Protectcord

# ProtectCord — Advanced IP Protection & Moderation **Block VPNs, proxies, bots, and malicious connections with real-time IP intelligence. Built-in moderation, AutoMod chat filtering, alt detection, and MySQL multi-server sync — all in one lightweight plugin.** ProtectCord connects every joining player against a live threat intelligence database before they ever reach your server. Combined with a full moderation suite, it's the only tool you need to keep your server clean and your community safe. ## ✨ Milestones - **2,300+** downloads on Modrinth - **100,000+** ProtectCord API requests served - **46** unique Minecraft servers running ProtectCord concurrently - **203** concurrent protected players - **1,000+** unique Discord users verified - **3,000+** unique API requests per day - **555** Discord Guilds using @ProtectCord#0253 - Watching over **100,000+** Discord users **bStats:** https://bstats.org/plugin/bukkit/Protectcord/24623 --- ## ✨ Key Features ### IP Protection - 🛡️ **Real-Time IP Verification** — Every connection checked against live threat intelligence - 🚫 **VPN, Proxy & Tor Blocking** — Stop ban evaders and alt accounts instantly - 🏢 **Datacenter IP Detection** — Flag and block hosting provider IPs used for bots - ⚠️ **Risk-Based Blocking** — Configurable threat levels: UNKNOWN → LOW → MEDIUM → HIGH → CRITICAL - 🌍 **Geo-Blocking** — Block or whitelist entire countries using ISO codes - 👥 **Accounts-Per-IP Limiting** — Cap simultaneous connections from a single IP - ✅ **Smart Whitelist System** — Bypass protection by player name, UUID, or IP ### Moderation Suite - ⚡ **Progressive Warning System** — Configurable auto-escalation from warn → kick → ban - ⏱️ **Temp Bans & Temp Mutes** — Time-limited punishments with human-readable durations (`1h`, `7d`, `30d`) - 🔇 **Mute System** — Persistent mutes with reasons, issuer tracking, and auto-expiry - 🔍 **Alt Account Detection** — Find alts by shared IP (`/pc alts <player>`) — names only, never raw IPs - 📋 **Warning History** — Full timestamped warning logs for any player, online or offline - 🧹 **Clear & Remove Warnings** — Remove individual warnings by index or clear all at once - 🗄️ **Audit Log** — Automatic log of all moderation actions - 💾 **Offline Player Support** — Warn, ban, mute, or check players who aren't online ### AutoMod (Chat Filtering) - 🔗 **Anti-Link** — Block URLs with domain whitelist support - 📢 **Anti-Advertising** — Block server IPs and Discord invites - 💬 **Anti-Spam** — Rate limiting with configurable message window and duplicate detection - 🤬 **Anti-Swear** — Custom word blacklist with regex support and per-word exceptions - 🔠 **Anti-Caps** — Configurable caps threshold by percentage - 🌊 **Anti-Flood** — Block repeated character flooding - 🔣 **Anti-Unicode/Zalgo** — Block invisible text and character abuse - ⚙️ **Per-Rule Actions** — Each rule independently set to: `BLOCK`, `WARN`, `KICK`, `MUTE`, or `TEMPMUTE` ### Storage & Multi-Server - 🗃️ **YAML Flatfile Storage** — Zero setup, works out of the box - 🐬 **MySQL Storage** — Full MySQL backend with HikariCP connection pooling - 🌐 **Multi-Server Sync** — Share one MySQL database across your entire network; bans and mutes are enforced on every server - 🔄 **Live Migration** — Migrate between YAML and MySQL at any time with `/pc migrate` - 🧹 **Data Purge** — Clean up old warnings, bans, mutes, IP logs, audit entries, and inactive players with `/pc purge` ### Staff Tools - 📣 **In-Game Staff Alerts** — Real-time notifications for kicks, bans, warns, mutes, automod actions, and more - 🎭 **IP Masking** — Show staff masked IPs (`192.168.1.