Protect a home hosted server

TCPShield has a policy outlining home hosted servers on our network. Home hosted servers are allowed on our platform, as long as the following policy is adhered too.

1. Residential ISP's are extremely unreliable, so we make no guarantees about latency and performance while using TCPShield.

2. Residential connections have extremely low throughput and cannot handle network-intensive applications like hosting game servers and installing a DDoS mitigation network.

3. We will not provide assistance or support for home-hosted servers regarding latency, drops, and other connectivity issues.

4. We will assist with general configuration tips like DNS, plugin issues, and panel setup.

5. Detailed debugging from our staff is reserved for servers using a well known dedicated or virtual server provider (Ex: OVH, Hetzner, ReliableSite, etc)

6. Any attempt to lie or mislead TCPShield staff about the nature of your server is grounds for removal from the network.

Common issues with home hosted server:

1. I don't have a domain, what should I do?

There are several options to choose from. The most popular choice would be getting a free domain from Freenom or Cloudflare. After acquiring your domain, you can follow the setup process here as usual.

2. What address do I use for my backend set?

The address on your backend set should be the public IP Address of your network. You can either google “What’s my IP Address” or go to https://eth0.me to find it. One of the most common mistakes that we have seen is putting RFC1918 (IP Address for Private Internets) as their backend. This will cause issues as your server can't be discovered on the public internet, hence our proxies cannot reach it.

3. My IP Address is Dynamic, what should I do?

Services such as No-IP or Cloudflare Dynamic IP Address can help you with that. In this case, the “IP address” on your backend set is a valid hostname that reflects the current IP address your router is using, such as: myrouter.ddns.net:25565. That hostname resolves back to your home IP address, such as 71.57.77.154 – which is the public IP address provided for you by your ISP. After this you can use myrouter.ddns.net:25565 as your backend, the rest of the setup can be done as normal.

4. Port forwarding

Port Forwarding allows computers and services in the private networks (such as home networks) to connect over the internet with other devices on the public internet. If you are hosting your server on port 25565, make sure that you have configured port forwarding on your router so that outside connections can reach that port. You can use a port check tool online such as this to ensure that your port is opened and ready to accept connections.

Each manufacturer provides different steps for enabling port forwarding on their routers. Ensure that you consult the official documentation.

Following the initial setup, you have the option to verify the direct connection using your public backend IP address and port in the Minecraft client. Prior to conducting this test, it is essential to modify the TCPShield plugin's configuration by changing only-allow-proxy-connections to false.

5. Why does my home-hosted server have high ping?

We understand that you have a home server with powerful hardware, and therefore think that it doesn’t make sense to spend extra to pay for a dedicated machine or a VPS. However, there are some disadvantages (this is not an exhaustive list) that come with a home-hosted server:

• All traffic will be back-hauled to a single hub before being distributed somewhere else (Comcast put everything on Ashburn, or SHAW put all traffic in Seattle before going back to Canada for example), causing high latency in some areas as your connection has to make extra roundtrips.

• Your traffic might be sent over legacy or copper-based last-mile segments instead of fiber, which introduces additional latency, noise, and potential packet loss compared to the short, high-quality links used inside data centers.

• At any given time, your ISP (especially during peak hours) can announce different routing paths to offload traffic from their prioritized links, which can severely affect your server’s inbound and outbound performance and cause sudden spikes in latency or jitter.

• Your ISP can rate-limit how much bandwidth you can transmit — either a limit on bps (bits per second) or pps (packets per second) — between each network, which means your home connection can have very low effective throughput when multiple users or applications are active.

• You are most likely using a residential connection and don’t have the network hardware required (enterprise-grade NICs, core routers, or specialized appliances) to run more intensive applications or to handle bursts of concurrent connections reliably over time.

• Your residential plan usually provides much lower upstream bandwidth and is heavily contended compared to the symmetrical, dedicated capacity in data centers, so your server can quickly become a bottleneck for players or users downloading world data, assets, or large responses from you.

• Your home network typically experiences higher latency, jitter, and bufferbloat than a data-center or cloud environment; consumer routers and Wi-Fi gear often struggle under load, leading to lag spikes and inconsistent performance even when the raw “speed test” numbers look acceptable.

• Your connection is more vulnerable to peak-time congestion and traffic shaping, as ISPs prioritize overall consumer traffic; this means your server may feel fine during off-hours but degrade significantly during evenings or weekends when the local segment of the network is saturated.

• Your home IP address is often behind NAT or carrier-grade NAT and may be dynamic, which complicates inbound connectivity, breaks some protocols, interferes with port forwarding, and can cause unexpected downtime when your public IP changes or when the ISP changes how it translates your traffic.

• Your home environment lacks the redundancy, SLAs, and professional monitoring that dedicated hosting providers offer; power outages, router crashes, or ISP maintenance can take your server offline without warning, whereas data centers are engineered for high uptime with backup power, cooling, and 24/7 operations.

In general, we recommend using dedicated or virtual server vendors (Ex: Vultr, Hetzner, OVH, PNAP, ReliableSite, NFOServer, etc) if you are interested in hosting a server yourself. Remember there is a reason why Enterprise hosting providers exist.