Minecraft Whitelist – Server Whitelist Guide

Minecraft Whitelist – Server Introduction

Thanks to Minecraft server hosting, friends all around the world can play together. When playing together, the experience must be the best it can be with no lag and without worrying about other players. These players, especially in survival servers, can sometimes destroy builds, steal items, and more. To prevent this, you can use a Minecraft whitelist on your server!
 
On a game server, a whitelist is a list that, when enabled, will only allow players added to that list to join. This stops random players and people you may not know from joining, keeping you, your friends, and your server safe. You can set up a whitelist on your Minecraft server in only a few minutes. Inside this guide, we’ll show you how you can do that to create a safe and fun environment and world for your Minecraft game server!

Getting Started with a Minecraft Whitelist

Gathering Your Players Information for the Whitelist

Before creating a whitelist on your Minecraft server, your server must have online-mode option enabled. Online mode in Minecraft is what activates and deactivates Mojang’s Authentication system, checking to see if you’re an official Minecraft account that purchased the game. Otherwise, if online mode is disabled, this allows cracked Minecraft clients to join your server where players can set any name and this prevents a whitelist from working.
 
If you haven’t edited the online mode option before, it is enabled by default and so you won’t need to worry about this. That said, if you have disabled online mode, we recommend enabling the option. With online mode enabled on your server, you can now create a whitelist using these steps:
 
A whitelist only makes sense if the online-mode is active. If the online mode is deactivated, players can switch names and easily outsmart a whitelist. And since minecraft version 1.7.9 the whitelist identifies players by their uuid (explained below), so if you run a server with online-mode set to false a whitelist simply can’t identify cracked Minecraft clients.

Creating a Minecraft Whitelist for Your Server

To begin, you’ll need to activate the whitelist on your server. There are two methods you can use to do this, your server settings and console commands. We’ll show you how to use both methods to accomplish this on your server!

Commands

On your Minecraft server webinterface, to the left, press the “Live Server Console” option. You can type the following commands within your server console to enable and disable your Minecraft whitelist.

• /whitelist on
• /whitelist off

Server Files

1. Head to your Minecraft server webinterface and stop your server.
2. Next, on the left under “Tools”, press “File Browser”.
3. Inside your server files, edit the server.properties file.
4. Then, find the “white-list=” option. You can set this to true to enable the server whitelist.


5. Optionally, you can enable the “enforce-whitelist=” option too. When enabled, if you activate the whitelist and then use “/whitelist reload”, this will kick any players not whitelisted from your server.
6. Lastly, after enabling the whitelist, press “Save changes” and start your server.

Adding Players to Your Server Whitelist

Once the whitelist is enabled, it’s time to add players. We recommend adding users to your whitelist by using commands, as it is the safest and most effective way to do so. While that’s the case, we have also included a guide on manually adding users to your whitelist in the below sections.
 
To add users to your server whitelist, head to your “Live Server Console” and type the commands:

• /whitelist add USERNAME
• /whitelist remove USERNAME

Afterward, only those users will be able to join your server with the whitelist activated. In addition to adding and removing users, you can also use these commands for your whitelist:

• /whitelist reload – Reloads the Minecraft whitelist. As of Minecraft 1.7.9, this command is no longer necessary.

 

• /whitelist list – Provides a list of all users that are on your server whitelist.

Manually Adding Users to a Server Whitelist

While playing in Minecraft versions 1.7.8 or below, the whitelist is simplified as a white-list.txt file and uses the usernames of Minecraft players. This differs from Minecraft 1.7.9 and above versions, as they use player UUIDs instead, a more advanced authentication Mojang implemented. In 1.7.9 and above versions, you’ll find a white-list.json file instead. In the sections underneath here, you’ll learn what those files look like and how to add your users to them.

Minecraft 1.7.8 and Below

Inside your Minecraft server files, edit the white-list.txt file. After editing this file, set your player’s usernames, one per line, like this:
nitrado
hans
Peter
Kevin
 
Afterward, press “Save changes”. You can now use /whitelist reload or restart your Minecraft server to add these players to the whitelist.

Minecraft 1.7.9 and Above

Minecraft 1.7.9 and above use a more advanced file and format in the white-list.json file. Within this file, both a player’s UUID and username are required. Since this file can easily break if the format is not correct, we recommend using commands to add players. If you would like to continue with the manual method, you can gather a player’s UUID using the MinecraftUUID website. Then, you can add that user by following the format below which includes an example white-list.json file:
[
{
"uuid": "5c22674c-bad8-45e0-9f3e-82bc3ec39200",
"name": "nitrado"
},
{
"uuid": "2c27674c-bad8-45e0-9f3e-82bc3ec39200",
"name": "hans"
},
{
"uuid": "6c27674c-bad8-45e0-9f3e-82bc3ec39200",
"name": "peter"
}
]

Stay Protected to Focus on Enjoying Your Server

You know how to protect your server from uninvited guests so that you and your friends can have a blast without concerns. From exploring the Deep Dark to uncovering camels and the new Cherry Blossom Biome in Minecraft 1.20. With the ability to activate and deactivate the whitelist at any time, you’ll be able to choose whether you want a private experience or to make the server public to everyone. With your server set for your preferred experience, you can focus on having the ultimate journey with friends on your Minecraft server!

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