This page contains information about hosting your own Minecraft server.

The official Minecraft Wiki has a detailed instruction page concerning how to install a Minecraft server on Windows, Linux, or Mac.  The link is included here rather than reinventing the wheel, but there are some addendums.

1. Check your school's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).  Minecraft can be played using a web browser, but the server is additional software.  You may need permission before installing it (not to mention changing ports) on a school computer.
2. If you are unable (or unwilling) to install the server on your own computer or a school's computer, you can rent server space from a number of providers.  Servercraft.co  and minecraftserverhost.net offer dedicated Minecraft servers, but you can also install it on a Virtual Private Server, or VPS.  Dreamhost is one of the more common web hosts out there that offers this service.  Keep in mind that the less RAM you have free on your server the more performance issues you will encounter.

Related Notes:

In Pender County Schools we will be hosting a virtualized Minecraft server on our district's local network.  It looks as though we'll be running Linux/Ubuntu and will be starting with about 3GB of available RAM.  Once this is running and we begin to test it, we'll add additional technical notes. 

Minecraft Server Setup Guide - Mac Version

As of November, 2011, Pender County Schools is hosting our own Minecraft server using a Mac Mini with OS X Lion Server.   We are now running CraftBukkit because of the extensive support for plugins.  Setting up a CraftBukkit server with Mac was really easy.  Instructions are here:  http://wiki.bukkit.org/Setting_up_a_server   

For a more teacher-friendly interface, take a look at the custom mod being developed at Minecraftedu.com.

Once our server was installed and running, we assigned a static IP address to it and even gave it a simple DNS name so it would be easily accessible by our youngest learners.

Minecraft Server Setup Guide - Ubuntu Version

This is a guide, designed by one of our district technicians, Loren Macon, explaining how he set up and configured the internal server that we are using to host our Minecraft world using a re-purposed web filter (oh, the irony...), Ubuntu, and the standard Minecraft server software.

This Guide will give step by step instructions for installing a locally hosted, private, Minecraft Server in a Linux Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 environment. 

Hardware Requirements

                First let me give you some basic need to know info about the required hardware on your server. The two most important aspects of your server are the amount of memory (Ram) and the speed of the Processor (CPU).

The amount of memory your server has determines how large your game world can be. Memory also determines how many people can login to the server at once. Each user logged into the server usually takes up about 30MB of memory. The best way to determine your memory requirements is to use this formula (OS+W+U=RAM).  “OS” is the memory used by your server “generally 512MB”. “W” is the memory for your world “100MB is a good amount”. “U” is the amount of users that will connect to the server multiplied by 30MB. When you add these numbers together you will get the minimum amount of memory your server should have.

Minecraft is Very Processor intensive. If you are planning on using a single core processor the clock speed should be at least 3.5GHz, 2.5GHz for a dual core and 1.8GHZ for a quad core. The main aspect of the game that is CPU intensive is the generating of blocks. The CPU has to work the most when a player is first loading into the game or when a player dies and re-spawns. If you notice that the CPU in your system is not adequate there is not much that can be done to increase the performance of the CPU in Minecraft besides simply upgrading the CPU in your server.

Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 Setup

                Once you have your server picked out it is time to install Ubuntu. The latest version can be found at www.ubuntu.com. Copy the file ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso to a CD to USB stick and start the install. Install the server with default setting and create a user account and admin password. Once Ubuntu has been installed it will prompt for a restart.

Installing Minecraft_Server

                Now it is time to install the Minecraft Server. Click Places at the top the screen and open the Home folder. In the Home folder make a folder named “minecraft” Go to Minecraft.net and download the minecraft_server.jar file at the very bottom of the page. Move this file from the “Downloads” folder into the “minecraft” folder.  Before the file in run you need to check your available memory so you know how much to allocate for the minecraft server.

Open up a Terminal window from Applications>Accessories>Terminal.  Once it is open type “free –m”

We are looking for the second number under “free” in this case “2511” this is the amount, in MB, of physical memory that your server currently has free. Write this number down. I the same terminal window type “cd minecraft” now type “java –Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar” this script will launch the minecraft server with 1GB of pre allocated memory. Change “1024” to the amount of memory you would like for your server to start with. If you server is only used for minecraft make this number equal to your server memory requirements, this was “W+U” from the earlier equation. Save this line in a text document for now, so you don’t have to type it every time you want to start the server.

                Now we can start the minecraft server. Open a Terminal window and type “cd minecraft” to move to the minecraft directory that is in your home directory. Once there copy the command you saved earlier, with your modified memory values, into the terminal and press enter. This will start the minecraft server. You will notice that several errors appear. Do not be alarmed these always appear the first time you start the server. The server is telling you that it is missing certain required files. Since they are not there it will create default versions of the files.

Configuring Your Minecraft Server

                You now have several new files in your minecraft directory. The file we are going to look at now is named “server.properties”. Right click this file and click open with text editor.  You should see this text.

#Minecraft server properties

#Thu Mar 31 20:05:08 CDT 2011

level-name=world

hellworld=false

spawn-monsters=true

online-mode=true

spawn-animals=true

max-players=20

server-ip=

pvp=true

level-seed=

server-port=25565

white-list=false

These are all the settings for the server. I will not cover each setting in this Guide, but a list of these setting as well as others can be found at http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Server.properties.

One thing that needs to be noted about these settings is that in order to apply the changes you make you need to restart the server. The first value we will change is “server-ip”. This value needs to be set to the local IP address of your server. The next item we will modify is “max-players”. Set this number to the amount of players your server can handle biased on your RAM. The last setting we will modify is “spawn-monsters”. Depending on the age of the people playing on your server or the type of game play you may want to change this to no. The monsters can be a nuisance, but they also add a great survival element to the game.

 Once you have your server configured how you would like it, the server now needs to be restarted. Type “stop” in the server console, then start the server again using the command you saved the text document.

There you have it! Now your server is up and going players can connect using your servers IP. Also I would recommend getting a clever DNS entry made for your server so users do not have to remember the IP.