Your first week: a checklist for a new server

A day-by-day plan for the first week of a new game server, from the first start to inviting players and installing your first mods, in the order that causes the fewest problems.

6 min read · Updated Oct 21, 2026 · By GuavaHost Team

You can do all of this in one evening. The reason to spread it out is that each step makes the next one safer: a world settled before anyone builds in it, a backup before anything gets installed, a restart schedule before you have 15 people online. The order matters more than the pace.

Day 1: start it and connect yourself

1. Sign in at customer.guavahost.com, open My servers and click Manage.
2. Press Start and watch the Console. The first boot takes longer than later ones because the game files finish setting themselves up.
3. When the status reads Online, copy the server address from the top of the page.
4. Join it yourself, alone, before you tell anyone it exists.

That last point is the whole of day one. If you cannot get in, nobody can, and it is far easier to debug with one player. Your first day covers the panel side and finding your IP and port covers the address.

If the status will not move off Starting, read server stuck starting or offline rather than pressing Start repeatedly.

Day 2: settle the world and the rules

This is the day to change things that are painful to change later. Most of them live in Startup settings on the Settings tab, or in your game's own config file.

• The version. Lock it now. Players have to match it, and moving a world to a newer version later is a job of its own.
• Difficulty, game mode and PvP. Easy to change, but changing them after people have settled in feels like a rule change.
• The world, map or seed. The one genuinely destructive setting. If you are going to regenerate, do it today. See resetting the world or changing the seed.
• The server name and message. What shows in the server list. For Minecraft, MOTD and server icon.

Change one setting, press Save next to it, then restart. Changing six things at once and then finding the server will not boot is a bad afternoon. For Minecraft Java the core settings file is covered in editing server.properties, and Bedrock has its own version.

Day 3: take a manual backup

Now that the world is the one you want, save it.

1. Open Backups in the server menu.
2. Click Create backup.
3. Give it a name you will recognise in a month, such as "clean start, before mods".

That is your known good state. Everything from here on is reversible, which changes how confidently you can experiment. Restoring overwrites the current files, so it is a rollback rather than a merge. Backups: creating, restoring and scheduling has the mechanics.

If the server will matter to a group of people, read how often should you back up today too, and decide whether Daily Off-site Backups is worth it.

Day 4: add a scheduled restart

Game servers use a little more memory the longer they stay online, and a world that is smooth on day one can feel sticky after three days of uptime. A restart at a quiet hour clears it before anyone notices.

Open Scheduled tasks in the server menu. If you have no schedules yet, click the Restart every night starter and you are done. If you already have players, use the Warn players, then restart starter instead so the restart is announced in chat first.

Add a weekly backup schedule while you are on the page. Setting up an automatic daily restart covers both, including custom timings.

Day 5: invite a few players, not everyone

Invite two or three people first. You want to find out whether other players can connect, whether your settings are sensible with a group and whether the plan size holds up, and you want to find that out with friends rather than strangers.

Send them the exact address you copied, plus the version and any password. Invite your first players covers what to send and how to phrase it, and if someone cannot get in, the friends cannot connect checklist is the fastest route through it.

While they are on, open the Overview and look at the Usage card. CPU and RAM with a few players tells you a lot about what a full house will do.

Day 6: decide who is allowed in

With people on the server, pick your door policy. There are three realistic options:

The classic mistake is turning a whitelist on before adding any names, which locks out everybody including you. Allowlist and whitelist explained spells out the trap, and whitelist without locking yourself out is the Minecraft specific version. For the wider choice, see whitelist, password or private server.

This is also the day to give yourself admin properly (for Minecraft, op yourself) and to think about protection against griefing before it happens, not after: keeping griefers out.

If someone else helps you run the server, add them under People as a sub-user with only the permissions they need, rather than sharing your account. See giving a friend access with sub-users.

Day 7: install mods or plugins, one at a time

Leave this until last on purpose. Mods and plugins are the most common cause of a server that suddenly will not boot, and they are much easier to diagnose when everything else is already known to work.

The rule that saves the most time: install one, restart, check the console, then install the next. If the server breaks, you know exactly which file did it. Install eight at once and you are bisecting a folder at midnight.

• Not sure which kind you need? Mods vs plugins vs modpacks vs datapacks.
• Minecraft Java plugins: installing plugins. Mods: Fabric and Forge mods.
• A whole modpack is a different job, because every player needs the same version: installing a modpack.
• Download only from the mod's own page or a known host. Safe plugin and mod sources explains what to avoid.

Take a backup before the first one. You already know how.

The week in one list

• Day 1: start it, connect yourself, note the address.
• Day 2: version, difficulty, world, name.
• Day 3: manual backup, named.
• Day 4: nightly restart and weekly backup schedule.
• Day 5: two or three players, watch Usage.
• Day 6: whitelist or password, admin, sub-users.
• Day 7: mods and plugins, one at a time.

Common questions

Can I do all of this on the first day?

Yes, and plenty of people do. Keep the order rather than the schedule: world settings before anyone builds, a backup before anything gets installed, and mods last so that a boot failure has only one possible cause.

Should I install my mods before inviting people?

Only if the mods are the point of the server, such as a modpack everybody has agreed to run. Otherwise invite a couple of friends to a plain server first, because it separates "the server is misconfigured" from "this mod is broken" into two different evenings.

What if I pick the wrong plan size during the first week?

Change it. RAM goes up or down under Manage plan and billing is prorated, so the first week is a good time to watch the Usage card with real players on and adjust once you have actual numbers instead of a guess.

Do I need a Discord for my server?

Not on day one, but it becomes the easiest place to announce restarts, hand out the address and collect bug reports once you have more than a handful of players. For a server you only ever play with four friends, a group chat does the same job.

Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.

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• checklist
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• first-steps
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