Your Own Minecraft Server on a Linode VPS

Running Minecraft Server on a Linode Debian Instance If you are having issues following the official minecraft wiki then you are not alone - I found it much too generic and could not get the 'init.d' startup script to work. Following is a step by step guide to quickly set up your on game server running on Debian/Ubuntu distribution.

Install Java We are going to install OpenJDK which for all intents and purposes is equivalent to Sun java but without licensing issues. Execute below commands under root or using sudo.

# aptitude update # aptitude install openjdk-6-jre-headless

Download and Install Minecraft Server We are going to download and install into '/usr/local/minecraft' as per the Debian FilesystemHierarchyStandard.

# mkdir /usr/local/minecraft # cd /usr/local/minecraft/ # wget ht

tp://dl.bukkit.org/latest-rb/craftbukkit.jar

We are installing the bukkit minecraft version rather then the vanilla one, it is fully comptabible with the vanilla server but lets your run plugins to effectivley manage your server

Server Settings Create the minecraft servers .properties file. I suggest you at least modify the 'motd', and 'level-seed' so that your world is a little personal to you.

# cd /usr/local/minecraft/

# nano server.properties

#Danols Minecraft Server propertiesallow-nether=truelevel-name=worldenable-query=false allow-flight=false server-port=25565 level-type=DEFAULT enable-rcon=falselevel-seed=Artomix #ht

tp://seedhunter.blogspot.com/2012/03/jungle-island.html

server-ip= max-build-height=256

spawn-npcs=true white-list=false spawn-animals=true online-mode=true pvp=truedifficulty=3Gamemode=0

max-players=6spawn-monsters=truegenerate-structures=trueview-distance=10motd=you must survive

Automatic Startup Compared that what is posted on the Minecraft Wiki the below is a simple startup script using Debians/Ubuntus start-stop-deamon utility, it does not have the update server, or run file system in memory option; in my opinion Java+Linux do a good job system caching on demand and any speeds from running in memory

The server is run under user 'minecraft-server' and group 'daemon' to increase security - this account and group is created as follows:

# useradd --home-dir /usr/local/minecraft-server --no-create-home -g daemon --shell /bin/false minecraft-server

# groupadd daemon

Create the startup script as follows

# cd /etc/init.d/

# touch minecraft-server

# chmod +x minecraft-server

Paste the following code into the script and make sure to modify the DAEMON_ARGS setting to reflect your memory allocation.

#!/bin/bash### BEGIN INIT INFO# Provides: minecraft_server# Required-Start: $local_fs $remote_fs $network# Required-Stop: $local_fs $remote_fs $network# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5# Default-Stop: 0 1 6# Description: Minecraft server debian init script.

# You can use this as a template or symbolic link it into `/etc/init.d` on Debian system

# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script

PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/binDESC="Minecraft Server"NAME=minecraft_server.jarSCREENNAME=minecraft-server # the session screen game givenDAEMON="/usr/bin/screen"DAEMONUSER=minecraft-serverDAEMONGROUP=daemon# the -Xincgc options enable incremental garbage collector which

slows # execution but makes more memory efficient.

DAEMON_ARGS="-DmS $SCREENNAME java -Xincgc -Xms32M -Xmx304M -jar /usr/local/minecraft-server/$NAME nogui"

# Lowest memory limit used was about 80M on fresh start.# For screen we use `-DmS` instead of -dmS since -D doesn't

detach the screen so our pid# file created by start-stop-deamon is correct. PIDFILE=/usr/local/minecraft-server/$NAME.pidSCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME# Exit if the package is not installed#[ -f "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0# Read configuration variable file if it is present[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] &&. /etc/default/$NAME

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables. /lib/init/vars.sh# Define LSB log_* functions.# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is

present.. /lib/lsb/init-functions# Function that starts the daemon/service# do_start()

Activate the startup script and start the server by executing the following commands:

# update-rc.d minecraft-server defaults# /etc/init.d/minecraft-server start