I host a Whitelisted Minecraft server and recently we've set up a domain name and connected to that using an A-Name DNS record. As of that point in time, which was about October of 2015, I've noticed a lot of random people trying to join my server. From all around the world. My whitelist doesn't let them in, but the logs show a lot of people trying to join. Earlier today I've set up a commandblock based Whitelist and disabled the one Minecraft provides to see if it were advertisement bots. This turns out to be false, but my problem is still occuring.
Are there any other server admins having this issue and if so, Have you fixed it and how? My Multicraft-chat looks a bit weird with all these random names in them.
13-02-2016 > EDIT:
After turning off the whitelist off the server and making a command-block based one, there were only 5 more joins and then it stopped. The problem is solved, however I do not know why it stopped when there was no whitelist. The whitelist is now turned on again and there is still no sign of any random requests to the server.
Best Answer
If you bought a server, it might just be that that port/ip combination was used before for someone else's server. They might still have the IP and don't know the server is down.
I wouldn't worry too much about these people. The worst that can happen is some console spam.