Notes

How To Host A DIY Minecraft Server At Home Using Docker

My oldest child recently got into Minecraft. While a lot of his friends play Bedrock Edition on an iPad or game console, my son plays the classic Java Edition on an old computer. He launches it via his terminal! ) To play with each other, I looked into running a Dockerized Minecraft server on my home server and it was easier than I expected.



A dedicated server is running



The official server distribution comes with a single Javajar. It should be simple to use. Before trying it, though, I searched for Docker images, and found a good one: itzg/minecraft-server.



You can fire up the container by using an individual docker run command or daemonize it. I prefer to keep it simple and use docker compose within my byobu session.



Here's my current docker.yml file.



There are many configuration options, but I'd like to mention two options:



Game's persistent data are stored on a volume that is mounted on the host. This lets us quickly access the files. The "WORLD" option lets you import a save created on another computer.



Connecting to the Server



After a few seconds the server is now ready to accept connections, however my clients don't seem to see it for reasons. Minecraft will be on the "Scanning for games on your local network" screen for a long time. Whatever the case you want to do, simply click "Add Server" to add it manually, and voila!



Web Map



My Minecraft knowledge is more than a decade old. But, I'm aware that third-party tools can produce an online view of the Minecraft world similar to those in Google Maps. After doing some research, it seems like Minecraft Overviewer is the prominent one these days.



While the installation of this tool is straightforward, I found an Docker file that was easier to install. This is a one-shot (not an ongoing) procedure, so we'll use docker to run:



Given read-only access to the game data created by the other container and another volume to write to, this will produce an online map using Leaflet. This directory can be symlinked to a web-served directories on the host, such as the /var/www/public_html directory, which allows easy access from any web browser.



Although it takes only just a few minutes but the results are impressive.



Makefile



Finally, as is my wont, I threw a few shortcuts in the Makefile for easy access:



Reasons You Might Want to build Dockerized Minecraft Server



Most people don't require a dedicated server. If you're just looking to play multiplayer locally and one of your computers is fairly powerful, you can simply "Open to LAN" within the game. If you're looking to play with a larger number of people outside your home, you're probably better off with a paid-for hosted server. Minecraft List could be either the official "Realms" or one of the numerous third-party options.


Read More: https://bengawan.org/