Notes

How To Make A Minecraft Server

We will show you how to create a Minecraft server using easy-to-follow steps. It will be a persistent multiplayer server you can play with your friends from around the globe. You don’t have to be connected to a LAN.



How to Make a Minecraft Server - Quick Guide



If you're in a rush and want the main points quickly, this is our table of contents. We recommend that you read everything.



Learn stuff (optional) Learn more stuff (optional) Requirements (required) Install and start the Minecraft server (required) Run the server even after you log out of your VPS (optional) Make the server automatically start at boot (optional) Configure your Minecraft server (required) FAQs (optional) Need specialized managed Minecraft server hosting? Host Havoc offers a coupon for server hosting.



Before you get to the instructions, here are some things you should know.



Reasons why you would NOT use a specialized Minecraft server hosting provider



Since you're here, you're obviously interested in hosting your own Minecraft server. There are many reasons why you wouldn't use a specialized Minecraft server hosting provider. Here are a few.



They are slow most of the times. This is because you actually share the resources with multiple users. It eventually gets overloaded. They also oversell their servers. You don't have full control over the Minecraft server or the actual server. You can't modify anything. You're limited. These types of hosting plans are always limited.



There are many positives to using a Minecraft host. The best part is that you don’t have actually to do the stuff we’ll discuss below. But where is the fun in that?



Why you should NOT use your personal computer to make a Minecraft server



There are many tutorials that show you how to host your own server. However, there are some downsides to this:



DDoS attacks are not possible if your home internet infrastructure is not secure enough. DDoS attacks are a common problem with game servers. Your home internet setup is likely not strong enough to protect them. It is unlikely to be powerful enough to withstand a small attack. Port forwarding will be required. If you've tried making a Minecraft server on your home network, you've surely stumbled upon port forwarding and had issues with it. You will need to keep your computer plugged in at all times. Your electricity bill will sky-rocket and you'll add unnecessary load to your hardware. The hardware most servers use is enterprise-grade and designed to handle loads, with improved stability and longevity. Your home internet may not be fast enough. Multiplayer games are not possible on home networks. You'll need a much larger internet plan to even consider making a small server. Data centers have several high-speed, enterprise grade internet connections. This ensures they have (or attempt to have) 100% availability. Your hardware is probably not good enough. Servers use enterprise-grade hardware with the latest and fastest CPUs, SSDs, as well as other features. Most likely, your personal computers does not. - Most likely you use Windows/MacOS for your personal computer. While this is debatable we believe Linux is better than Windows for game hosting. Don't worry, you don't really need to know everything about Linux to make a Minecraft server (though it's recommended). We will teach you everything.



Our tip is not using your personal computer, even though technically it can. It's not expensive to buy a cloud server. We'll show you how to make a Minecraft server on cloud hosting below. It's simple if you follow the steps.



How to make a Minecraft server - Requirements



There are some requirements. Before you can continue to the tutorial, you should be familiar with all of these requirements.



A Linux cloud server is required. Linode is our recommendation. Their prices are very affordable, the services are excellent, and the customer support is outstanding. Also, the server hardware is of high quality. Check the Minecraft server requirements to find out what kind of server you should get (resources like RAM and Disk space). We recommend the $20 per-month server. They offer hourly pricing, so if you need the server temporarily for playing with friends, it will cost you less. Sign up with Ubuntu 22.04. Choose the closest server location to where your players live during the signup process. Your server will be your responsibility. It is your responsibility to secure and manage the server. If you don't want to do that, you can get a managed server, in which case the hosting provider will likely make a Minecraft server for you. To connect to the Linux cloud servers, you'll need an SSH Client. For beginners, PuTTy can be a good choice. We also recommend MobaXTerm. There are many other SSH clients to choose from, so pick your favorite. You will need to set your server up (basic security setup at minimum). You can Google it to find many tutorials. Linode Security Guide is available. Follow the exact steps to install Linode on your Linode servers. - We'll take care of Java software requirements.



Lastly, let's get to the point:



How to Make a Minecraft Server on Ubuntu (Linux)



These instructions were written and tested on Linode's Ubuntu 22.04 server. These instructions are compatible with Ubuntu 20.04 or Ubuntu 18.04 servers from Linode.



We are using Minecraft's vanilla server default. You can use alternatives like CraftBukkit or Spigot that allow more customizations and plugins. However, too many plugins can cause server problems. Each plugin has its pros and cons. To keep things simple for beginners, these instructions are for Vanilla's default server. If there is interest, we might publish a tutorial for CraftBukkit very soon.



Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to make a Minecraft server:



1. Login to your server



We'll use the root user. If you use a limited-user, you'll have to execute most commands with 'sudo'. If you are doing something you don’t have enough permissions to do, you’ll be warned.



You can log into your server using your SSH client. Use your server IP and your port (most likely 22).



After you log in, make sure you secure your server.



2. Update Ubuntu



You should always first update your Ubuntu before you do anything else. You can update it with the following commands:



Hit "enter" and/or "y" when prompted.



3. Install the required tools



For this tutorial, you will need some packages and tools to do various things like text editing, making your server persistant, etc. The following command will install them:



Some of these may be in place already.



4. Download Minecraft Server



First, create a directory where you'll store your Minecraft server and all other files:



Go to the new directory.



Now you can download Minecraft Server. Go to the download site and find the link. Use wget to download the file



5. Install the Minecraft server



Once you have downloaded the server.jar file, you will need to run it once. It will generate several files, including an eula.txt licensing file. It will return an error when it runs the first time. This is what you expect. Run in with the following command:



"-Xms2048M" is the minimum RAM that your Minecraft server can use and "-Xmx3472M" is the maximum. This can be adjusted based on the server's resources. Linode provided a 4GB RAM server. You can leave them as is if you do not intend to use the server for any other purposes than Minecraft.



After that command ends and returns an error, a new eula.txt file will be generated. You will need to accept that license. You can do that by adding "eula=true" to the file with the following command:



You can now start the server again and access the Minecraft server console with that same java command from before:



Make sure you're in the /opt/minecraft directory, or the directory where you installed your MC server.



If you are just testing it and only need it for a short-term, you can stop here. If you are having trouble connecting to the server, configure your firewall.



It will take a little longer to start the server the first time it is started successfully.



We'll show how to create a script and then you can launch the server from it.



6. Start the Minecraft server with a script, make it persistent, and enable it at boot



To make things simpler, we will create a bash shell script that will automatically start the server.



First, create a bash-script with nano



A new (blank) file will open. Copy the following:



If you are new to nano, you can save the file and close it by pressing CTRL + X, then "Y", before hitting enter. This script navigates to your Minecraft server directory you created previously and runs the java command for starting the server. This command will make it executable.



You can then start the server at any time by using the following command:



Start a screen session with this command:



Once you're in the screen mode (seems like you would open a new ssh server), you can run the bash script from an earlier session to start the server.



To exit the screen session, press CTRL + A+D. The server will continue running even after you exit the screen (detach) session. You can safely log off your Ubuntu server now, and the Minecraft server you created will keep running.



Open the /etc/rc.

Local file:

Add the following line to the top of the "exit 0," line:



To access the Minecraft server console, just run the following command to attach to the screen session:



This is it for now. Congratulations and have fun! You can now connect to your Minecraft server or configure/modify it.



Configure your Ubuntu Server



You will need to set-up your Ubuntu server and make sure it is secure. For more information, please refer to the guide that we have provided. The configurations you need to do for your Minecraft server on your Ubuntu server are:



Enable and configure the firewall



First, if UFW is not enabled, you need to enable it.



You should allow the default Minecraft server port:



You should allow or deny other rules depending upon how you use your server. You should deny ports like 80 and 443 if you don't use the server for hosting websites. minecraft servers You can find recommendations for UFW/Firewall guides for Ubuntu by searching Google. Be careful when setting your firewall. You may be locked out of your server by blocking the SSH port.



This port is the default port and it is often automatically scan for malware and attacked. You can prevent attacks by blocking anyone from accessing your whitelist.



First, you must enable the whitelist option in your server.properties. To do this, you need to open the file:



Change the "white list" line to "true".



Save and close the file.



You can then restart your server either by restarting Ubuntu or by running the start Bash script again



Access the Minecraft server console:



To allow someone to join your server you must add them to the whitelist by using this command:



To remove them from your whitelist, please use:



CTRL + A+D will close the screen session (server console). It is important that you do not allow access to anyone except those whitelisted usernames.



How to Make a Minecraft Server - FAQs



We'll answer some frequently asked questions about Minecraft Servers and our guide.



How do I restart the Minecraft server?



If you've followed the tutorial to enable the server to start at boot, you can reboot your Ubuntu server. If you didn't set it up to start at boot, you can just run the start script again which will restart the Minecraft server:



How do I configure my Minecraft server?



The server.properties file can be used to configure your server. You can refer to the Minecraft Wiki for more information.



The server console allows you to modify the game mode, difficulty, and other parameters. You can access the server console by running



There, execute commands. Commands like:



Depending on which command you used, the server may need to be restarted. There are many other commands you can use. Check the wiki for more.



How do I upgrade my Minecraft server?



If you have a new release, it is important to update.



Navigate the minecraft directory



Download the most recent version with wget (like in the first step of the tutorial).



Next, run and build the new server:



Finally, update your start script:



Also, update the version number in accordance with:



You can now restart the server, and everything should work as it should.



Why is your Minecraft server tutorial so long, and yet others are only 2 lines long? !



We tried to make it as easy as possible for beginners and as detailed as possible. We also showed you how to make the Minecraft server persistent and start it automatically at boot, we showed you how to configure your server and everything. I mean, sure, you can start a Minecraft server with a couple of lines, but it would definitely suck, for more than one reason.



I don't know Linux or anything you wrote about here, how do I make a Minecraft server?



Just read all of our article and copy and paste the commands. If you don’t know how to do anything, we can help or you can just hire a managed service provider and let them do it.



How do you install mods on your server? How do I install plugins?



Our article is intended to be a starting guide. You can read the Minecraft wiki for additional information or just Google it. There are many tutorials available online.


Homepage: https://minecraft-servers.live/