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A MinecraftJoinRoute maps hostnames to backend game servers. The edge proxy uses the filterRules to build its hostname-to-cluster map. When a player connects, their server_address handshake field is matched against these rules and they are forwarded to the corresponding backend. spec.hostnames declares which hostnames this route is available for. The edge proxy uses this to know which incoming connections this route can handle. filterRules[].rules[].domain defines the actual routing logic: which domain patterns map connections to this route’s backends. API group: gateway.networking.minefleet.dev/v1alpha1

Example

Spec fields

parentRefs

Which Gateway listeners this route attaches to. Uses the standard Gateway API ParentReference type.

hostnames

Optional. Declares which hostnames this route is available for. The edge proxy uses this to advertise route availability. A connection can only reach this route if its handshake hostname matches one of these entries. The controller also uses this for listener attachment: a route only attaches to a listener whose hostname is compatible.
  • An exact hostname (e.g. play.example.com) is compatible with a listener whose hostname is the same value or a wildcard that covers it (e.g. *.example.com).
  • A wildcard hostname (e.g. *.example.com) is compatible with a listener whose hostname matches or is itself a wildcard with the same suffix.
When hostnames is omitted, the route attaches to all listeners that allow it by allowedRoutes. hostnames is about availability — signalling to the edge which hostnames this route handles. The actual routing logic (which domain patterns map to which backends, with what conditions) lives in filterRules. In practice, you will usually set both to the same values.

backendRefs

The game server backends to forward matching connections to. distributionStrategy.type values: Regardless of strategy, full servers (where current-players >= max-players) are always excluded from selection. If all servers in a service are full, the service is treated as unavailable. See Server Capacity.

filterRules

A list of rule sets that define which hostnames this route matches. Each rule set has a type and a list of rules. Rule set type values: MinecraftJoinFilterRule fields: At least one of domain or permission must be set per rule.

priority

An integer used by the network dataplane to order routes. Higher values take precedence. When two routes could both match a connection, the higher-priority route is evaluated first. Defaults to 0.

Domain matching

Domains are matched by the edge proxy using two strategies, tried in order:
  1. Exact matchplay.example.com matches only play.example.com.
  2. Wildcard match*.example.com matches anything.example.com but not example.com itself.
When building the edge routing table, the controller deduplicates domains and removes exact entries that are already covered by a wildcard in the same rule set.

Status

The route’s status follows the standard Gateway API RouteStatus shape with a parents list. Each parent reports an Accepted condition indicating whether the route successfully attached to the listener.
Last modified on April 29, 2026