Policies & Public Discussions

This book will be a blog where I share some important statements which might be forgotten about.

Dealing With Drama - The Undeniable Fuel Of Life

As a reminder to any member who talks to any member i n our Discord lounge, no matter their role, remember that you need to remain kind, respectful and to obtain your facts first from both sides of the story before presuming the worst. Examples of this include:

Don't shame on someone with no proof. If you intend to speak to someone to raise an issue, inform who you are referring to and in what context. Don't just write "They won't want to be named" otherwise don't speak about it in the first place? It's disrespectful, causes speculation and is highly irritating.

Do not say a statement without backing it up with clear, factual evidence. We don't tolerate rumors and everything we state is factual to the best of our knowledge. You are free to have an opinion, not stating that, but just straight up asking us "Do you just xyz" without actually providing context is just being a jackass. An example of this is:

You do this, we will just A) Ignore you B) Put sanctions in place or C) End your services.

No one at Jasmeow.Systems condones public shaming of any kind which is evidenced in all announcements published by any member of the team, in their personal Discords or our own. An example of this is Jasmeow's announcements of her main Discord for not being accepted at a job for example. We always blur and don't cause harm or drama. If we don't, don't you do it.

At Jasmeow.Systems, a client purchasing our service will be treated as a business, not a friend. We as a team do not care neither take into consideration their past, present or future endeavors, such as being banned off a platform, being under public scrutiny, maliciously attacked, previous chargebacks or anything else which might make them appear in bad light. They are a paying client and money is money at the end of the day. We aren't going to say no to bad business unless it is not in our best interests, such as a manipulating person or a repeated scammer. We experience first hand what happens and manage it accordingly. This is what our terms of service is for, handling any wrong doing appropriately and dealing with issues that come from the client.

You should also bare in mind that it doesn't effect our "reputation" if we work with clients who turn out to be one terrible person or multiple unacceptable individuals. You can obviously speak to the management team about raising a concern about another client so we are aware of it, but we won't take action against them as that is not morally acceptable. For example, pointing out a MC networks name and stating "Hey, it could ruin your reputation for yourself or your business", we are not at all bothered and it changes absolutely nothing, showing to other members as you being libel, meaning that you are publishing false statements that is damaging to a person's reputation or business, basically a written defamation.

Be civil, think on. Gather your facts and hear both sides of the story before jumping to conclusions.

Providing A Service - Why Do We Need Such Information?

For us to provide a service, we ask for information which you might disagree with or have a lack of trust for our team. This article should provide more context into why we need this sensitive information to better manage you as a client.

First Name + Last Name: When you first sign up for Jasmeow.Systems, we ask these so we can better address you and for legal purposes. Collecting a name means that if you chargeback, we have grounds to locate you with authorities and our payment provider if required. We don't need an address as this is already provided to Stripe/PayPal when you purchase our services.

Email Address: This needs to be an active mailbox to receive invoices, create accounts for our services and invites to our password manager if needed. Mostly everyone has one of these so there should not be an issue for providing this.

Hosting Provider Login: We ask for your hosts login, such as OVH or Hetzner, so we can raise tickets on your behalf if you are not around and access the IPMI/KVM to manage the systems you have rented or owned. This may reveal information such as your address and other sensitive details, but with over 50+ clients where we manage client data securely using best practice methods and two factor authentication, we would strongly suggest you provide this access to make your services run smoothly without interruption or downtime. 

A good example of building trust is that Jasmine runs Jasmeow.Host. This is a hosting provider that sees names, addresses, card details and much more. We are not interested in causing problems with your systems or personal data, as that's not our goal. We are here to provide a service and hindering our ability to do that causes a lot of headache. With Jasmine previously having dealt with over 1000+ clients, she knows that client security is paramount and wouldn't be bribed by any financial amount just to gain a "quick buck" for selling your information. We aren't incompetent and just wish to do our job.

The management teams decision is final.

If we request information that you have not provided and there is no significant reason, we will not provide a service. This includes reasons such as "not comfortable", "trust issues" or "not required as you really don't need it". Provide the access to make our operations easier.

