UDP Tunnels

Usage

portbuddy udp 19132

You get back a public host and port, such as net-proxy-2.portbuddy.dev:41207, and datagrams sent there are forwarded to your local socket. Unlike TCP tunnels, UDP is available on every plan.

There is no TLS and no hostname routing here — UDP carries nothing like a Host header to route on, so a tunnel is identified purely by its port. Whatever encryption or authentication your protocol has is what protects it.

Common ports

Check your server's own configuration if you have changed its port — the tunnel exposes whatever local port you name, not a fixed one.

Keeping the same address

As with TCP, the public port comes from a reservation in the range 40000–60000. One is allocated automatically the first time and reused for the same local port afterwards, so the address you gave your players tends to keep working. Pin one explicitly by name, port, or host and port:

portbuddy udp 19132 -pr my-game-server

Reservations are managed on the Ports page.

Testing and idle tunnels

UDP gives you no connection to watch, so the quickest check that traffic is flowing is to send a datagram yourself and look at your server's logs:

echo ping | nc -u net-proxy-2.portbuddy.dev 41207

A UDP tunnel that sees no traffic at all for five minutes is cleaned up, since there is no connection close to detect. A busy game server never notices; a tunnel you opened and forgot will quietly go away.

Going further

• Minecraft Bedrock Edition runs on UDP 19132 — the Minecraft guide covers both editions.
• The Hytale guide is a second worked example of exposing a game server.
• A game server should outlive your terminal session — install it as a background service.