Securely Configure Your Minecraft Server: A Zero Trust Guide

Minecraft’s allure is undeniable, captivating players of all ages with its boundless creativity and collaborative gameplay. For many young enthusiasts, the ultimate step in their Minecraft journey is hosting their own server. This digital realm becomes a personal playground where they and their friends can embark on adventures, build magnificent structures, and explore together. Imagine your child’s excitement at creating their very own world, a private space for shared experiences.

However, the path to Minecraft server ownership isn’t always straightforward, especially when it comes to security. My own experience brought this into sharp focus. One day, my son proudly announced he had set up his own Minecraft server. Initially, I pictured a simple LAN party setup, confined to our home network. But then he casually mentioned playing with friends who weren’t even in the house. He had ingeniously (or perhaps, alarmingly) used a VPN program to grant his friends access, effectively extending our home network to them.

“Wait, you did what?”

My initial pride quickly turned to concern. While I admired his initiative, opening up our network in this way presented significant security risks. Granting external access, even to trusted friends, could potentially expose our entire network to vulnerabilities if their devices or credentials were compromised. The thought of unauthorized access to our personal data and devices was unsettling.

Recognizing the need for a more secure solution, we embarked on a project together to implement a zero trust network. The beauty of a zero trust approach is its granular control. Instead of broadly opening up network access, it allows us to grant specific permissions, limiting access to only the Minecraft server itself, without exposing other devices or sensitive information on our network. This level of security even gave me peace of mind about him inviting online friends he’d never met in person, knowing their access would be strictly confined to the intended server.

This guide will walk you through configuring your own Minecraft server using a zero trust network powered by OpenZiti. You’ll learn how to set up a secure environment that allows you to share your Minecraft world with friends without compromising your home network security.

Understanding the Risks of Traditional Minecraft Server Setup

Before diving into the zero trust solution, it’s crucial to understand the security challenges associated with traditional methods of making your Minecraft server accessible online.

Typically, exposing a Minecraft server to the internet involves port forwarding on your home router. This method essentially punches a hole in your firewall, allowing traffic on a specific port (usually 25565 for Minecraft) to reach your server. While seemingly simple, port forwarding has significant drawbacks:

• Broad Exposure: Port forwarding opens up your network to the entire internet on that specific port. Anyone scanning for open ports could potentially find your server, and while Minecraft servers have their own security measures, this broad exposure increases the attack surface.
• Network Vulnerability: If a vulnerability is discovered in the Minecraft server software or the underlying operating system, attackers could potentially exploit the open port to gain access to your server and, potentially, your broader network.
• Lack of Granular Control: Port forwarding offers very limited control over who can access the server. Once the port is open, anyone with the correct IP address can attempt to connect.

Another common approach is using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). While VPNs offer encryption and can create secure tunnels, they often grant users access to a larger portion of your network than intended. As highlighted in my son’s initial setup, even with trusted friends, VPN access can be risky if their devices are compromised.

Introducing Zero Trust Networking and OpenZiti for Minecraft Servers

Zero trust networking offers a fundamentally different approach to security. Instead of assuming trust based on network location (like within a home network), zero trust operates on the principle of “never trust, always verify.” This means every user and device, regardless of location, must be authenticated and authorized before gaining access to any resource.

Key principles of zero trust:

• Microsegmentation: Dividing the network into small, isolated segments to limit the impact of breaches.
• Least Privilege Access: Granting users only the minimum level of access necessary to perform their tasks.
• Multi-Factor Authentication: Requiring multiple forms of verification to confirm user identity.
• Continuous Monitoring: Constantly monitoring network traffic and user behavior for suspicious activity.

