Deploy and Host Minecraft Server (Paper) on Railway

Minecraft Server (Paper) is a high-performance fork of the Minecraft Java server. This template deploys the battle-tested itzg/minecraft-server image running Paper with a persistent world volume, a TCP proxy for the game port, private RCON admin, whitelist/ops support, and pause-when-empty to cut idle costs.

About Hosting Minecraft Server (Paper)

Hosting Minecraft yourself normally means renting a VPS, installing Java, managing server JARs, and keeping the process alive. This template does it all on Railway: the Paper server runs from a pinned image (2026.7.0-java21), your world lives on a Railway volume mounted at /data, and players connect through a Railway TCP proxy on port 25565. RCON stays on the private network only. You must type TRUE in the EULA variable at deploy time to accept Mojang's EULA — the server will not start until you do. With PAUSE_WHEN_EMPTY_SECONDS set, the server pauses when nobody is online, so an empty server costs almost nothing.

Common Use Cases

Private survival server for friends — set WHITELIST with their usernames
Public community server with Paper plugin support
Creative/build server that pauses (and stops billing CPU) when empty

Dependencies for Minecraft Server (Paper) Hosting

A Minecraft Java Edition account and client to join the server
Acceptance of the Minecraft EULA (type TRUE in the EULA variable)

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

Connect with the TCP proxy endpoint shown in the service's Settings → Networking (e.g. shuttle.proxy.rlwy.net:15140) — add it in Minecraft under Multiplayer → Add Server. Set OPS to your username for in-game admin. RCON_PASSWORD is auto-generated; use rcon-cli via railway ssh for console commands. Memory defaults to 2G — scale the MEMORY variable with your player count.

Why Deploy Minecraft Server (Paper) on Railway?

Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it.

By deploying Minecraft Server (Paper) on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway.