Minecraft Server Proxy

Posted on January 18, 2026

I host almost everything locally, but I needed a good way for friends to reach in to our Minecraft server. This is a jank but so far effective solution.

The plan

Friends will be connecting to my server through a domain name directing to a vm hosted by Digital Ocean¹, forwarding network traffic on port 25565 using socat² to my personal server through Tailscale, as diagrammed below.

This sounds like a lot, but in reality it has 3 steps for me, and at most one or two more for you.

The steps:

1. Setup VM in Digital Ocean
2. Setup Tailscale on that VM
3. Run socat command in tmux on that VM, detach, and call it a day
4. Optional: Connect Domain Name

You'll notice that there's no setting up auto start scripts, configuring systemd, installing docker, or anything like that. That is because this is the jank solution that I can spin up again in 5 minutes if it goes down. The uptime agreement for this service is "fix it if my friends bug me about it being down before I notice it being down" so we'll be aiming for roughly one 9 of uptime.

Setup VM in Digital Ocean

Note: this could be in any cloud service provider. At the time of writing Digital Ocean had 4$ / month VM with 1 shared CPU and 500gb of outbound network traffic included. This would be enough speed and data to forward all of my network traffic in the month through while staying within that 4$ budget.

1. Navigate to this Create Droplet Page which should be pre-populated with:

   • New York (This VM options is not available in all regions, but worth checking for a closer regions if this is far from you)
   • Debian 13
   • Droplet Type: Basic
     • 1 vCPU
     • 512 MB ram
     • Regular SSD -4$/month VM

2. Create or add an ssh key, and select it as the Authentication Method

3. I recommend giving it a custom Hostname, mine is called McProxy. This name is not important for later configuration, but makes finding it on the dashboard easier.

4. Click Create Droplet

Setup Tailscale on that VM

0. Connect to the VM through the web ssh console
1. Install tailscale, following their instructions
   • If not setup with Tailscale on your server already, install there as well

On Tailscale dashboard

3. Set the hostname of the machine to monarch (or your preferred name) for ease of identification, and because this is a pet, not cattle. This is what the VM can be reached at from anything hooked up with Tailscale
4. I also recommend setting a hostname for your server if you haven't. I call mine marble

Run socat

Back On monarch (Our VM):

4. apt install tmux, to let us disconnect without killing the command³

5. Run tmux

6. Forwarding with socat

   socat TCP4-LISTEN:25565,fork TCP4:marble:25565

   Note: the marble in this command must be swapped with the Tailscale hostname of your server

7. Disconnect from the session with the key combo: Ctrl-B d

From here we server configuration should be all set. You can confirm this by connecting to the VM's IP from you Minecraft client.

Optional: Connect Domain Name

In my case this is an "A Record" on a subdomain configured through Namecheap's Dashboard, but your steps may differ slightly here.

1. Namecheap Dashboard
2. Manage on 'domain.name'
3. Advanced DNS tab
4. Add (or Update existing) A Record pointing to the IP of the VM we just setup

The why

I am not running the Minecraft server directly on the VM since that VM is less powerful than my local server.

I can't port forward due to my ISP. Well. I can, but they would want to charge extra (more than this VM costs) for the privilege. I can't change from this ISP in my current apartment, so this workaround is necessary.