugin (LuckPerms), grief logging (CoreProtect), Chunky for pre-generation. spark is built into Paper (/spark profiler).
• [ ] Whitelist on for private servers, few ops. Players
• [ ] Backups and a daily restart scheduled. Backup schedules

Memory and start-up flags

• Java needs memory outside its heap too. Your start command uses -XX:MaxRAMPercentage so Java takes a share of your plan automatically. Never set -Xmx to your whole plan: the server gets killed for going over its limit.
• For 4 GB and up, Aikar's flags (Paper's recommended garbage-collection settings) cut lag spikes. They're published in Paper's docs. Ask us to set them on your server.
• More memory than the server uses doesn't make it faster. If you have lag, find the cause first.

The settings that matter

Edit these with the server stopped.

server.properties (all settings)

spigot.yml: leave view-distance: default, so server.properties alone controls it. A number here silently overrides it.

config/paper-world-defaults.yml: Paper's own options. These are safe, well-known wins:

To change one world only (say, a creative world), put just the changed keys in that world's paper-world.yml, not a copy of the whole file.

bukkit.yml: spawn-limits (monsters 70, animals 10 by default) set how many mobs can exist per player. Lowering monsters to 40–50 helps busy servers.

Plugins

• Download from Hangar (Paper's own site), Modrinth, SpigotMC or the author's GitHub. Plugins get full access to your server, so never install one from a random upload. The panel's Minecraft Plugins page installs from these sites for you. Install plugins
• The .jar goes directly in plugins/. Subfolders aren't loaded.
• Restart after adding or updating plugins. Don't use /reload: it breaks many plugins.
• Check /plugins: green is running, red failed to load. The console says why.

Updating plugins safely

1. Make a backup and lock it.
2. Create a folder plugins/update/ and put the new jars in it.
3. Restart. Paper swaps them in during start-up.
4. If you replace jars by hand instead, delete the old one: two copies of the same plugin (name (1).jar) give an Ambiguous plugin name error.

Update one plugin at a time when you can, so you know which one caused a problem.

Restarts and backups

• A daily restart at a quiet time, with warnings at 5 minutes and 1 minute. It clears memory and lets plugin updates load. Schedules
• Backups every 6 hours, with save-all just before the backup task, and a locked backup before every update.
• Your world is the world folder (or whatever level-name says). Back up plugins/ and config/ with it; panel backups take everything.

Security

• online-mode=true unless the server sits behind a correctly set-up Velocity proxy.
• white-list=true and enforce-whitelist=true for private servers.
• Few ops; use LuckPerms groups for moderators.
• enable-rcon=false. The panel console does the same job without another open port.
• CoreProtect, so you can roll back griefing: /co rollback u:<player> t:1d r:50.

Common problems