Buying New Hardware - The Cautious Warning

Do note that this page make come across passive aggressive, but we aim to do this to get the point across. Many time and time again clients completely ignore this information so take note!

We are going to make this crystal clear to all clients before anyone goes we didn't warn them... before ordering hardware, please ask one of the team, especially management, about the specifications and configurations of them. 

Do not order a system off your own back as you don't know the implications of ordering them and what they are needing in order to run your network. We know how systems go together and what is needed for them, the right hardware you need and any other features. 

There are many reasons behind not ordering straight away, such as:

We will not repeat this again. DO NOT order until you have discussed the appropriate system and hardware for your operations. Don't make the same mistakes others do. Time is money.

Minecraft DDoS Protection - Why Is It Needed When I Have The Host?

Minecraft is a fantastic game with easy financial opportunities and and building brilliant communities, but it also has it's downfalls which you need to be aware of. Many malicious actors exist in the world who want nothing better than taking down your MC network when you are having a good player count online and that's no fun for anyone!

Basically, when you run an MC network, you need some sort of DDoS protection. Now, with hosting providers, when you buy from a Minecraft server host, you are putting your trust into them to keep your server online in case of an attack on their network. This is fine and all, but when you become a large network, you need to start thinking about getting a VPS or dedicated system and that's where Jasmeow.Systems comes in.

When you purchase one, you normally have the host say to you "Anti-DDoS Protection 10Tbps" or what have you in their features list. This is fine, but it's mainly for hosting applications and websites, not Minecraft. TCP and UDP connections can get flooded by bots in the Minecraft scene, malicious actors can do L7 attacks and circumvent typical protections put in place by the hosting provider. This is where external DDoS providers come in to serve you protection which isn't connected with the host. You can find them here - https://docs.jasmeow.systems/books/external-ddos-providers

You know providers like TCPShield, NeoProtect, Papyrus, InfinityFilter, CosmicGuard and more? Yep, these are all Anti-DDoS providers for Minecraft. In simple terms, you put in your dedicated IP address from your VPS or Dedicated server and they route the traffic using their protected CNAME's, SRV's and A records so you don't get taken offline.

You should NEVER rely on your hosting providers protection as they will simply email you and state "You need to stop these attacks or we will null route your connection". This basically means you cannot access your SSH, control panels, players can't connect and more. This is why not exposing your IP is the most important step in the system administration community. Once it's shown and live on public tracking websites, you are practically screwed, needing to ask the provider to update your IP and get it replaced.

Providers like OVH and Bloom do make good efforts to protect your IP if it is attacked but for your own benefit of the doubt, don't share it. You can prevent this by having trusted people on your control panels, SSH delegated access to only trained individuals and using CloudFlare wherever possible with the proxy cloud turned on and not set to DNS only.

Hopefully this provides some context into why we state "Don't rely on your hosting providers protection". Any questions, feel free to ask one of the members of our team.

The Snowball Effect - Other People Steal Your Ideas

I thought about writing this article for some time but it feels like it should be written. People ask sometimes whether Jasmeow.Systems was the first to think of the "monthly services" of our cost per month, but we weren't. Many well known names obviously used to exist previously like Jamo, Void and Arik, and they are still around to this day, but they don't make it painstakingly obvious to many markets, leaving them not vulnerable to the market stealing others do.

JS came onto the scene in February 2023 and started going exponentially due to the fantastic business model of additional system administrators being able to help out, being around the clock support for your network or business. What's frustrating is that we were the "first" major business to do this on the BuiltByBit forum site and gained a fantastic amount of traction for its presentation.

What's sad to see now is that multiple other system administrators have decided to take liberty of doing one better by being cheaper but by no means better, jumping onto the band wagon of taking liberty of clients downfalls. Some examples include people charging $30 a month but have a previous track record of losing customer data, charging significantly less than us for a subpar service or just simply misleading clients.

Huge disclaimer: These are just screenshots of thread titles. They are not to be used to attack a individual or a team directly. We've personally not used any person from the threads and know their history, it was just two obtained which follow suit of this article. No shame is brought upon them, just something to highlight which shows that "NEW: Monthly.." was actually wasn't originally thought of unless I am mistaken, it just concerns me it was obvious enough. 

