Configure server settings

The Settings tab is a row of sub-tabs covering everything about how a server is configured. Some only show up under a condition: Resources is hidden on the free plan, and Bedrock crossplay only appears on a plain Paper or Purpur server that isn't running a modpack. Everything else in the row — General, Version & world, Properties, Alerts, Public page, SFTP access, Wake on join, Extra ports, External backend, Danger — is always there.

This article covers General, Version & world, Properties, Alerts, Public page, and Danger. The rest have (or share) their own article: Resources → change-ram-plan, Wake on join → wake-hibernate, SFTP access → manage-files, and Extra ports / Bedrock crossplay / External backend → connect-and-share.

General

A single field: the server's description (MOTD), shown to players in the multiplayer server list — § colour codes work. The field itself won't let you type past 128 characters. What it doesn't stop is a paste carrying a line break or another control character within that limit — that's what actually trips a validation error in practice, shown inline next to the field instead of failing silently on save.

Version & world

The core (Paper, Purpur, Vanilla, …) and Minecraft version live here, with their own Apply button — separate from the rest of this tab, because a version or core change recreates the container rather than just restarting it. Both selectors and Apply are disabled while the server is running, starting, or stopping, with "Stop the server to change its core or version." shown below them; a saved change takes effect the next time the server starts, since it has to already be stopped to accept the change.

Picking an older version than the one currently installed is a downgrade, and triggers a confirmation that requires typing DOWNGRADE — a backup is snapshotted first, but recovery from a downgrade isn't always possible. That confirmation is part of the version control itself, not something exclusive to the Danger tab below: picking an older version here fires the same DOWNGRADE-typed dialog as doing it from Danger.

Below that: bringing in a world you already have is a separate control, covered in Import an existing world. And a custom server icon — a 64×64 PNG, capped at 1 MB — which takes effect on the next server start.

Properties

This is server.properties, exposed as one field per key, grouped and with a search box to filter by name. Each field defaults to default (unset) — leaving it there means the key isn't sent at all, so the server's own built-in default applies; it does not mean the panel is choosing a value for you.

• Core gameplay — Game mode (survival/creative/adventure/spectator), Difficulty (peaceful/easy/normal/hard), Hardcore, PvP, Max players (max-players, 1–200), View distance (3–32), Simulation distance (3–32), Spawn protection (0–64), Allow Nether, Allow flight.
• Performance — Sync chunk writes.
• Spawning & world — Spawn monsters/animals/villagers, Generate structures, Command blocks, Force game mode, Level seed (text, up to 128 characters), Level type (text, up to 64 — this is also where a modpack's own world types like skygrid go), Generator settings (JSON text, up to 1024 characters).
• Access — Whitelist, Online mode (auth).
• Resource pack — Resource pack URL (up to 2048 characters), SHA-1 (up to 40), Require resource pack.
• Sleep — Hibernate after N minutes empty. This is the idle-hibernation threshold, not a server.properties key, and it's saved through this same form — see wake-hibernate for what it does and when a saved change actually reaches a running server.

Two values are flagged in red the moment you set them: Hardcore = on and Online mode = off — both real, valid settings, just ones the panel calls out as consequential.

The Whitelist field here is the exact same setting as Enforce whitelist on the Players tab — not a second switch. Changing one without reloading the other tab first can silently overwrite it on save; see that article's "Whitelist: the list and the switch are different things" section for the full mechanics.

Alerts

A Discord webhook that posts when your server's tick rate is struggling. It fires after three consecutive samples that each count as "low" — and a sample counts as low if either live TPS is below 18, or the core's own tick loop is reporting itself as "lagging" (which can happen even above 18 TPS). The two conditions share one streak: two low-TPS samples followed by one lagging sample still fires, same as three of either kind alone — there's no separate immediate page for "lagging" on its own, it's one more way to add to the same three-sample count. A down-post is followed by a 15-minute cooldown before another can fire. Recovery needs both signals to clear: TPS back at or above 19 (not just above 18 — the gap is deliberate, so a server oscillating right at the threshold doesn't spam recovery-then-alert) and the core no longer reporting "lagging". Only a https://discord.com/api/webhooks/… (or discordapp.com) URL is accepted — anything else is rejected with "Must be a Discord webhook URL (https://discord.com/api/webhooks/…)".

Public page

Publishes a shareable page at /s/<slug> with live TPS, uptime, and player count. A second toggle, Show connect address, additionally puts the join address on that public page — off by default even when the page itself is on. Once published, an Embed the live badge section gives you HTML and Markdown snippets for a live-TPS badge (cached at most 15 seconds) to drop into a README, site, or Discord message. This pane saves immediately on toggle — it isn't part of the Save bar described below.

Saving General, Version & world (world/icon only), Properties, and Alerts

These four share one Save bar at the bottom: it shows how many fields are unsaved (its clean-state text is "All changes saved"), and a Discard action that reverts them all after a confirmation. While the server is running, each of these panes shows a banner — "Server is running — changes apply on the next restart." — with its own Restart now button. On save, the panel confirms with "Saved — applies on next restart," or, if a section failed, lists each failure by name (e.g. MOTD: …, Properties: …) joined together. Public page, Resources, SFTP access, Extra ports, Bedrock crossplay, and External backend are not part of this Save bar — each of those applies (or schedules) its own change the moment you interact with it. Wake on join is a partial exception: the same Save bar still renders at the bottom of that pane, but the toggle there isn't wired into it — it saves on click, through its own request. The count on the bar isn't scoped to whichever pane you're looking at, though: it's one shared count for the whole tab, so if you left an unsaved change on, say, Properties and then switch to Wake on join, that same "N unsaved changes" — and a working Save button for it — is still sitting there.

That banner and confirmation are wrong for Alerts, specifically. General, Version & world (the world/icon fields), and Properties genuinely need a restart to take effect. A saved alert webhook doesn't — it writes straight through to the running server's config and is live in time for the next stats sample, seconds later, no restart involved. The panel shows the same "changes apply on the next restart" banner and "Saved — applies on next restart" confirmation on the Alerts pane anyway, because it's the same shared Save bar and banner component for all four panes; don't restart a live server to "activate" an alert webhook, it's already active.

Danger

• Downgrade core version — shown for any server not managed by a modpack; the same control and confirmation described under Version & world above.
• Reset world — deletes the current world and regenerates one using whatever Level type / Generator settings are currently set on Properties, so set those first if you want something other than the default. Requires the server to be stopped, and requires typing the server's hostname to confirm — this can't be undone.
• Delete server — permanently removes the server and its world; also requires typing the hostname. Download a backup first if you might want any of it back.

Troubleshooting

A tab I expect isn't there. Resources needs a paid plan (not free); Bedrock crossplay needs a plain Paper or Purpur server with no modpack attached. Neither is a bug — see change-ram-plan and connect-and-share.

Save button won't do anything. Either nothing has changed yet, or the MOTD has a validation error (over 128 characters, or a line break/control character in it) — fix that first; it blocks the whole Save bar, not just the MOTD field.

I saved a property and nothing changed in-game. Expected — see "Saving…" above: General, Version & world, and Properties apply on the next restart, not immediately. Use Restart now on the banner if you don't want to wait. (Alerts is the exception — a saved webhook is already live; ignore the same-looking banner there.)

The Whitelist field keeps reverting. See "Properties" above — it's the same value as the Players tab's Enforce whitelist toggle, and the two tabs don't stay in sync while both are open in your browser.

Version/Downgrade controls are disabled. Stop the server first — both are blocked whenever it's running, starting, or stopping.