*`) until they earn the `protectcord.ip.full` permission - 📝 **Player Reports** — Players submit reports with `/report`; staff are notified in-game and via Discord - 📊 **API Stats** — Check usage, rate limits, and API health with `/pc stats` - 🔎 **Manual IP Check** — `/pc check <player|ip>` for on-demand threat analysis ### Platform & Integration - 🌐 **6-Platform Support** — Paper, Spigot, Folia, BungeeCord, Velocity, and Forge - 📢 **Discord Webhooks** — Rich embeds with country flag, city, VPN/proxy/tor/risk fields, per-event control, rate limiting, and retry logic - 📣 **Moderation Alert Webhooks** — Separate webhook channel for ban/warn/mute/kick staff events - ⚡ **100% Async** — All IP checks are non-blocking; no main-thread impact --- ## 🎮 Supported Platforms | Platform | Versions | Notes | |----------|----------|-------| | **Paper** | 1.13 – 1.21+ | Recommended for standalone servers | | **Spigot** | 1.8.8 – 1.21+ | Full legacy support | | **Folia** | 1.19+ | Multithreaded scheduler support | | **Velocity** | 3.0+ | Recommended for proxy networks | | **BungeeCord** | 1.8.8 – 1.21+ | Waterfall compatible | | **Forge** | 1.20.1+ | Server-side only; checks at post-login | > **Network tip:** Install only on your proxy (Velocity/BungeeCord) to protect all backend servers with a single API key. --- ## 📥 Quick Setup ### 1️⃣ Get Your Free API Key 1. Visit **[protectcord.com](https://protectcord.com)** 2. Create a free account 3. Generate an API key from **Dashboard → API Keys** 4. **Free tier includes 32 requests/minute** — enough for most servers ### 2️⃣ Install the Plugin 1. Download the correct JAR for your platform from Modrinth 2. Drop it into your `plugins/` folder (or `mods/` for Forge) 3. Start your server — config generates automatically 4. Add your API key to `plugins/ProtectCord/config.yml` 5. Run `/protectcord reload` or restart 6. ✅ Your server is now protected --- ## ⚙️ Full Configuration Reference The config file is auto-generated at `plugins/ProtectCord/config.yml` on first run. Every option is explained below. > Velocity uses `config.toml` (same structure, TOML syntax). Forge uses `config/protectcord-forge.toml`. --- ### API Settings ```yaml # Your ProtectCord API key — get one free at https://protectcord.com/dashboard/api-keys api-key: "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" # How long to wait (ms) for the API to respond before giving up api-timeout: connect: 15000 # Time to establish the connection (default: 15s) read: 15000 # Time to wait for a response after connecting (default: 15s) # Automatic retry for failed/timed-out API requests api-retry: max-attempts: 3 # Max number of retries before allowing/denying the player (1–5) initial-delay: 1000 # Wait this long before the first retry (ms) max-delay: 5000 # Never wait longer than this between retries (ms) multiplier: 2.0 # Multiply delay by this factor each retry (exponential backoff) ``` --- ### Server Identity ```yaml # Used for player tracking and multi-server MySQL identification server: name: "My Server" # Friendly name — stored in MySQL as server_id on every row ip: "" # Your public IP — leave blank to auto-detect port: 25565 # Your server port type: "spigot" # Platform: paper / spigot / bungeecord / velocity / forge / folia ``` --- ### Player Tracking ```yaml # UUID-based tracking via the ProtectCord API player-tracking: enabled: true block-flagged-players: true # Block players flagged as malicious by the API block-inactive-players: false # Block players whose accounts are marked inactive ``` --- ### IP Protection ```yaml # Master switch — set to false to disable all IP checking (not recommended) enable-ip-check: true # Choose which connection types to block block-vpn: true # Virtual private networks (ban evaders, alt accounts) block-proxy: true # HTTP/SOCKS proxies and anonymizers block-tor: true # Tor exit nodes block-datacenter: true # Hosting provider IPs (common source of bots) block-bogon: true # Invalid, reserved, or unroutable IP ranges # Risk-based blocking (optional, runs in addition to the flags above) # Enable this to block by overall threat score instead