As I stated previously, I can assure you that people have obviously been before us with well known names doing monthly services, but we came onto the market in Feburary when monthly was a new term not thought of by others. Due to the expanding reach of our business, others now are trying to take the method further with fancy threads and attractive prices. Do not by conned out of a bad experience. Speak to the people who know what's right, even if you don't hear it from me directly. We aren't going to complain if you have some questions, feel free to ask.

One thing to take into consideration is that everyone is trying to earn a living and gain their clientele, and it's ironic from me as on my threads I state the prices on the thread titles themselves, but this is the actual realistic cost, not behind the scenes hidden fees. I added these at the end of January I believe when I was sorting out my threads and the titles, but others soon cottoned on that was the way to gain attention from others so the market is so frustratingly saturated.

What's even more shocking is that some users have even gone as far as copying our entire infrastructure and copying/pasting our management solutions to better aid different clientele. It's utterly disgusting. Try other solutions and develop your own, don't become a copy cat.

I want to make this perfectly clear that this isn't an article to be egotistical or to boost my own revenue, it's just something as an advisory and what I have personally noticed over the past few months, personally becoming very self aware of my own costs and if I increase my costs in April, that makes me lose out on a ton of clients.

Killing Docker Containers - What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Using Pterodactyl allows you to send the kill command to a container after stopping it gracefully with the "Stop" button, with the red "Kill" button appearing to forcefully halt the hanging container process. This can be used if you are trying to stop a server which has freezed, don't want the server booting again or just not being patient and like living life on the edge!

Each reason for killing a container has their benefits and drawbacks, ranging from nothing substantial happening to losing server data! Take precaution when using the kill feature!

Minecraft Servers

Killing Minecraft servers is not recommended in the slightest. Minecraft has two systems, it's worlds and it's plugins, if you run a modded version of MC. Worlds save at the end of the server shutdown to prevent the world save overwriting any final plugin changes.

The below information doesn't apply to proxy based jar systems, such as BungeeCord, Velocity or Waterfall. Although it is good to wait for these to shutdown safely, you are at a much lower risk of causing data loss unless the developer can't code properly. Sometimes you even have to kill the server to start it again if you input a invalid entry into the config.yml/config.toml or it will just hang its Java process.

When running a server, the vanilla MC jar has a built in auto-save system, which means any fork or development of the normal jar such as Paper, Spigot or Sponge will have this feature built-in and cannot be removed. 

The auto-save timer is 10 minutes. When you kill the server, you run the risk of losing any progress on your worlds between 1 second and 9 minutes 59 seconds, dependent on how unlucky you are. It's a luck based system as you won't know when the server last saved, so ideally run /save all before turning off your server to prevent any loss of data. 

This is the sole reason you have lost server data and a rollback has occurred, or even worse, plugin configuration files reset. There isn't any other explanation such as us not copying files properly between two servers, downloading from another hosting provider for your migration or anything like this. It's your own negligence.

It doesn't matter if you run a different server jar like WineSpigot where it can modify your stop command, such as reboot in 1 instead of stop. Update your stop command appropriately.

Killing a server CAN WIPE configuration files. We've seen it happen, do not ignore this warning. Don't do it unless extremely necessary and you have appropriate backups. Some plugins are written extremely poorly and will pull their configs on server boot to the RAM, and if the server does an unsafe shutdown, it will not return the config back to the file.

Examples include PlayerVaultsX, where a player was inside their vault at the time of the reboot and it immediately got wiped due to a server kill, Essentials loosing homes/nicknames and many more. We repeat, DO NOT ignore this warning. 

Discord Bots

These run using different Eggs installed on the panel such as NodeJS or Python. When you add the Egg, either by us or yourself, you need to remember to update the name and shutdown command in the Egg. Go to Nests on the admin side of the panel > The Nest name you set it to such as "Discord" then click the Egg itself, such as "NodeJS". Rename the "Name" under the "Configuration" section and "Stop Command" under the "Process Management" section.

