Ran on Debian 12 in DigitalOcean

Assuming you already know how to spin up and SSH into your own Debian 12 server; here are the commands.

First, update everything.

sudo apt update

Download the compatible jdk version for the current Minecraft version, in this case jdk 21.

wget https://download.oracle.com/java/21/latest/jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.deb

Install the jdk package.

sudo dpkg -i jdk-21_linux-x64_bin.deb

Verify java version, in this case make sure it’s version 21.

java -version

Download the PaperMC server.

wget https://api.papermc.io/v2/projects/paper/versions/1.21.1/builds/128/downloads/paper-1.21.1-128.jar

Eula required to agree to start the server.

echo “eula=true” > eula.txt

Enter screen so the server doesn’t close when you disconnect from the console.

screen

Start the server.

java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar paper-1.21.1-128.jar nogui

After world generation is complete, disconnect from the screen.

CTRL + A + D

Now just connect to your server’s IP in your Minecraft client and you should be able to play!

PS If you want to join the one I made with this exact documentation the IP is: 165.227.33.85