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Has anyone had success running a Minecraft server behind an instituion firewall? There isn't even a router for me to port forward with, the network cable hooks directly into the wall and I just have a small hub to share the connection between two computers. It seems like all of the tutorials I can find online assume you've got your own router. Any ideas, or am I out of luck?

So I just checked out the AllGamer service - do they host the server for you, and give you the IP address to log in to? I can log into other Minecraft servers, it just seems like I can't host one myself.

Is this like a university network? If it is, you may be able to ask the IT dept there to forward the ports for you. That's how my school worked anyway.

the only way I can think of for you to host behind a firewall that you don't control is to set up some kind of VPN, or use something like hamachii (which is effectively a 3rd party negotiated VPN).

The problem is that if you are firewalled and no ports are configured to forward packets to your computer there is no way for your server to receive an inbound connection. Hamachii gets around that problem because you initiate the connection to the hamachii server, which allows the hamachii server to reply back past the firewall because the connection was expected.

The other option would be to pay for a 3rd party site to host your server for you.

If you don't have control over the port forwarding in the firewall/router, hosting any kind of game server on your connection is likely to be problematic. If someone else manages the firewall and isn't willing to forward the ports for you, you're probably SOL as far as hosting your own server goes.

AllGamer appears to give you your own virtual server (i.e. you have full control of it), hosted at their datacenter. I've never used them, so I don't know how good they are.

Another option would be to get a generic virtual server from someone like Linode, and configure a Minecraft server yourself from scratch. I would not recommend this approach unless you're already familiar with administering Linux servers... and it looks like AllGamer may be cheaper anyway.

just brew it! wrote:

AllGamer appears to give you your own virtual server (i.e. you have full control of it), hosted at their datacenter. I've never used them, so I don't know how good they are.

Another option would be to get a generic virtual server from someone like Linode, and configure a Minecraft server yourself from scratch. I would not recommend this approach unless you're already familiar with administering Linux servers... and it looks like AllGamer may be cheaper anyway.

AllGamer is awesome. I have been with them myself for the past year or so... They have been with the MC community from the get-go and are always in an IRC chat room 24/7/365... As well as a phone call, email, or text page away for tech support.

Thanks for all the replies! I've managed to get Hamachi up and running, and it seems to work for hosting the server...and it's free.