Understanding The Basics
A newly created Minecraft server starts off with a numerical IP address and port, but for future reference will just refer to these as The IP of your server. These two values uniquely identify your server among thousands of others, so it important to note both when connecting to a server. The IP of a Minecraft server looks similar to 195.27.18.197:25749. Now as you can imagine, remembering this series of numbers can be quite the hassle. In response, users look to connect using a root domain or, more commonly, a sub-domain.
The difference between an IP and a domain is that an IP consists only of a series of numerical values like 195.27.18.197:25749 and a domain usually consists of a series of alphabetic values like apexminecraft.com or play.apexminecraft.com, basically anything with .com, .eu or similar is a domain. When looking to connect using a domain you can either use the root domain like apexminecrafthosting.com or a sub-domain like play.apexminecrafthosting.com. Now in order to use either you must have rights to this domain by purchasing or being granted privilege to use it by the owner. You can purchase your own unique domain from resellers online such as GoDaddy or Google.
Creating a Sub-domain
To create a sub-domain that points to your server and allows you to connect to it using your Minecraft client, will need to create an A and SRV record under the respective domains DNS Zone Files. How you create these new records can vary depending on your domain host, refer to your domain host if you are unsure how to do this.
A Record
First, create a new A (Host) record. The new record will request several required values, depending on your host they may be labeled differently.
Host: Defines the subdomain, e.x “play” in play.apexminecraft.com
IPv4: Defines the IP address the A record should resolve to. In our case, the IP address of your server, “195.27.18.197”.
TTL: Defines the average time it takes for the changes to propagate (lower is preferred).
Your end result should look similar to the following example.
SRV Record
After creating the A record will need to create an SRV (Service) record that tells the A record what service port to resolve to when connecting with our sub-domain. While the A record points to the IP of the host the server is located on, the SRV record uniquely identifies to the intended service, in this case, the Minecraft server with a port number of “25749”. Depending on your host ,the new record will request multiple required values and may be labeled differently.
Name: The hostname of our sub-domain, in our case it’s “play”.
Target: The full name of the sub-domain, e.x “play.apexminecraft.com”.
Protocol: _tcp
Service Name: _minecraft
Priority: 0
Weight: 5
Port: The port our service (Minecraft Server ) is using, “25749”.
TTL: Defines the average time it takes for the changes to propagate (lower is preferred).
Your end result should look similar to the following example.
Final Results
Once both records have been properly filled out and saved, you will then need to wait at least 30 minutes (or more depending on the TTL you set) for the new DNS files to propagate throughout the network. After which, you can then use the new target domain, in our case the sub-domain play.apexminecraft.com.
Requesting a Sub-domain
In addition, we offer free subdomains that come in the form of yourname.apexmc.co. You can create your own quick using the Apex sub-domain tool.