How to stop griefing on your Minecraft server

Layer 1: keep the wrong people out

• Whitelist: on a private server, the strongest protection there is. Only names you add can join. See whitelist and operator levels.
• Few operators: every op can undo all your protection. Give op to yourself; give everyone else a group with only the commands they need.
• Online mode on: online-mode=true in server.properties makes sure people are who they say they are. Turning it off lets anyone use any name, including yours.

Layer 2: let players protect their builds

On a server with more than a handful of players, claims are the answer. A claim is an area only its owner, and people they trust, can change.

With GriefPrevention, players claim land by clicking two corners with a golden shovel, and let friends build with /trust Name. They earn more claim area the longer they play, which rewards regulars and limits newcomers.

Layer 3: make damage undoable

CoreProtect keeps a diary of the world: who placed or broke which block, who opened which chest and took what, and at what time. When something goes wrong, you roll it back as if it never happened.

1. Install CoreProtect from the catalog in the Plugins tab and restart. It starts logging right away; it cannot see what happened before it was installed.
2. To see who changed a block, type /co inspect and click the block. Type it again to stop.
3. To undo everything one player did in the last day, anywhere: /co rollback u:Name t:1d r:#global.
4. Made a mistake? /co restore with the same options puts it back.

On Fabric, the mod Ledger does the same job with similar commands.

Keep backups as well. CoreProtect undoes the work of a few players; a backup in the Backups tab saves you when something bigger breaks, like a corrupted region.

Game rules that prevent accidents

Not all damage comes from players. In the World tab under Game rules you can switch off:

• Mob griefing: creepers stop blowing holes and endermen stop picking up blocks. Note that villagers also stop farming with it off.
• Fire spread: lightning and lava no longer burn down wooden builds.

When it happens anyway

1. Look up who did it with /co inspect or /co lookup u:Name t:2h.
2. Ban them from the Players tab so they cannot come back while you clean up.
3. Roll back their changes with CoreProtect.
4. Check chests: rollbacks also return taken items to their containers.