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Killing a Discord Bot is pretty safe and shouldn't cause any issues, as the stop command in my case is "Ctrl + C" denoted by ^C above. This will safely shutdown the server anyway as it's simply stopping such process from running, but if you forget to update the stop command, it's not the end of the world. Most Discord Bots run as a terminal process like NodeJS or Python, so Ctrl + C is not going to cause data loss.

Proxy Spoofing - What Is It? How'd It Happen To Me?

Proxy Spoofing is caused when a player, normally when using a hacked client, "tricks" the backend server into thinking that you have already authenticated against an "offline" version of the proxy the hacked client is hosting temporarily, gaining access to that server as any username.

This is when you attempt to manage your MC network using BungeeCord/Velocity or other such proxy management software and connecting your backend servers via their public IP addresses which have their port exposed to the internet.

An example of this is having an Advance system from OVH and a Pebblehost shared server. This can also happen on more than one system you have with OVH and you accidentally used a public IP and not your internal networks IP address, such as 10.10.10.3 from the 10.10.10.1 dedicated system the proxy is sitting on.

You can have your proxy, lobbies and other gamemodes on one dedicated system, but if you connect the shared server/additional systems together in the wrong configuration, your players have to jump from a secure "Proxy" with online-mode=true turned on, then to your backend server, open to the public on a port with online-mode=false, meaning it can be accessed by "tricking" the backend server.

Think about that scenario... the player can then become whoever they want to be. You are the owner, so your name is normally operator or has star permission from your permissions plugin. Put that together and what does that equal? Hacked server, lava casting, opping everyone, you name it.

Don't make this mistake and speak to us first before buying your servers from different providers as it might not be in possible in your case or cause more of a headache later down the line.

Being A JS Client - Having The Role Is A Privilege, Not A Right

Repeating what was stated from one of my announcements, it hasn't been something we have been wanting to write but it's something that should be included here to make sure it's followed.

Being part of Jasmeow.Systems Discord and having the 💳 JS Client role is a privilege, not a right. If you start bothering other server owners by DM'ing them, joining their server, harassing or just being inconsiderate, you will simply be hidden from seeing the public channels, only your own category. This way you won't be able to engage in talking to others, find out news from my announcements and using community support for requests.

We allow you to see each other as it's a friendly gesture and it's nice to have a community where we can talk, discuss things, rant about silly broken stuff and what we can share as a community of server owners, kinda like those places where loads of server owners are in. (Minecraft Servers List for example.)

Again, let me state that if anyone reports to me that another client is being inconsiderate, you will be dealt with. We all care for each other, even if it's massive competition like factions servers. You ping me in your 💬-comms-chat if you have an issue and that's the end of it.

Being a creep like this isn't acceptable. Before you state "This is just genuinely being nice"... no, you are going out your way to be bothersome and actually being really disrespectful. You are spending your time in the Discord looking down the client list finding someone to pick on or speak to because you have nothing else better in your life to do. Seriously?

We are not saying "Don't join that MC server" but like, don't make it obvious. With clients who are ordered differently by colour and you decided to scroll to the bottom of the list and see someone you know, it might be innocent, but don't be awkward about it and join, especially if they have low player counts and you are known to be competition. You are basically attempting to steal or be someone who's awkward. Don't do it.

Further to the above, some other additional points which are needing to be included:

Threatening to move clients away from Jasmeow.Systems due to a incompetent Discord argument which you instigated is completely unacceptable and you will be removed instantly from all public chats, even warranting a ban if applicable.

Jumping on the "band wagon" as the phrase would be and instigating more of an argument with comments such as "Why are you attacking my colleague" when you don't have the full context is completely unacceptable also and will warrant a mute or removal from JS.

Just be friendly and be nice, that's all we wish for!

How Much Of X Do I Need? - The Costs, The Realisation And The Reality

Everyday, we get asked questions which are extremely difficult to answer and no one has the definitive answer to them so we have to do estimates. Some include the below:

Think about the phrase "How long is a piece of string?". You might of heard this one before and it might come across as a little insulting, but that's honestly the truth! You asking someone how much RAM you need for your Survival SMP is like asking an open ended question. You've got to take into consideration so many factors before you even start looking for Minecraft hosting providers, VPS's or dedicated systems:

Remember, this is not an extensive list. You have a good thousand other variables you've got to take into consideration. The game is extremely frustrating to micromanage!

