CoreProtect: See Who Broke What on Your Minecraft Server and Roll It Back

What CoreProtect does and why to install it today

It's a plugin that logs every block placed or broken, what goes in and out of chests, chat, commands and who joins and leaves. With that log you can ask “who broke this?” and roll back only what one person did during a specific time.

It only logs from the moment it's installed: it can't undo what happened before. That's why it's one of the first plugins worth adding, even if the server is just four friends.

It runs on Paper, Spigot and Purpur (there's also a Fabric version) and needs no setup: it keeps the log in its own folder, plugins/CoreProtect, without setting up a separate database.

Installing it

1. Make a backup

   Before adding plugins, a backup of the server just in case. Then stop it.

2. Add the plugin

   Search for CoreProtect on Modrinth or download it from its official site, coreprotect.net, choosing the version that works with your server's. The .jar goes in the plugins folder.

3. Start it and check

   Once it's up, type /co status: if it replies with its version, it's already logging. The commands require being an admin (op) or the coreprotect.* permission if you use LuckPerms.

Who did it: the inspector (/co i)

/co i turns on inspector mode (and /co i again turns it off). With it on, left-clicking a block tells you who placed it and when, instead of breaking it.

Right-clicking a block shows what was broken next to it; on a chest, a furnace or a barrel, who took out and put in what; and on a door, a button or a lever, who used it last.

It's the quickest way for the typical case: you go to the hole, inspect a couple of the missing blocks and you have a name and a time.

Searching the log: /co lookup

/co lookup (or /co l) searches without changing anything. It takes filters that also work for rolling back, so it's worth trying them here first:

u: the player (u:Steve or u:Steve,Alex) · t: how far back (t:30m, t:2h, t:3d, or combined: t:1d12h) · r: the radius in blocks from where you stand (r:20) or r:#global for the whole world · a: the action type · i: only those blocks or items (i:diamond_ore) · e: everything except those (e:stone,dirt).

The most used actions: a:-block (blocks broken), a:+block (placed), a:container (chests), a:chat, a:command and a:session (joins and leaves).

/co near is a shortcut: what happened within 5 blocks around you. If the results span several pages, /co l 2 goes to the second.

/co l u:Steve t:2h a:-block
/co l i:diamond_ore t:1d a:-block
/co l r:20 t:12h a:container
/co l u:Steve t:1d a:chat
/co l r:50 t:7d a:block #summary

Undoing the griefing: /co rollback

# Everything Steve did in the last 2 hours, across the whole world
/co rollback u:Steve t:2h r:#global

# Only what they broke, within 30 blocks
/co rollback u:Steve t:2h r:30 a:-block

# What they took from nearby chests
/co rollback u:Steve t:1d r:20 a:container

# A TNT or creeper explosion
/co rollback u:#tnt,#creeper t:30m r:20

1. Stand in the area

   Without r:, a rollback only touches 10 blocks around you. Stand in the middle of the damage or give the radius (r:40). With r:#global it affects the whole world: only use it to undo everything a player did.

2. Try it with #preview

   /co rollback u:Steve t:2h r:40 #preview shows you what would change without touching anything. If it isn't what you expected, adjust the time or the radius.

3. Do it for real

   The same command without #preview. Broken blocks come back, the ones they placed are removed and, if you ask for it with a:container, the items they took go back into the chests.

4. If you overdo it

   /co undo undoes the last rollback. And /co restore with the same filters re-applies what was rolled back.

The usual mistakes

“It didn't do anything”: it's almost always the radius. Without r: it's 10 blocks from where you are; if you were far away, it touched nothing. Repeat with r: or r:#global.

“It removed someone else's stuff”: an area rollback without u: undoes everything by everyone who passed through during that time. With people building nearby, always name the player.

“Nothing from a week ago shows up”: CoreProtect only knows what happened since it was installed. For anything earlier, there's the backup.

The log grows over time. If disk space is tight, /co purge t:30d deletes anything older than 30 days (from in-game it won't let you delete anything more recent). What's purged can no longer be undone.

CoreProtect or a backup: when to use each

CoreProtect for normal griefing: one player, one area, a few hours. It undoes their actions and nobody else loses anything.

The backup, when the damage isn't from players (a plugin that breaks the world, an update gone wrong, a corrupted chunk) or when it happened before CoreProtect was installed. Restoring a backup takes the whole server back to the moment it was made.

So it doesn't happen again: a whitelist if it's for friends, land protection (GriefPrevention or WorldGuard) if it's open, and moderators with just the permissions they need instead of op for everyone. It's in the guide to protecting the server from griefers.

At NapNodes

Minecraft servers are delivered on Paper, so CoreProtect works as is: in the panel, inside the server, “Mods & plugins” searches Modrinth for what works with your version and installs it in one click. If a version doesn't show up there, upload the .jar to the plugins folder from “Files”.

The commands can be typed in the in-game chat (as op) or in the panel's “Console”, without the slash; the inspector and radius rollbacks, in-game, because they depend on where you are.

For what CoreProtect doesn't cover, in “Backups” you create and restore backups, and on paid plans the “Copia diaria automática” (the automatic daily backup) is made by itself every night. The free server has no backups: if you play on it, CoreProtect is your safety net.

Frequently asked questions