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🌐 Custom Hostnames

Setting up persistent URLs

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Before reading further, make sure you have a Cloudflare account and you have your domain, pointing to Cloudflare's DNS servers, or you have a registered domain on Cloudflare.

If you're unsure on where to begin, this course should get you on track.

🛡️ Meet Zero Trust​

You can navigate to it from left sidebar on the Cloudflare dashboard, or here.

Step-by-step guide on setting up your own tunnel:

  • Open Zero Trust dashboard;
  • Expand Networks tab on the left;
  • Select Tunnels under Networks;
  • Click ➕ Create a tunnel;
  • Select Cloudflared connector;
  • Pick a name for your tunnel (it should be meaningful of your computer, although it can be anything). The name isn't visible to anyone besides you;
  • Click Save tunnel;
  • Now you should be present with Choose your environment. Go through the instructions listed there;
  • After following the instruction, you should see a connector appear. Save everything!
  • Go to "Public Hostnames" tab on the top (right below your tunnel name)
  • Click ➕ Add a public hostname;
  • Pick a Subdomain name that you want to use; (REMEMBER FOR LATER!)
  • Select a Domain from ones connected to your Cloudflare account; (REMEMBER FOR LATER!)
  • Leave the Path empty!
  • Select Type field to TCP
  • Inside URL, type in 127.0.0.1:PORT, and replace PORT with the actual port number. I recommend setting it to 25665 (yes, not 25565!)
  • Click Save hostname

The port you specified in your public hostname must match to your Minecraft server's port. (specified in server.properties)

Now the tunnel should be ready to go. Let's tweak the mod's configurations to fit our needs...

⚙️ Mod Configs​

Locate the mod's config file (.minecraft/config/cloudflared.cfg) and locate hosting category.

  • Set Start Tunnel from true to false. This prevents the built-in tunnel from starting, since we installed cloudflared as a system service earlier on!
  • Set Custom Port Override from 0 to your PORT (In the example above we used 25665)
  • Restart the game

😄 Enjoy!​

You're ready to go! When hosting the game, Cloudflared mod will force the server to run on a specific port that we set up in configs, and the service tunnel will point to that port, letting users connect.

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But wait, what address do players need to use now?!​

To put it simply, it will be your address!

While setting up the tunnel in Zero Trust dashboard, we entered the Subdomain and Domain. That's exactly what we're going to be using!

If I was to host a game on subdomain mcdoc of domain zeith.org, then my cloudflared URL would be cloudflared://mcdoc.zeith.org, and that's the IP other players should be using to connect.

Yes, the cloudflared:// prefix is cumbersome, but it's very important to let the mod know it has to tunnel the connection through Cloudflare infrastructure.