How to Set Up a Minecraft Server Whitelist

A whitelist restricts your Minecraft server to only the players you've explicitly approved — essential for private friend-group servers, and useful even on public servers during a controlled early-access phase.

Enabling the Whitelist

1. Open server.properties and set white-list=true
2. Restart the server (a setting change here requires a restart, not just a reload)
3. Once enabled, only whitelisted players (and server operators) can connect — everyone else sees a "not whitelisted" message

Adding Players

From the console or in-game as an operator:

/whitelist add PlayerName

This adds the player to whitelist.json. You can also edit that file directly through your panel's file manager if you're adding many players at once.

Managing the Whitelist

• /whitelist remove PlayerName — removes a player
• /whitelist list — shows everyone currently whitelisted
• /whitelist reload — reloads the list from whitelist.json without a full restart, useful after manually editing the file

Common Issues

• Player says they can't join despite being added: Double-check the exact spelling/capitalization of their Minecraft username, and confirm the server was restarted (or /whitelist reload was run) after adding them
• Whitelist not enforcing: Confirm white-list=true is actually saved in server.properties — a common mistake is editing the file but not restarting before testing
• Op players getting blocked too: Server operators bypass the whitelist by default, so if an op is being blocked, something else (a ban, or a separate access-control plugin) is likely the real cause

When to Use a Whitelist vs a Password Plugin

A whitelist is enforced at the vanilla server level and requires no plugins — the simplest, most reliable option for a private server. Password/login plugins are more relevant for public servers wanting an extra verification step beyond Minecraft's own account system, which is a different use case.

Manage your whitelist directly through RepublicNodes' in-browser file manager — no FTP client needed to edit whitelist.json or server.properties.