Install Minecraft Ubuntu Java
Steps needed to install Minecraft on Ubuntu
A Minecraft server will let you play online with other people. In this article, we are going to install a Minecraft server on Ubuntu 18.04. A Vultr instance with Ubuntu 18.04; Java; A non-root sudo user; At least 1GB of RAM. While Minecraft can operate on less, you may run into memory issues; Screen (optional) Before you begin. A simple installer for Minecraft - Java Edition. The original version of Minecraft! Java Edition has cross-platform play between Windows, Linux and macOS, and also supports user-created skins and mods. Includes a decade’s worth of updates, with much more to come! Supports user-created skins and mods; Compatible with Realms for Java Edition.
Install Oracle Java (Minecraft site suggests this version)
Download and Install Minecraft Client on Ubuntu Linux
Open your terminal and enter the following commands.
Download and Install Minecraft Server on Ubuntu Linux
You can find the latest release here
Run your new Minecraft server on Ubuntu Linux
Enter the following command in your terminal to start your server.
Agree to the Minecraft EULA
You need to agree to the EULA to run the server. Edit the eula.txt file and set eula=true. This will overwrite eula.txt with 'eula=true'
Update my Minecraft Server Settings
You can change the settings of your server by opening up the server.properties file.
Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time. It is a sandbox video game about placing blocks and going on adventures.
This tutorial covers the installation and configuration of the Minecraft Server on Ubuntu 18.04. We’ll use Systemd to run the Minecraft server and the mcrcon utility for connecting to the running instance. We’ll also show you how to create a cron job that performs regular server backups.
The same instructions apply for Ubuntu 16.04 and any Ubuntu based distribution, including Linux Mint and Elementary OS.
Prerequisites
The user you are logged in as must have sudo privileges to be able to install packages.
Install the packages required to build the mcrcon tool:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install git build-essential
Installing Java Runtime Environment
Minecraft requires Java 8 or greater. Because the Minecraft Server doesn’t need a graphical user interface, we’ll install the headless version of the JRE. This version is more suitable for server applications since it has less dependencies and uses less system resources.
The installation of Java is pretty simple. Start by updating the package index:
Install the headless OpenJRE 8 package by running:
sudo apt install openjdk-8-jre-headless
Verify the installation by printing the java version:
openjdk version “1.8.0_191”
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_191-8u191-b12-0ubuntu0.18.04.1-b12)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.191-b12, mixed mode)
Creating Minecraft User
For security purposes, Minecraft should not be run under the root user. We will create a new system user and group with home directory /opt/minecraft that will run the Minecraft server:
sudo useradd -r -m -U -d /opt/minecraft -s /bin/bash minecraft
We are not going to set password for this user. This is good security practice because this user will not be able to login via SSH. To change to the minecraft user you’ll need to be logged in to the server as root or user with sudo privileges.
Installing Minecraft on Ubuntu
Before starting with the installation process, make sure you switch to minecraft user.
Run the following command to create three new directories inside the user home directory:
mkdir -p ~/
- The backups directory will store your server backup. You can later synchronize this directory to your remote backup server.
- The tools directory will be store the mcrcon client and the backup script.
- The server directory will contain the actual Minecraft server and its data.
Downloading and Compiling mcrcon
RCON is a protocol that allows you to connect to the Minecraft servers and execute commands. mcron is RCON client built in C.
We’ll download the source code from GitHub and build the mcrcon binary.
Start by navigating to the ~/tools directory and clone the Tiiffi/mcrcon repository from GitHub using the following command:
cd ~/tools && git clone https://github.com/Tiiffi/mcrcon.git
When the cloning is finished, switch to the repository directory:
Start the compilation of the mcrcon utility by typing:
gcc -std=gnu11 -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -O2 -s -o mcrcon mcrcon.c
Once completed, you can test it by typing:
The output will look something like this:
Usage: mcrcon [OPTIONS]… [COMMANDS]…
Sends rcon commands to minecraft server.
Option:
-h Prints usage.
-s Silent mode. Do not print data received from rcon.
-t Terminal mode. Acts as interactive terminal.
-p Rcon password. Default: “”.
-H Host address or ip.
-P Port. Default: 25575.
-c Do not print colors. Disables bukkit color printing.
Individual commands must be separated with spaces.
Example:
mcrcon -c -H 192.168.1.42 -P 9999 -p password cmd1 “cmd2 with spaces”
minecraft rcon (mcrcon) 0.0.5.
Report bugs to tiiffi_at_gmail_dot_com.
Downloading Minecraft Server
There are several Minecraft server mods like Craftbukkit or Spigot that allows you to add features (plugins) on your server and further customize and tweak the server settings. In this tutorial we will install the latest Mojang’s official vanilla Minecraft server.
The latest Minecraft server’s Java archive file (JAR) is variable for download from the Minecraft download page.
At the time of writing, the latest version is 1.13.2. Before continuing with the next step you should check the download page for a new version.
Run the following wget command to download the Minecraft jar file in the ~/server directory:
wget https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/3737db93722a9e39eeada7c27e7aca28b144ffa7/server.jar -P ~/server
Configuring Minecraft Server
Once the download is completed, navigate to the ~/server directory and start the Minecraft server:
cd ~/server
java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -d64 -jar server.jar nogui
When you start the server for the first time it executes some operations and creates the server.properties and eula.txt files and stops.