of (or as well as) individual flags enable-risk-level-blocking: false blocked-risk-level: "HIGH" # Levels (each blocks itself and everything above it): # LOW — blocks LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, CRITICAL (very strict) # MEDIUM — blocks MEDIUM, HIGH, CRITICAL # HIGH — blocks HIGH, CRITICAL (recommended if enabling) # CRITICAL — blocks CRITICAL only (very lenient) ``` --- ### Geographic Blocking ```yaml geo-blocking: enabled: false mode: "blacklist" # "blacklist" = block listed countries # "whitelist" = ONLY allow listed countries (everyone else blocked) countries: # ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes - "CN" - "RU" ``` --- ### Accounts Per IP ```yaml # Limit how many Minecraft accounts can connect simultaneously from the same IP account-per-ip-limit: enabled: false max-accounts: 3 # Maximum simultaneous connections from one IP enforcement: "BLOCK" # "BLOCK" — deny the new connection # "KICK_OLDEST" — kick the oldest session to make room ``` --- ### Discord Webhook (Connection Events) ```yaml discord-webhook: enabled: false url: "" # Paste your Discord webhook URL here timeout: 10000 # HTTP timeout for sending the webhook (ms) # Retry failed webhook deliveries retry: enabled: true max-attempts: 3 # How many times to retry a failed delivery (1–10) initial-delay: 1000 # Wait before first retry (ms) max-delay: 10000 # Maximum wait between retries (ms) multiplier: 2.0 # Exponential backoff multiplier # Rate limiting — Discord allows ~5 requests per 2 seconds per webhook rate-limit: max-per-second: 2 # Requests sent per second (1–5) burst-limit: 5 # Maximum burst before throttling kicks in # Which events send a webhook message events: denied: true # Player was blocked by ProtectCord accepted: false # Player passed all checks and joined (high volume — off by default) whitelisted: true # A whitelisted player joined error: true # An API error occurred during a check # Which data fields appear in the embed data-fields: show-country: true show-country-flag: true # 🇺🇸 flag emoji next to country name show-city: true show-vpn: true show-proxy: true show-datacenter: true show-tor: true show-mobile: true show-satellite: true show-crawler: true show-bogon: true show-risk-level: true show-abuser: true show-blacklisted: true show-company: true # ISP / hosting provider name show-company-risk: true # Customise the appearance of each embed type embeds: denied: title: "Connection Denied" emoji: "x" color: 15158332 # Decimal RGB — red footer: "" # Optional footer text thumbnail-url: "" # Optional image in top-right corner accepted: title: "Connection Accepted" emoji: "white_check_mark" color: 3066993 # Green footer: "" thumbnail-url: "" whitelisted: title: "Whitelisted Player Joined" emoji: "white_circle" color: 16776960 # Yellow footer: "" thumbnail-url: "" error: title: "API Error" emoji: "warning" color: 15105570 # Orange footer: "" thumbnail-url: "" # Advanced webhook behaviour advanced: validate-url-on-startup: true # Send a test ping when the plugin loads log-failures: true # Print failed deliveries to console log-retries: true # Print retry attempts to console queue-size: 100 # Max webhooks queued before dropping oldest ``` --- ### Staff Alerts ```yaml # In-game and Discord notifications for moderation actions alerts: enabled: true # Broadcast to online staff with the protectcord.alerts permission in-game: enabled: true # Separate webhook channel just for mod-team events discord-webhook: enabled: false url: "" # Fine-tune exactly which actions trigger an alert events: kick: true ban: true unban: true warn: true clear-warnings: true remove-warning: true automod: true mute: true unmute: true tempmute: true tempban: true ``` --- ### Warning System ```yaml warnings: # Automatically take action when a player accumulates enough warnings auto-action: enabled: true action: "BAN" # "BAN" — permanent