OpenZiti is an open-source, zero trust networking platform that makes implementing these principles accessible and manageable, even for home users. It creates an overlay network, a secure, private network that runs on top of the existing internet infrastructure. With OpenZiti, you can:

• Securely expose your Minecraft server without opening firewall ports: OpenZiti uses outbound connections, eliminating the need for port forwarding and reducing your attack surface.
• Granularly control access to your server: You define exactly who can access your Minecraft server, regardless of their location, using identities and policies.
• Encrypt all traffic: OpenZiti encrypts all traffic within the overlay network, protecting your data from eavesdropping.
• Simplify network management: OpenZiti provides a centralized management plane for defining policies and managing access.

Current Network: Minecraft server inaccessible from the internet due to firewall.

Zero Trust Network with OpenZiti: Secure access to Minecraft server through the overlay network, bypassing firewall restrictions.

Step-by-Step Guide to Configure Your Minecraft Server with OpenZiti

Let’s walk through the process of configuring your Minecraft server using OpenZiti. This guide assumes you already have a Minecraft server set up and running on your local machine.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you’ll need the following:

1. A Virtual Private Server (VPS): We’ll use a VPS to host the OpenZiti network controller. Oracle Cloud offers a free tier that is sufficient for this purpose. You can follow this guide to set up a free Oracle Cloud VPS.
2. OpenZiti CLI Tools installed on your VPS and your local machine: Follow the OpenZiti documentation for installation instructions specific to your operating system.

Setting up the VPS and OpenZiti Network

This guide assumes you have already set up an OpenZiti network on your VPS. If you haven’t, please refer to the OpenZiti documentation or the linked Oracle Cloud setup guide for detailed instructions on bootstrapping your OpenZiti network.

Configuring OpenZiti for Minecraft

Now, let’s configure OpenZiti to secure your Minecraft server. We’ll use environment variables to simplify the commands. You can customize these values as needed:

export DEVICE_NAME="my.minecraft.server"
export MY_NAME="my.name.here"
export PORT=25565

Replace "my.minecraft.server" with a descriptive name for your server, "my.name.here" with your username, and 25565 with your Minecraft server port if it’s different.

Create Identities

Identities represent devices and users on the OpenZiti network. We need identities for both your Minecraft server host machine and the users who will connect to it.

First, list existing identities to see the current state:

ziti edge list identities

Create an Identity for the Host (Minecraft Server):

ziti edge create identity device ${DEVICE_NAME} -o ${DEVICE_NAME}.jwt -a "${DEVICE_NAME}.hosts"

This command creates a device identity named my.minecraft.server (or your chosen DEVICE_NAME), saves an enrollment token to my.minecraft.server.jwt, and assigns the attribute ${DEVICE_NAME}.hosts.

Create an Identity for Yourself (and other players):

ziti edge create identity user ${MY_NAME} -o ${MY_NAME}.jwt -a "${DEVICE_NAME}.clients"

This creates a user identity for you, saves an enrollment token to my.name.here.jwt, and assigns the attribute ${DEVICE_NAME}.clients. You’ll repeat this step for each friend you want to invite, creating a unique identity and token for them.

Example Output:

After running these commands, you should see the newly created identities in the list:

You’ll also find the .jwt files in your current directory. These tokens are essential for enrolling identities into the OpenZiti network.

Create a Service and Configurations

A service in OpenZiti represents the application you want to secure – in this case, your Minecraft server. Service configurations define how the overlay network connects to your underlay network (your home network).

Service Configurations:

ziti edge create config ${DEVICE_NAME}.hostv1 host.v1 '{"protocol":"tcp", "address":"localhost","port":'${PORT}'}'
ziti edge create config ${DEVICE_NAME}.interceptv1 intercept.v1 '{"protocols":["tcp"],"addresses":["'${DEVICE_NAME}'.ziti"], "portRanges":[{"low":'${PORT}', "high":'${PORT}'}]}'

These commands create two configurations:

• ${DEVICE_NAME}.hostv1: Specifies how the OpenZiti network connects to your Minecraft server on your local machine (localhost:25565).
• ${DEVICE_NAME}.interceptv1: Defines how clients will connect to the service through the OpenZiti overlay network using the address ${DEVICE_NAME}.ziti and port 25565.

