Why Oracle, Why Minecraft?
I’ve always been the kind of person who looks for the free option first. Paying monthly for a Minecraft server? Not happening. After digging around, I found out Oracle has this “Always Free” cloud tier that gives you two VMs you can run forever. Perfect. Free is my favorite price.
At first, I wasn’t thinking “cloud computing lab” or “sysadmin practice.” I just wanted a way to keep a world up 24/7 without my laptop cooking itself to death. But once I started setting it up, I realized there was a little more to it than just double-clicking a server icon.
Cheap (Well, Free) Hardware
Oracle’s free VMs aren’t powerful — 1 CPU and 1GB of RAM — but Minecraft doesn’t need much. And since it’s free, if I broke something I could just delete the VM and spin up a new one. Honestly, that’s what made it fun: low stakes, no bill, plenty of room to mess around.
SSH Adventures
The first time I booted the VM I was staring at a black screen with a blinking cursor. No buttons, no icons, no clue. That’s when I had to figure out SSH — basically, logging into the server through the terminal. Once I got in, it was like talking to the computer directly. A little intimidating at first, but kind of addicting once I realized every command actually did something.
# connect into the VM
ssh ubuntu@public-ip
# basic survival move
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
That’s how I started every session: patching it, breaking it, fixing it again.
Getting Minecraft Running
I grabbed the Minecraft server .jar, installed Java, and hit “run.” Easy.
Except nobody else could join. Turns out Oracle doesn’t just let traffic
through. I had to open up port 25565 on their side and the VM’s
firewall. Basically, two layers of “nope” I had to turn into “yes.” Took me
a few tries, but eventually it worked. My friends joined, and the world was
alive.
“There’s nothing like spending hours fixing firewall rules just to play Minecraft for free.”
Free Means Flexible
Once the server was stable, I realized I could use these free VMs for more than just Minecraft. I messed around with Plex for media, tried setting up Nextcloud for file storage, even threw WireGuard on there for a VPN. It wasn’t about running perfect services — it was about seeing what I could get away with on free hardware.
The best part? If I trashed the VM, who cared. Just delete, rebuild, move on. No sunk cost, no stress.
What I Learned (Besides Saving $)
- Linux is trial by error: You don’t really learn it until you break stuff and have to fix it.
- Networking isn’t optional: Firewalls and ports will humble you, no matter what you’re running.
- Backups matter: Trust me, friends will never forgive you if the world disappears.
- Free is motivating: I wouldn’t have learned half this if Oracle was charging me $20 a month.
Looking Back
My “free Minecraft server” ended up being my crash course in cloud basics. I wasn’t out to become an IT pro that day — I just wanted a game server without paying. But along the way I picked up Linux, networking, firewalls, and a little confidence in breaking things and putting them back together.
Free servers, free lessons. That’s kind of been my approach ever since.