ban | "KICK" — kick only threshold: 3 # Number of warnings before auto-action fires # Kick the player with a "final warning" message at a lower threshold kick-on-warn: enabled: true threshold: 2 # Kick at this warning count (before the ban threshold) # Warnings older than this are not counted toward thresholds expiry: duration: "0" # "0" = warnings never expire # Examples: "7d", "30d", "90d" # Escalation tiers — overrides auto-action when enabled # Each tier fires when warning count reaches `count` escalation: enabled: false tiers: - count: 1 action: "WARN" - count: 2 action: "TEMPMUTE" duration: "1h" - count: 3 action: "TEMPBAN" duration: "1d" - count: 4 action: "TEMPBAN" duration: "7d" - count: 5 action: "BAN" # Available actions: WARN, KICK, MUTE, TEMPMUTE, TEMPBAN, BAN # Duration format: 30s, 10m, 1h, 7d, 30d ``` --- ### AutoMod (Chat Filtering) ```yaml automod: enabled: false # Master switch — must be true for any rules to run # Blocked actions apply to the message that triggered the rule. # Available actions for all rules: BLOCK, WARN, KICK, MUTE, TEMPMUTE # TEMPMUTE duration is set by tempmute-duration below. tempmute-duration: "10m" # Block links in chat anti-link: enabled: true action: "BLOCK" whitelisted-domains: # These domains are allowed through - "yourdomain.com" - "discord.gg/yourserver" # Block spam (too many messages too fast, or too many duplicates) anti-spam: enabled: true action: "BLOCK" max-messages: 5 # Max messages allowed within the time window time-window-seconds: 10 # Rolling window size in seconds max-duplicates: 3 # Max identical messages allowed in the window # Block server IPs and Discord invite links anti-advertising: enabled: true action: "BLOCK" block-server-ips: true # Blocks patterns like "play.someserver.net" block-discord-invites: true # Blocks discord.gg/... links whitelisted-domains: - "yourdomain.com" - "discord.gg/yourserver" # Block profanity and custom banned words anti-swear: enabled: false action: "BLOCK" use-regex: false # Set true to treat blocked-words entries as regex patterns blocked-words: - "badword1" - "badword2" whitelisted-words: # These words are never blocked even if they match a pattern - "scrapbook" # Block excessive CAPS LOCK anti-caps: enabled: false action: "BLOCK" min-message-length: 5 # Ignore short messages (e.g. "OK", "YES") threshold-percent: 70.0 # Block if more than this % of letters are uppercase # Block character flooding (aaaaaaaaaa, !!!!!!!!!) anti-flood: enabled: false action: "BLOCK" max-repeated-chars: 5 # Consecutive identical characters before blocking min-message-length: 3 # Ignore very short messages # Block Unicode abuse and Zalgo text anti-unicode: enabled: false action: "BLOCK" block-zalgo: true # Block combining diacritical mark stacking (z͎̤̙̘̭͇͠a̵͔͓l̡͔͍̦͚͙g̢͕̲͔͔͕ö̥́) max-unicode-percent: 50.0 # Block if more than this % of chars are non-ASCII ``` --- ### Player Reports ```yaml reports: enabled: true cooldown-seconds: 60 # How long a player must wait between reports # Post reports to a Discord channel discord-webhook: enabled: false url: "" mention-role-id: "" # Optional — ping a role when a report comes in (e.g. "123456789") notify-staff: true # Broadcast reports to online staff with protectcord.alerts predefined-reasons: [] # Optional list of reasons shown in tab-complete # Example: ["Hacking", "Spam", "Harassment", "Inappropriate name"] ``` --- ### Database Storage ```yaml database: type: "YAML" # "YAML" — flatfile storage (default, no setup needed) # "MYSQL" — MySQL/MariaDB (required for multi-server sync) mysql: host: "localhost" port: 3306 database: "protectcord" # Database name (must exist before starting) username: "root" password: "" table-prefix: "pc_" # All tables prefixed with this (e.g. pc_warnings, pc_bans) # HikariCP connection pool settings pool: max-pool-size: 10 # Maximum simultaneous database connections min-idle: 2 # Minimum idle connections kept open connection-timeout: 30000 # Max wait for a connection from the pool (ms) idle-timeout: 600000 # Close idle connections after this long (ms) max-lifetime: 1800000 # Recycle connections after this long (ms) ``` --- ### IP Masking ```yaml # Control how IP addresses appear to staff in command output # Staff with the protectcord.ip.full permission always see the full IP ip-masking: enabled: false mask-format: "last-octet" # "last-octet" → 192.168.1.