DDoS mitigation patterns for game servers on VPS

Game hosts attract UDP floods and reflection attacks. A Nexelya VPS gives you kernel-level tuning and firewall control, but mitigation is a system design problem—not a checkbox.

Understand your attack surface

Map every open port: game query, RCON, SSH, and accidental services (docker APIs, leftover redis). Close anything that does not need global exposure.

Proxy where it helps

TCP-based management panels and matchmaking APIs belong behind Cloudflare, nginx stream proxies, or dedicated DDoS scrubbing partners. Raw UDP game traffic often cannot be proxied the same way—use provider-level filtering or anycast networks built for gaming.

Host-level hardening

# Example: limit new SSH connections
ufw limit 22/tcp

• Tune sysctl connection tracking for high packet rates.
• Run game processes as unprivileged users with systemd resource limits.
• Separate voice/discord bots onto another VPS so one flood does not take down the whole community stack.

Do not rely on obscurity

Changing the default game port stops casual scanners, not botnets. Combine port ACLs (allow only regions you serve), application-level auth on RCON, and automated bans driven by log analysis.

When to move game databases to dedicated

If your MariaDB or Redis node competes with tick-rate-sensitive game threads on the same VPS, split roles. Dedicated servers with NVMe reduce disk latency for world saves and player inventories during traffic spikes.

Incident response playbook

1. Confirm it is attack traffic (not a misconfigured plugin loop).
2. Enable upstream scrubbing if your contract includes it.
3. Communicate status to players with honest ETAs.
4. Post-mortem: which ACL or cap would have helped?

Nexelya is.

Get started with a VPS sized for your player cap, and read our security checklist before opening ports to the internet.