Minecraft Forums

Pretty much the title. I'm thinking of reopening one of my old servers, but this time, instead of paying monthly for the server, I would be hosting from home.

I just have a few questions about doing so;

1. My computer will be on all the time, like, day and night, would that do anything to harm my computer? (Im not too tech savy, sorry :c)
2. Would I be able to play other (maybe computer intensive) games without lagging/slowing down the server?
3. How different is hosting a server on your computer compared to the servers you can rent monthly? (I know how to install plugins and such on both)

Also any other tips you can give me would be appreciated.

Well for one, you should expect alot of management. Then you get the people on your server who are just downright brainless. People who have no common sense, and then you will have to deal with them. My tips on this is to not show mercy. I ran home servers in the past and all I get is good reviews. This is why. If you are strict on your server, all the players who play fair will want to stay on and love it. All those trouble makers and cheaters will not on the other hand. Those people you can just ban right away. If you have a set of rules and consequences for those rules being broken, you better be prepared to enforce them and not show any leniency. If you show them that, then people will start walking all over you. If you want friendliness in your server then let your mods or admins do that. Your job is to keep the peace of the server.

When I hosted my own server on my own computer, I knew there would be complications from the start. First of all, leaving a computer on all night can run the risk of overheating, especially if you're utilizing a substancial amount of RAM and CPU usage. Secondly was how the server would actually come to be; the set up process took ages, I had to resort to Hamachi to avoid fees, and how was I to convince others to go through the process of downloading and joining my Hamachi group just to play on a new server that wasn't very exciting at all. I couldn't even attract my friends to play. After only 20 minutes my CPU would rise to 90 degrees Centigrade. Too hot for my liking.

If you've got a rig that can handle the stress then go for it, otherwise be prepared to face some intense technical difficulties.

- SuperSonic

1. Probably not, but you never know.
2. It really depends on what game you want to play and how much resources are being used by the server at the time. Remember that playing another gaming might lag everybody on the sever too. Another thing you'll want to look out for is hard drive space, remember that the sever will constantly be reading and writing to disk.
3. For one, you'll need to worry about security more. Since it's your computer the sever is being hosted on, it'll be you're files that are at risk. I've only ever hosted a server over LAN so I'm not to familiar with what a hacker can get away with; but, I would assume that just like in most other cases it wouldn't be too hard to gain access to your PC by using information pulled from the server(your IP ect.). Obviously if it's just for the family or what-not then it's as big ab issue.

Quote from jjccooldude

1. The only thing that could happen would be overheating but if you have a good cooling system then everything should be fine
2. It depends how much RAM you have because with 8-16 GB RAM you should be ok playing othe games
3. Who are you letting on your server and are you whitelisting or are you just letting anyone on whom might come across it?

yeah, I have 16gb of RAM on my computer, so I think I may be fine, especially considering I only play games like WoW and other older games.

As for the people I'm letting on, It wouldn't be a white listed server. I would probably post it on PMC or Reddit.

1. Your computer will get damaged and shutdown if it overheats, make sure you have a good cooling system. Give it a break every once in a while, for instance keep the server up 12-15 hours a day, just make sure you're there to supervise it in case something goes wrong.
2. Under most circumstances, you SHOULD be able to run other games. A multi-core processor would really help, for instance if you have a quad-core CPU you can let the server use one core, two for the game (Such as Half-Life[1 AND 2] and DOOM III) and another one if you want to use any other programs. However, even so it might lag. It, surprisingly, is okay with Minecraft, but it being a very resource demanding game you don't wanna do anything too intensive such as using lots of mods.
3. For hosting services, it's rather expensive if you're a kid without a job. The lowest price I've seen was $7, and the highest was $15-20. Either way, it costs LOTS of money, for instance if it were $10 per month and you rented the service's computer for a year, it costs $120. Not to mention, I'm not really sure but some people said you have less control. It may be more reliable, but only use it if you can afford and if your internet is crap.

Also, as another tip, I recommend that when you're away from home or something you use a Remote Desktop Connection to check on your server every once in a while.