Minecraft online mode and offline (cracked) clients
What online mode does on your Minecraft server, why it should stay on, and how to change it in the game settings when you run a proxy.
In online mode, your Minecraft server checks each player's account with Mojang when they join. Only players with a genuine Minecraft account can connect, and every player keeps the same identity (UUID) for operators, whitelist and bans. Online mode is on by default.
Why online mode should stay on
- With online mode off, anyone can join under any player name, including the name of an operator. Whitelist, operator rights and bans no longer protect your server.
- Players with an unlicensed copy of the game can join. This goes against the Minecraft EULA that you accept for your server.
- Offline players get different UUIDs. Switching the mode later can make players lose their inventory, rights and whitelist entries.
When to turn it off: behind a proxy
If you connect several servers with a proxy such as Velocity or BungeeCord, the proxy checks the accounts and the servers behind it run with online mode off. In that case set up player forwarding in the proxy and on every server (on Paper in config/paper-global.yml), so the servers only accept players coming through the proxy.
Change online mode
- Open your server in the control panel and go to the Game settings tab.
- Switch Online mode on or off and save.
- Restart the server to apply the change.
Online mode is the setting online-mode=true or online-mode=false in server.properties, which you can also edit in the Files tab (restart the server afterwards). Bedrock servers have the same option; there it checks Xbox accounts.
Make a backup before you change the mode, so you can go back if players lose their data: see Backups, schedules and wipes.
How players join your server: Connect to your Minecraft Java server.
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