How to run a free Minecraft server on Oracle Cloud's Always Free tier

What you get, and which Minecraft edition to run

Oracle's Always Free tier includes one Ampere A1 ARM instance (2 OCPUs, 12 GB RAM), 200 GB of block storage, a public IPv4 address, and 10 TB of outbound data per month, free forever rather than as a trial. Two editions of Minecraft can run on it, and the choice matters:

• The official download page at minecraft.net hosts both server files, so you never need to trust a third-party mirror.
• If your players are all on PC, run Java. If anyone plays on console or mobile, you need Bedrock, since the two editions cannot play together.

Step 1: Create the Ampere instance

Sign up at Oracle Cloud if you have not already. You will need a credit card for identity verification, and Oracle places a small temporary authorization that is refunded. Then, in the Cloud console, go to Compute, then Instances, and click Create instance.

• Click Change Shape and select Ampere under VM.Standard.A1.Flex. The default x86 shape is the first mistake almost everyone makes.
• Set 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory. That uses your full Always Free allocation for one instance.
• Choose Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 as the image, and save the SSH private key the console offers. You will need it to connect.
• Under networking, confirm Assign a public IPv4 address is checked. Oracle gives you a static IP, which is exactly what a game server needs.

Step 2: Beat the "Out of capacity" error

The most common failure at this stage is Oracle's "Out of capacity" message. Oracle only keeps a limited pool of machines for free accounts, and when it is full, new instances are rejected. This is not a sign your account is broken; it is a queue. We wrote a full guide to fixing Oracle's "Out of capacity" error, but the short version:

• Retry during off-peak hours, when the free pool is more likely to have space.
• Launch a tiny instance first (1 OCPU / 6 GB), then resize it to 2 / 12 once it is created. Small shapes fit into the pool more easily.
• Upgrade to Pay As You Go from Billing and Cost Management. This costs nothing by itself, you keep the free tier, and the capacity error usually disappears.

Step 3: Open the firewall (both of them)

Oracle has two firewalls, and your players cannot connect until both are open. This is the step that breaks most tutorials, so do it carefully. First, the Oracle Cloud console firewall: go to Networking, then Virtual Cloud Networks, click your VCN, then Security Lists, then the Default Security List, and add an ingress rule with source CIDR 0.0.0.0/0, protocol TCP, destination port 25565. If you are running Bedrock, add a second rule for UDP port 19132.

Second, the operating-system firewall on the instance itself. On Ubuntu, that is one command:

• sudo ufw allow 25565/tcp (and sudo ufw allow 19132/udp for Bedrock)
• If you picked Oracle Linux instead of Ubuntu, check iptables too, since its images ship with stricter default rules.
• Test from your own computer before inviting friends. If the connection times out, recheck these two firewalls before anything else.

Step 4: Install Java and the Minecraft server

Connect to your instance over SSH with the private key you saved. Current Minecraft Java releases require Java 21 or newer, and the official download page lists the exact requirement, so check it if you are reading this much later. On Ubuntu 24.04:

• sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y openjdk-21-jre-headless
• mkdir ~/minecraft && cd ~/minecraft
• Download server.jar from the official server download page (minecraft.net, Download, then the server link). Do not use re-uploaded copies from random sites.
• Run it once with java -jar server.jar nogui. It will stop and create eula.txt. Open that file and change eula=false to eula=true, then run the server again with more memory: java -Xms4G -Xmx8G -jar server.jar nogui
• The -Xmx8G flag gives Minecraft up to 8 GB of your 12 GB. Leave the rest for the operating system.

Step 5: Keep it running after you disconnect

Close your SSH session and the server dies with it. A systemd service keeps it alive across reboots and restarts it if it crashes. Create /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service with:

• User=ubuntu, WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/minecraft, ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xms4G -Xmx8G -jar /home/ubuntu/minecraft/server.jar nogui, Restart=on-failure
• sudo systemctl enable minecraft && sudo systemctl start minecraft
• Watch the first startup with sudo journalctl -u minecraft -f. The first world generation takes a few minutes.

Bedrock edition: what changes

If your players are on console or mobile, run Bedrock instead. The instance and firewall steps are identical, except the firewall rule uses UDP port 19132 instead of TCP 25565. The server itself is different: download the Bedrock Dedicated Server zip from the same official download page, unzip it in a folder, and run ./bedrock_server. No Java needed, and the binary is built for Ubuntu, which is another reason to pick the Ubuntu image in Step 1.

• Console players on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch can join a Bedrock server directly.
• Bedrock uses far less memory than Java, so 2 to 4 GB is comfortable and you can run a heavier world on the same instance.

Limits and honest caveats

This setup is genuinely free forever as long as you stay inside the Always Free limits, but those limits are real. Do not resize the instance past 2 OCPUs / 12 GB or spin up a second Always Free instance, because over-limit instances can be reclaimed and shut down. Back up your world folder regularly, either by snapshotting the boot volume in the console or by copying the world directory off the machine, since a free tier offers no safety net. The 10 TB monthly egress allowance is generous for a game server, but keep an eye on it if your world gets busy. And if you want zero setup at the cost of the server sleeping when nobody is online, Aternos remains the lazy alternative. Oracle is the choice when you want 24/7 uptime and full control.

Ready to set it up?

We keep a verified, screenshot by screenshot walkthrough of the signup, including the budget alert and the Always Free shape settings.

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