* (hides last segment) # "last-two-octets" → 192.168.*.* (hides last two segments) # "full-mask" → *.*.*.* (hides everything) ``` --- ### Custom Messages ```yaml # All messages support & colour codes. Placeholders listed per message. messages: # Shown to players blocked by IP check — {reason}, {risk} connection-denied: | &c&lConnection Denied &7Your connection has been blocked by ProtectCord. &7Reason: &c{reason} &7Risk Level: &c{risk} &7If you believe this is an error, please contact server staff. # Shown when the API is unreachable during a check api-error: | &c&lTemporary Connection Issue &7We're unable to verify your connection at the moment. &7Please try again later. # Shown to a player blocked by the accounts-per-IP limit — {max}, {current} account-limit-reached: | &c&lConnection Limit Reached &7Maximum accounts per IP: &c{max} &7Current connections from your IP: &c{current} &7Please disconnect another account before connecting. # Shown to the oldest session kicked by KICK_OLDEST enforcement — {max} account-limit-kicked: | &c&lYou have been disconnected &7A new account connected from your IP address. &7Maximum accounts per IP: &c{max} # Shown when player-tracking blocks a flagged player — {flags} player-flagged: | &c&lConnection Denied &7Your account has been flagged. &7Flags: &c{flags} &7If you believe this is an error, please contact server staff. # Shown when player-tracking blocks an inactive player player-inactive: | &c&lConnection Denied &7Your account has been deactivated. &7Please contact server staff. # Shown in chat to whitelisted players who bypass the IP check whitelist-bypass: "&aYou have bypassed IP verification." ``` --- ## 🎯 Commands & Permissions **Aliases:** `/pc`, `/protect` ### Core Commands | Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | `/pc reload` | Reload config, whitelist, and storage | | `/pc stats` | View API usage and rate limits | | `/pc check <player\|ip>` | On-demand IP threat analysis | | `/pc version` | Plugin version and platform info | | `/pc health` | API connectivity health check | | `/pc alerts` | Toggle in-game staff alerts on/off | ### Whitelist Commands | Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | `/pc whitelist add player <name>` | Whitelist a player by name | | `/pc whitelist add uuid <uuid>` | Whitelist by UUID | | `/pc whitelist add ip <address>` | Whitelist an IP address | | `/pc whitelist remove <type> <value>` | Remove whitelist entry | | `/pc list` | List all whitelisted entries | ### Moderation Commands | Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | `/pc kick <player> [reason]` | Kick an online player with IP info | | `/pc warn <player> <reason>` | Issue a warning (auto-escalates) | | `/pc warnings <player>` | View full warning history | | `/pc clear warning <player>` | Clear all warnings | | `/pc clear ban <player>` | Clear a ban record | | `/pc remove warning <player> [#]` | Remove a specific warning by index | | `/pc ban <player> <reason>` | Permanently ban a player | | `/pc tempban <player> <duration> <reason>` | Temp-ban (`1h`, `7d`, `30d`) | | `/pc unban <player>` | Unban a player | | `/pc mute <player> <reason>` | Permanently mute a player | | `/pc tempmute <player> <duration> <reason>` | Temp-mute | | `/pc unmute <player>` | Unmute a player | | `/pc alts <player>` | Find alt accounts by shared IP | ### Storage Commands | Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | `/pc migrate <yaml\|mysql>` | Migrate all data between storage backends | | `/pc purge <type> <days>` | Delete data older than X days | **Purge types:** `warnings`, `bans`, `mutes`, `iplogs`, `auditlog`, `inactive`, `all` ### Player Commands | Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | `/report [player] <reason>` | Report a player (or submit an anonymous report) | ### Permissions | Permission | Description | Default | |------------|-------------|---------| | `protectcord.admin` | All `/pc` commands | OP | | `protectcord.bypass` | Bypass IP checks on join | false | | `protectcord.alerts` | Receive in-game staff alerts | OP | | `protectcord.ip.full` | See unmasked IPs in command output | OP | | `protectcord.automod.bypass.*` | Bypass all AutoMod checks | false | --- ## ⚡ Progressive Warning System Automatically escalate discipline based on warning count. Two modes available: ### Simple Mode (default) | Warning | Action | |---------|--------| | 1st | In-game warning message | | 2nd | Kicked with "final warning" message | | 3rd | Permanent ban | ### Escalation Tiers Mode (configurable) Fully custom escalation — any combination of WARN → TEMPMUTE → TEMPBAN → BAN: ``` 1 warning → Warning message 2 warnings → Temp mute (1 hour) 3 warnings → Temp ban (1 day) 4 warnings → Temp ban (7 days) 5 warnings → Permanent ban ``` Warnings can optionally **expire** after a configured duration (`7d`, `30d`, etc.) so past behavior doesn't follow players forever. --- ## 🤖 AutoMod — Automated Chat Filtering Protect your chat without lifting a finger. Each AutoMod rule runs independently and can be configured to `BLOCK`, `WARN`, `KICK`, `MUTE`, or `TEMPMUTE` the offending player. | Rule | What It Catches | |------|----------------| | **Anti-Link** | URLs, with per-domain whitelist | | **Anti-Advertising** | Other server IPs, Discord invites | | **Anti-Spam** | Message rate and duplicate flooding | | **Anti-Swear** | Custom word list, with regex and exceptions | | **Anti-Caps** | Excessive uppercase by percentage | | **Anti-Flood** | Repeated character abuse | | **Anti-Unicode** | Zalgo text and invisible character abuse | --- ## 🔍 Alt Account Detection Find players evading bans or using multiple accounts with a single command: ``` /pc alts Notch → [ProtectCord] Alt accounts for Notch: - Notch2 (shared IPs: 2) - AltAccount99 (shared IPs: 1) ``` IPs are **never displayed** in alt output — staff see player names only, protecting privacy while identifying evaders. --- ## 🗄️ MySQL & Multi-Server Sync Store all data (warnings, bans, mutes, IP history, audit logs) in MySQL instead of local YAML files. - **All servers share one database** — ban on Factions, blocked on Survival - **HikariCP connection pooling** — high-performance and thread-safe - **Auto table creation** — tables are created on first startup - **server_id tracking** — every row records which server the action came from - **Live migration** — move from YAML to MySQL (or back) with `/pc migrate mysql` ``` /pc migrate mysql → Migrated 47 players, 12 IP bans, 203 audit entries. → Update database.type in config.yml and run /pc reload. ``` --- ## 🧹 Data Purge Keep your database clean with fine-grained purge commands: ``` /pc purge warnings 90 — remove warnings older than 90 days /pc purge bans 30 — remove expired bans older than 30 days /pc purge mutes 30 — remove expired mutes older than 30 days /pc purge iplogs 365 — remove IP history older than 1 year /pc purge auditlog 90 — trim the audit log /pc purge inactive 180 — remove player records unseen for 6 months /pc purge all 90 — run all of the above ``` --- ## 📢 Discord Integration ### Connection Webhook Get a rich Discord embed every time a player is blocked, accepted, or whitelisted: - Country with flag emoji, city, VPN/proxy/tor/datacenter/bogon flags, risk level, company - Per-event toggle — only receive the events you care about - Rate limiting to stay within Discord's limits - Automatic retry with exponential backoff ### Staff Alert Webhook Separate webhook for moderation events: bans, unbans, warns, kicks, mutes, AutoMod actions — so your mod team always knows what's happening. ### Setup in 30 seconds 1. Discord → Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks → New Webhook → Copy URL 2. Add to `config.yml`: ```yaml discord-webhook: enabled: true url: "https://discord.com/api/webhooks/YOUR_WEBHOOK" ``` 3. `/pc reload` --- ## 🛡️ How IP Detection Works Every connecting player's IP is sent to the ProtectCord API for evaluation: | Check | What It Detects | |-------|----------------| | **VPN** | Virtual private networks used to hide location | | **Proxy** | HTTP/SOCKS proxies and anonymizers | | **Tor** | Tor exit nodes | | **Datacenter** | Hosting providers (common bot source) | | **Bogon** | Invalid or reserved IP ranges | | **Risk Score** | AI-powered score from UNKNOWN to CRITICAL | | **Geo** | Country of origin (for geo-blocking) | ### Automatic Bypasses No API call is made for: - Localhost (`127.0.0.1`, `::1`) - Private networks (`192.168.x.x`, `10.x.x.x`, `172.16–31.x.x`) - Whitelisted players, UUIDs, or IPs --- ## ❓ FAQ **Is this free?** Yes. The free API key includes **32 requests per minute**, enough for most servers. **Will it lag my server?** No. All IP checks are **fully asynchronous** and never block the main thread. **Can legitimate players get blocked?** Rarely. Use `/pc check <player>` to see why, then `/pc whitelist add player <name>`. You can also raise `blocked-risk-level` to `CRITICAL` for less aggressive blocking. **Does it work with offline mode?** Yes. The plugin functions in both online and offline mode. **What about proxy networks?** Install **only on the proxy** (BungeeCord or Velocity). All backend servers are automatically protected with one plugin and one API key. **What if the API is down?** Players are allowed to connect by default during API outages. This prevents lockouts and can be changed in config. **Do you store player data?** Only IP addresses are sent to the ProtectCord API. No usernames or UUIDs are transmitted externally. See our [privacy policy](https://protectcord.com/privacy). **Can I sync bans across servers?** Yes — enable MySQL storage and point all servers at the same database. Bans and mutes are enforced network-wide automatically. --- ## 🔧 Troubleshooting **"API KEY NOT CONFIGURED!"** Get your key at [protectcord.com/dashboard](https://protectcord.com/dashboard), add it to `config.yml`, run `/pc reload`. **Player blocked incorrectly** Run `/pc check <player>` to see the reason. Whitelist with `/pc whitelist add player <name>` or lower `blocked-risk-level`. **Rate limit hit** Free tier: 32 req/min (~1 player every 2 seconds). Solutions: whitelist regulars to skip API calls, or install only on your proxy instead of all backends. **Discord webhook silent** Verify URL is correct, `enabled: true`, events are enabled, and check console for errors. **MySQL connection failed** Check host/port/credentials in config. Ensure the MySQL user has `CREATE TABLE` privileges. Check console for the HikariCP error message. --- ## 🌐 Links & Support - 🌍 **Website:** [protectcord.com](https://protectcord.com) - 📖 **API Docs:** [api.protectcord.com](https://api.protectcord.com) - 🎫 **Dashboard:** [protectcord.com/dashboard](https://protectcord.com/dashboard) - 💬 **Discord:** [protectcord.com/discord](https://protectcord.com/discord) --- ## 💖 Support the Project - ⭐ Follow on Modrinth - 💬 Join the [Discord community](https://protectcord.com/discord) - 📝 Leave a review and share your experience - 🐛 Report bugs or suggest features on Discord --- *Made with ❤️ for the Minecraft community — **ProtectCord**, because prevention is better than moderation.*