Minecraft Server Exposure via Traefik & Gateway API

This guide details a clean setup to expose a Minecraft server on port 25565 using Traefik v3 with Gateway API. This repo makes use of https://github.com/itzg/minecraft-server-charts helm charts and templates.

1. Disable the built-in Traefik add‑on in K3s

sudo mkdir -p /etc/rancher/k3s
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/rancher/k3s/config.yaml
disable:
  - traefik
EOF
sudo systemctl restart k3s

2. Install Gateway API CRDs

# Core CRDs (Gateway, GatewayClass, HTTPRoute, etc.)
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.3.0/standard-install.yaml

# Experimental CRDs (TCPRoute, UDPRoute, etc.)
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.3.0/experimental-install.yaml

Verify:

kubectl get crd | grep -E 'gatewayclasses|gateways|tcproutes'

3. Create Traefik namespace and prepare values

kubectl create namespace traefik

4. Install Traefik v3 via Helm

helm repo add traefik https://traefik.github.io/charts
helm repo update
helm install traefik traefik/traefik --namespace traefik -f traefik-values.yaml

5. Set Minecraft service to ClusterIP

In your Minecraft values.yaml:

serviceType: ClusterIP
servicePort: 25565

helm upgrade mc minecraft-server/minecraft --namespace minecraft -f values.yaml

6. Create GatewayClass & Gateway

traefik-gateway.yaml:

kubectl apply -f traefik-gateway.yaml

7. Create TCPRoute to Minecraft

kubectl apply -f minecraft-ingressroute.yaml

8. Open port 25565 on the firewall

sudo ufw allow 25565/tcp

9. Connect!

In your Minecraft client, use:

IP_OF_YOUR_SERVER:25565

Enjoy your Minecraft world, securely exposed via Traefik & Gateway API!