Forwarding a subdomain to a Minecraft Server

Question

I am trying to forward a subdomain to directly connect to a Minecraft server. The domain name is hosted at GoDaddy and the server requires the port at the end. These are the things I have tried so far:

I attempted to create an A record via GoDaddy's DNS manager. This worked in redirecting the IP, as the IP for the server is actually the IP for the server's control panel. I attempted to add this to Minecraft followed by :25602 which is the port number. Unfortunately that didn't work.
I went to the GoDaddy domain management page and attempted to create a redirect to the subdomain but that did not work either. I entered the port name as well.

Does anyone know how to do this successfully? I mean to me, these things should have worked. I have done some research and can't seem to find anything other than what I have tried already.

Simon Hayter · Accepted Answer

Your mistake was attempting to add a port in step 1 and using words like forward. You want to POINT, not foward which I'll explain below.
DNS works by translating domain to ip addresses, it has nothing to do with ports. So for example if you have a website running on one ip but then your minecraft server is on another then you need to setup CNAME's which is a subdomain.
So your records might look like
@ > 192.0.2.123

www > @

Which means that the CNAME of www is running on IP address 192.0.2.123 etc.
Simply add a new cname and then enter the IP of the minecraft server. Your friends and co will be able to access the server via the sub domain 24 hours later roughly.
EXAMPLE:
SERVER as the CNAME, then the server IP. This makes the sub domain server.yourdomain.example

Damn Terminal · Answer

You don't want just an A record, you want an SRV record for minecraft. To connect with whatever.domain.tld to your minecraft server add

_minecraft._tcp.whatever.domain.tld.    IN SRV     0 5 minecrafts_port_number yourminecraftserver.domain.tld.

and then

yourminecraftserver.domain.tld.    IN A    servers.ip.address

It looks like taking a detour but this is the kosher, supported way and it gives you 1) the convenience of using any port without having your users type it in and 2) flexibility to potentially run another service, like a website, at the same address as the minecraft server (whatever.domain.tld). You can even use root/naked domain (domain.tld).

I don't know how to do it in Godaddy's panel. Google around or ask support how to add an srv record in general and it will be analogous.

Forwarding a subdomain to a Minecraft Server

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