DDoSGuard is a powerful and secure plugin for Spigot/Paper 1.21+ that detects suspicious connection spikes and repeated login attempts, then automatically performs safe server-side mitigation.
Built for server owners and hosting providers who want effective protection against overloads and abuse — without network-level complexity.

Key Features
- Real-time detection — monitors connection rates per IP and identifies abnormal spikes using a moving average window.
- Safe mitigation — temporarily blocks connections or rejects suspicious IPs (progressive blocking).
- Notifications — configurable in-game broadcasts and Discord webhook alerts.
- Legally safe design — no raw packet manipulation or network flooding; operates strictly on the Minecraft server layer.
- Persistent storage — optionally saves blocked IPs to disk (`banned-ips.json`) and restores them after reboot.
- Simulation mode — safely test the system with `/ddosguard simulate ...` (no real traffic). ( soon )
- Metrics & logs — detailed console and file logging, ready for external monitoring.

Core Capabilities
- Connection rate thresholding — block IPs exceeding your configured connections per second limit.
- Spike detection — detect sudden surges in connection attempts compared to past averages.
- Progressive ban policy — repeated triggers increase the block duration (e.g., 1m → 5m → 30m).
- Whitelist support — exclude trusted IPs or proxies from detection.
- Webhook notifications — send alerts to Discord when an IP is blocked.
- Simulate command — emulate attack conditions without generating real network traffic. ( soon )

Admin Commands
/ddosguard status | Show number of tracked and blocked IPs
/ddosguard reload | Reload configuration
/ddosguard blocks | List currently blocked IPs