We will not provide definitive answers and provide a recommendation. If we tell you an amount and it's not the right amount, don't blame us for it, we can help work out downgrades or upgrades, it's not the end of the world!

CPU

RAM

Disk

Network

Remember, it's never "one size fits all". We can't give the exact amount of anything as it's extremely difficult to do so, but with over 10 years combined knowledge, we've mostly got it figured out. AMD Ryzen 5 5600X with 64GB RAM? Yeah, go for it for your 50 player or below server, not an issue. 600+ players? Yeah, you will need Ryzen 9's for that one! Feel free to ask one of the team if you are needing a hand in looking for a suitable system.

If we've missed anything, feel free to let us know so we can add additional parts to this documentation.

How Long Until Done? A Question That Can't Be Answered

When an problem happens and you state "How long?" or "What the expected time of this being solved?", normally we can provide an answer, but when the issue hasn't been identified, is drastically more challenging or you as a client has caused disruption to your own operations by taking it upon yourself to find a solution, this answer can't be provided in a simple manner.

If you see one of us state "How long is a piece of string?", it basically means "Look, you are asking the impossible, how do you think we can give you that answer if we don't know ourselves?". If you think about it, a piece of string can be 1cm or 10m and anywhere in between, hence using it as a phrase. Some people can see this as being rude or disrespectful, but it's meant as a indirect hint to think about what answer could be.

We aren't trying to be mean, it's just a comment to say "Back off (in the polite way), what do you want us to do?" No one can perform miracles.

Don't State False Information - Confusing Others & Creating Headaches

When someone tries to help you such as one of our team or you are advising someone else, don't state false, confusing and concerning information to them which may invoke a panicked or worried response.

Doing this takes time to unravel and repair trust with the key person of the network such as the main owner, rebuild conversations and give the actual end user peace of mind again that everything is running as usual.

If you don't know the fact to be true, DON'T SAY IT. This should hopefully be obvious by now but don't state without actual facts. If you give speculation, you feel like you are fighting in a trial with "Objection, cause for speculation" being stated many times.

An Example

Let's take this message. This statement is completely incorrect. What this actually means is that the account had reached the bandwidth quota of the month before the next month rolls over, resetting the amount. If you check TCP Shield's website, it states you can only have 1TB on the Free plan, 2.5TB on the Pro plan, and unlimited on the Premium and Enterprise plans. https://tcpshield.com/plans

Seeing the message above is basically telling the owner "You've run out of power, go top up your card for more electricity in your home." It has nothing to do with IP capping, accounts logging in, ping or anything of the sort. It appears to all players and showing that your Anti-DDoS provider is TCPShield isn't going to get you attacked or taken offline. Using a provider like this is perfectly fine and doesn't actually cause you to be attacked "easier". The term "it's shows what console you are using" is also incorrect, it's a DDoS protection provider.

Why Do We Change Details For An Already Existing System?

You might be wondering why we change the existing details on an already secure system, such as removing the users and allowing only root, changing the SSH port to an already changed one, updating passwords and following proper protocol of IP whitelisting. We will outline the most common reasons why we do this:

If you have any concerns or questions on what we are modifying, feel free to ask, but we can assure you that we've done this for many years combined and know how a system should be properly managed.

Press Assets & Media Presence - Colour Profiles & Our Imagery

Our main colours we use at Jasmeow.Systems are below. Please use these when creating a role such as "System Admin(s)" in your staff or public Discord. Do note we prefer the management role colour.

These are the main logos. One is the main circle with the circuit board and one alone with the circuit board. We recommend using the logo for websites and the main board for Discord icons.

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Our main Discord banner that's embedded from https://jasmeow.systems is below. This appears at the top of our main Discord and other such promotional material.

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The website header banner below is used for landscaped locations such as YouTube, thread designs and other such positions which need extended banners with less vertical height.Jasmeow_Discord_Banner-01.png

For sites such as BuiltByBit or other threaded forums which make use of sidebar banner advertisements, we use the following below promotional matieral.

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