[03:33:56] [main/INFO]: Loaded 0 recipes
[03:33:56] [main/INFO]: Loaded 0 advancements
[03:33:56] [Server thread/INFO]: Starting minecraft server version 1.13.2
[03:33:56] [Server thread/INFO]: Loading properties
[03:33:56] [Server thread/WARN]: server.properties does not exist
[03:33:56] [Server thread/INFO]: Generating new properties file
[03:33:56] [Server thread/WARN]: Failed to load eula.txt
[03:33:56] [Server thread/INFO]: You need to agree to the EULA in order to run the server. Go to eula.txt for more info.
[03:33:56] [Server thread/INFO]: Stopping server
[03:33:56] [Server thread/INFO]: Saving worlds
[03:33:56] [Server Shutdown Thread/INFO]: Stopping server
[03:33:56] [Server Shutdown Thread/INFO]: Saving worlds
As you can see from the output above we need to agree to the Minecraft EULA in order to run the server. Open the eula.txt file and change eula=false to eula=true:
~/server/eula.txt
#By changing the setting below to TRUE you are indicating your agreement to our EULA (https://account.mojang.com/documents/minecraft_eula).
#Thu Dec 27 03:33:56 PST 2018
eula=true
Close and save the file.
Next, we need to edit the server.properties file to enable the rcon protocol and set the rcon password. You can use this settings to connect to the Minecraft server using the mcrcon tool.
nano ~/server/server.properties
~/server/server.properties
rcon.port=23888
rcon.password=strong-password
enable-rcon=true
Do not forget to change the strong-password to something more secure. Alternatively you can specify another port.
If you dont want to connect to the Minecraft server from remote locations make sure the rcon port is blocked by your firewall.
While here, you can also adjust the server’s default properties. For more information about the possible settings visit the server.properties page.
Creating Systemd Unit File
To run Minecraft as a service we will create a new Systemd unit file.
Switch back to your sudo user by typing exit.
Open your text editor and create a file named minecraft.service in the /etc/systemd/system/:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service
Paste the following configuration:
/etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service
[Unit]
Description=Minecraft Server
After=network.target
[Service]
User=minecraft
Nice=1
KillMode=none
SuccessExitStatus=0 1
ProtectHome=true
ProtectSystem=full
PrivateDevices=true
NoNewPrivileges=true
WorkingDirectory=/opt/minecraft/server
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar server.jar nogui –noconsole
ExecStop=/opt/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 23888 -p strong-password stop
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Modify the Xmx and Xms flags according to your server resources. The Xmx flag defines the maximum memory allocation pool for a Java virtual machine (JVM), while Xms defines the initial memory allocation pool. Also make sure that your are using the correct rcon port and password.
Save and close the file and notify systemd that we created a new unit file:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Now you can start the Minecraft server by executing:
sudo systemctl start minecraft
The fist time you start the service it will generate several configuration files and directories including the Minecraft world.
Check the service status with the following command:
sudo systemctl status minecraft* minecraft.service – Minecraft Server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-12-27 04:52:51 PST; 3s ago
Main PID: 15997 (java)
Tasks: 552 (limit: 2319)
CGroup: /system.slice/minecraft.service
`-15997 /usr/bin/java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar server.jar nogui –noconsole
If there are no errors enable the Minecraft service to be automatically started at boot time:
Install Minecraft Java Server Ubuntu
sudo systemctl enable minecraft
Adjusting Firewall
If your server is protected by a firewall and you want to access Minecraft server from the outside of your local network you need to open port 25565.
To allow traffic on the default Minecraft port 25565 type the following command:
Configuring Backups
In this section we’ll create a backup shell script and cron job to automatically backup the Minecraft server.
Start by switching to minecraft user:
Open your text editor and create the following file:
nano /opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh
Paste the following configuration:
/opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh
#!/bin/bash
function rcon {
/opt/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 23888 -p strong-password “$1”
}
rcon “save-off”
rcon “save-all”
tar -cvpzf /opt/minecraft/backups/server-$(date +%F_%R).tar.gz /opt/minecraft/server
rcon “save-on”
## Delete older backups
find /opt/minecraft/backups/ -type f -mtime +7 -name ‘*.gz’ -delete
Save the file and make it executable:
chmod +x /opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh
Next, create a cron job that will run once in a day automatically at a fixed time.
Open the crontab file by typing:
To run the backup script every day at 23:00 paste the following line:
0 23 * * * /opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh
Accessing Minecraft Console
To access the Minecraft Console you can use the mcrcon utility. The syntax is as follows, you need to specify the host, rcon port, rcon password and use the -t switch which enables the mcrcon terminal mode:
/opt/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 23888 -p strong-password -tLogged in. Type “Q” to quit!
>
To access the Minecraft Console from a remote location make sure the rcon port is not blocked.
Install Minecraft Java Free
If you are regularly connecting to the Minecraft console, instead of typing this long command you should create a bash alias.
Conclusion
You have successfully installed Minecraft server on your Ubuntu 18.04 system and setup a daily backup.
If you hit a problem or have feedback, leave a comment below.
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