• Go to the EC2 console via Services -> EC2
• Scroll down in the main window to “Launch instance” and click [Launch Instance]
• Select Amazon Linux 2 AMI (should be the first option)
• I’m selecting t3a.small ec2 instancetype for this to be similar in “virtual” resources as the $10-15/mo virtual server hosting providers (including Amazon Lightsail).
• Click [Next: Configure Instance Details]
• You’ll get a default vpc and subnet created and selected… if you don’t want to use these, you can click the available links to create new ones.
• For “Auto-assign Public IP”, I have “Use subnet setting (Enable)” because I’m going to want to have this publicly accessible.
• Scroll to near the bottom of the “Step 3” form and find “T2/T3 Unlimited” and uncheck “Enable” unless you want to run up a bill because you forgot about the Minecraft server.
• Click [Next: Add Storage] to configure your space.
• Click [Next: Add Tags]
• Click [Next: Configure Security Group]
• Click [Add Rule] and add a Custom TCP Rule that allows traffic to port 25565 (the port for Minecraft) from 0.0.0.0/0
• Click [Review and Launch]
• Click [Launch] and choose “Create a new key pair” named “minecraftserver”
• Click on Instances and select your new instance, noting the IPv4 Public IP in the instance details below (leave tab open for reference in the next section)

• In a new tab, go to Services -> Route 53 -> Hosted Zones
• Click [Create hosted zone]
• Type in your domain name for your server and select “Public hosted zone”
• Copy the values for the NS record and populate those as the nameservers for your domain (for me, this is on Namecheap

• Now go back to Route 53 and [Create Record]
• Choose “Simple routing”
• Click [Define simple record]
• Leave the record name blank.
• Under “Value/Route traffic to” select “IP address or another value depending on the record type” and paste your IP in.
• Be sure “Record type” is “A” and click [Define simple record]

• Click [Create records] on the “Configure records” screen.

• Using your keypair from instance creation, ssh into your your instance

chmod 400 minecraftserver.pem # or whatever the filename is
ssh -i minecraftserver.pem ec2-user@revrestfarcenim.online

sudo mkdir /srv/minecraft-server # assuming EBS mount
sudo adduser --system --home /srv/minecraft-server minecraft
sudo chown minecraft.minecraft /srv/minecraft-service

sudo yum update
sudo amazon-linux-extras install java-openjdk11

sudo -u minecraft wget https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/a412fd69db1f81db3f511c1463fd304675244077/server.jar
sudo -u minecraft java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar server.jar nogui
# you'll get an error, so edit the eula.txt
sudo -u minecraft nano eula.txt # or vi, just set to eula=true
# run minecraft again and try to connect to server at revrestfarcenim.online

[Unit] 
Description=start and stop the minecraft-server 

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/srv/minecraft-server
User=minecraft
Group=minecraft
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=20 5
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M -jar server.jar nogui

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Troubleshooting

• If you don’t go with the default gateway and subnets created with the instance, you may find yourself having to explicitly set up an Internet Gateway and a Route Table (0.0.0.0/0 to your igw)
• Make sure the associated security group is allowing port 25565 to connect (especially if SSH is working)

Teardown

Be sure to delete your hosted zone (you’ll need to delete the A record before deleting the zone) and terminate your instance to avoid running up charges for things you’re not using. I deleted the VPC as well just to avoid clutter and half-baked subnets and security groups, but that’s only because I have nothing of long-term value in the account.

• egress costs (9¢ per GB after your first GB): In my limited tests, the Minecraft worlds we started up required 100-200MB to initially download per session. It’s unclear if that’s the case for every session, but if you have 20 of your friends use a server, that might be 9¢ x 0.20 GB x 20 for one session each… 36¢ per average number of sessions… that could add up quickly. By contrast, you could get a different hosting provider (including Lightsail) to bundle 2TB of transfer instead.
• hosted zone cost (50¢ for a distinct domain’s hosted zone)
• If you use a separate EBS volume, minimum cost there is 80¢.
• EC2 pricing for a t3a.small is 1.88¢ per hour or $13.53/month… you could have the server shut down during off-hours, but then you’re not comparing to “always-on” options.