How to Point a Custom Subdomain at Your Minecraft Server

Sharing play.yourserver.com instead of a raw IP and port number looks far more professional and is much easier for players to remember and type correctly.

What You Actually Need

• A domain you already own (or a free subdomain your host provides)
• Your server's IP address and port
• Access to your domain's DNS settings (or your host's built-in subdomain tool, if it has one)

Setting It Up Manually via DNS

1. Log into your domain registrar or DNS provider
2. Add an A record pointing your chosen subdomain (e.g. play) at your server's IP address
3. If your server runs on a non-default port (Minecraft's default is 25565), add an SRV record instead of/alongside the A record, so players can connect using just the subdomain without typing a port number — most players won't know to add :25566 manually, so this step matters if you're not on the default port
4. Wait for DNS propagation (usually minutes, sometimes up to a few hours)
5. Test by connecting to your new subdomain from a client that hasn't cached the old address

SRV Record Format for Minecraft

A typical Minecraft SRV record looks like:

_minecraft._tcp.play.yourdomain.com.  SRV  0 5 25565 yourserver.yourdomain.com.

This tells Minecraft clients to route connections to play.yourdomain.com through to the actual server address and port automatically.

A Simpler Path

Some hosts offer built-in subdomain management directly in the panel — pick a subdomain, and it's automatically configured against your server's real address without manually touching DNS records yourself.

RepublicNodes' Subdomain feature (when enabled by the admin on your plan) handles this automatically through Cloudflare DNS, without requiring you to manage DNS records manually.