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Setting Up a Minecraft Modpack Server

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MINECRAFT: FORGE MODPACK

How to install a Forge modpack — the kind distributed on CurseForge and elsewhere — on your server and get it running. All of it is done from the game panel, and you never have to download the files yourself.

About 7 min readUpdated 2026-09-07For Minecraft: Forge Modpack

Three things to look up first

The modpack’s own page, or the variables.txt / README.txt that ships with it, will tell you these three things.

What to findWhat it is for
The Minecraft versionGuides which Forge version you need
The Forge versionYou type this into FORGE VERSION under Startup
The memory it wantsTo check your plan is large enough
If the server already has a world on it, take a backup first — these steps include a reinstall. See Backups and restoring.

Match the Forge version and the Java runtime

  1. On the Console screen press Stop and wait for Offline.
  2. Open Startup from the left-hand menu.
  3. Under Docker Image, pick the Java version your modpack expects.
  4. Type the Forge version you found in step 01 into FORGE VERSION.
  5. Type the Minecraft version your modpack expects into MINECRAFT VERSION. Leaving it at the default can install a version you did not intend.
The Docker image and FORGE VERSION fields on the Startup screen.
Set the Docker image and FORGE VERSION on the Startup screen
The server will not start if the Java version is wrong. This is by far the most common stumble.
As a rough guide: 1.16.5 and earlier use Java 8, 1.17–1.20.4 use Java 17, 1.20.5 through the 1.21 line use Java 21, and 26.1 and later use Java 25. If the modpack states something different, follow the modpack.

Reinstall the server

Once the versions are set, rebuild the server with that configuration.

  1. Open Settings from the left-hand menu.
  2. Press Reinstall Server at the bottom.
  3. Confirm, and wait for it to finish.
As the screen itself warns, a reinstall deletes or changes some files. If there is data you want to keep, back it up first.

When it finishes you will find a libraries folder under Files. On Minecraft 1.17 and later, run.sh and user_jvm_args.txt are created alongside it; on 1.16.5 and earlier you get a forge-(version).jar instead. If those are there, Forge installed correctly.

Pull in the Server Pack

On the modpack’s download page, find the Server Pack file — not the client one — and copy its download URL.

  1. Open Files from the left-hand menu.
  2. Press Upload and choose upload-from-url.
  3. Paste the URL and let it pull the file in.
Pressing Upload on the Files screen shows upload-files, upload-folders and upload-from-url.
upload-from-url is the one that pulls straight from a URL
This way you never download a Server Pack of several hundred megabytes yourself — the server fetches it directly.

Unarchive it, then delete the zip

  1. From the menu at the right-hand end of the zip, choose Unarchive.
  2. When it finishes, use Delete in the same menu to remove the zip (confirm with Delete).
The menu at the right-hand end of the zip. Unarchive is the item that extracts it.
The item is called Unarchive — there is no item called Extract
The server will run with the zip still there, but it takes up disk twice over. Deleting it after extraction is tidier.

Start it and check

  1. Press Start on the Console screen.
  2. When the console prints Done (…)!, the server is up.
Starting up takes a while. In our own testing, DawnCraft took about three and a half minutes on the first start. Forge loads every mod in the modpack on each boot, so later restarts also take a fair amount of time. If it looks stuck, give it a little longer.
Every player needs the same modpack, at the same version, on their own client. Connection is refused when the set of mods the server also loads does not match (client-only mods such as shaders or minimaps may differ).

If something does not go to plan

SymptomWhat to check
It stops right after startingCheck the Docker image (the Java version) matches the modpack. This is the most common cause by far.
No libraries folder appearsCheck the format of FORGE VERSION. Type it exactly as the modpack states it.
The file that came in looks smallCheck the URL was for the Server Pack and not the client file.
Players cannot join, or see a different worldCheck the modpack version on the client matches the server.
It says there is not enough memoryCheck how much memory the modpack asks for. You can change plan while keeping your data.

If that does not resolve it, send us the message from the console exactly as it appears and we will look into it.

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