Service:

ziti edge create service ${DEVICE_NAME} --configs "${DEVICE_NAME}.hostv1,${DEVICE_NAME}.interceptv1"

This command creates the Minecraft service named ${DEVICE_NAME} and associates it with the configurations we just created.

Example Output:

Create the Service Policies

Service policies define who is authorized to access the Minecraft service. We’ll create policies to allow your server host to “bind” (host) the service and authorized clients to “dial” (connect to) the service.

ziti edge create service-policy "${DEVICE_NAME}.bind" Bind --service-roles "@${DEVICE_NAME}" --identity-roles "#${DEVICE_NAME}.hosts"
ziti edge create service-policy "${DEVICE_NAME}.dial" Dial --service-roles "@${DEVICE_NAME}" --identity-roles "#${DEVICE_NAME}.clients"

• ${DEVICE_NAME}.bind: Allows identities with the attribute #${DEVICE_NAME}.hosts (our server host identity) to bind to the service @${DEVICE_NAME}.
• ${DEVICE_NAME}.dial: Allows identities with the attribute #${DEVICE_NAME}.clients (user identities) to dial the service @${DEVICE_NAME}.

Example Output:

Enroll the Identities

Now, you need to enroll the identities using the .jwt tokens and the Ziti Desktop Edge application.

Download Ziti Desktop Edge:

Download and install the Ziti Desktop Edge application for your operating system:

• Windows: Ziti Desktop Edge for Windows (Windows 9 and later)
• Mac: Ziti Desktop Edge for Mac

Enroll the Host Device (Minecraft Server Machine):

1. Open Ziti Desktop Edge on your Minecraft server machine.
2. Click the “+” button (“Add an Identity”).
3. Navigate to and select the ${DEVICE_NAME}.jwt file.
4. Click “Enroll.”

Enroll Yourself (and other players’ machines):

1. Open Ziti Desktop Edge on your client machine (your computer or your friends’ computers).
2. Click the “+” button (“Add an Identity”).
3. Navigate to and select the ${MY_NAME}.jwt file (or the respective .jwt file for each friend).
4. Click “Enroll.”

Testing Your Zero Trust Minecraft Server

With everything configured and enrolled, it’s time to test your secure Minecraft server.

1. Ensure your Minecraft server is running on the host machine with the enrolled host identity.

2. Make sure Ziti Desktop Edge is running on both the host and client machines and shows the identities as “Enrolled” and “Connected.”

3. In your Minecraft client, select “Multiplayer” and click “Add Server.”

4. Enter the server address as ${DEVICE_NAME}.ziti. For example, if your DEVICE_NAME was my.minecraft.server, enter my.minecraft.server.ziti.

5. Click “Done” and then select your newly added server from the server list.

If everything is configured correctly, you should see your server online and be able to connect and play securely through the OpenZiti zero trust network!

Benefits of Using Zero Trust for Your Minecraft Server

By configuring your Minecraft server with OpenZiti’s zero trust networking, you gain significant advantages:

• Enhanced Security: Eliminate port forwarding and reduce your attack surface. Granular access control ensures only authorized users can reach your server.
• Network Protection: Limit access to only the Minecraft server, preventing lateral movement to other devices on your network in case of a compromise.
• Simplified Access Management: Easily invite and revoke access for friends by managing identities and policies within OpenZiti.
• Improved Privacy: All traffic is encrypted within the OpenZiti overlay network, protecting your communication.
• Flexibility: Securely host your server from anywhere with an internet connection, without needing to expose your home network.

Conclusion

Setting up a secure Minecraft server doesn’t have to be a daunting task. By leveraging zero trust networking with OpenZiti, you can create a safe and controlled environment for you and your friends to enjoy Minecraft together. This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough to configure your own zero trust Minecraft server, empowering you to take control of your server’s security and enjoy peace of mind while gaming. Embrace the power of zero trust and start building your secure Minecraft world today!