Deploy and Host a Minecraft Server on Railway

A Paper server on the official itzg image, with a persistent volume for the world and a TCP proxy so players can connect with a normal Minecraft client.

About Hosting a Minecraft Server

The world, the player data, the plugins and server.properties all live in /data. This template mounts a volume there, which is the difference between a server and a demo: without one, every redeploy hands your players a freshly generated world and wipes their inventories.

The image is pinned, and pinned to a Java 25 build on purpose. Paper 26.1 and newer refuse to start on Java 21 - a server left on an older Java tag crashes on boot the first time it pulls a current Paper build.

Common Use Cases

A survival or creative server for friends, reachable from anywhere
A Paper server with plugins, dropped into /data/plugins
A short-lived server for an event, deleted when it is over

Dependencies for Minecraft Hosting

A persistent volume, included, mounted at /data
A TCP proxy, included, forwarding to port 25565. Minecraft speaks its own protocol, not HTTP, so it needs a raw TCP address rather than a web domain.
Accepting the Mojang EULA. The template asks for EULA before it will deploy, because that agreement is between you and Mojang.

Deployment Dependencies

Image documentation: https://docker-minecraft-server.readthedocs.io
Paper: https://papermc.io
Mojang EULA: https://aka.ms/MinecraftEULA

Implementation Details

After deploying, open the service, find the TCP proxy address, and add it in the Minecraft client as host:port - for example mainline.proxy.rlwy.net:14767. Both parts matter; the port is not 25565 from the outside.

Variable	Why
EULA	You accept Mojang's agreement. Required, no default
TYPE, VERSION	Paper, latest release. Change VERSION to pin a specific Minecraft version
MEMORY	2G. Raise it for a bigger world or more players - it is the main cost driver
USE_AIKAR_FLAGS	JVM flags tuned for Minecraft garbage collection
RCON_PASSWORD	Generated. RCON listens on the private network only, but it should not sit on a default password
DIFFICULTY, MAX_PLAYERS, MOTD	The usual server.properties settings, editable as variables

One thing deliberately left off: autopause. It stops the JVM while nobody is online, which sounds ideal for usage-based billing, but it needs raw packet capture to detect an incoming connection and Railway does not grant that capability - knockd fails with "Operation not permitted" and the container logs the failure every thirty minutes. Templates that ship ENABLE_AUTOPAUSE=true on Railway are not saving anyone money; they are just logging errors.

Why Deploy a Minecraft Server on Railway?

No machine to keep patched, no port forwarding, no dynamic DNS. A volume keeps the world, the TCP proxy gives players a stable address, and when the server is no longer wanted you delete the project.