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Setting up a large Minecraft server

Originally published: 23 September 2016

Introduction

This is a guide on how to set up a Spigot Server on Linux using Multicraft, BungeeCord and tmux.

We're going to be using a Ubuntu 14.04 Server on AWS along with my domain name harmelodic.com so we can fiddle with domain names too.

When this will be put into production, I'll be using a Debian 8 installation but as Ubuntu 14.04 is based on Debian, I don't foresee any major changes to the setup process (with the possible exception of small configuration changes)

There will be a few occasions during this blog where I will mention configuring or doing something on your own. This is usually because I'll be doing something that involves private information or it will be so long-winded and tedious that it's not worth mentioning.
If you aren't sure of what to do in these scenarios, I'd highly recommend reading the related documentation.

AWS Instance Setup

  • Ubuntu 14.04 Server (64-bit)
  • 8GB RAM

Preparation

Add a user for minecraft stuff called minecraft and add the user to the sudo group so that it can perform sudo commands:

sudo adduser minecraft
sudo adduser minecraft sudo
su - minecraft

Setup Java 8:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer
java -version

Install Git and tmux:

sudo apt-get install git-all tmux

Download the archives we need into their own folders:

Download the BuildTools.jar and run it to get the most recent version of Spigot:

mkdir spigot
cd spigot
wget -O BuildTools.jar "https://hub.spigotmc.org/jenkins/job/BuildTools/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/target/BuildTools.jar"
sudo java -jar BuildTools.jar
cd ..

Download the BungeeCord archive:

mkdir bungee
cd bungee
wget -O BungeeCord.jar "http://ci.md-5.net/job/BungeeCord/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/bootstrap/target/BungeeCord.jar"
cd ..

Installation of Multicraft

First thing to set up is Multicraft.
Change directory to /home/minecraft/:

wget -O multicraft.tar.gz "http://www.multicraft.org/download/linux64"
sudo tar xvzf multicraft.tar.gz
cd multicraft
sudo ./setup.sh

Follow the instructions and install multicraft.

You'll have noticed in the installation instructions that we need to run install.php file.
This requires PHP and the PHP sqlite/mysql extension(s) (both of which don't come auto-installed on AWS Ubuntu Servers. This also assumes you're using a sqlite database).
Install PHP:

sudo apt-get install php5
sudo apt-get install php5-sqlite
sudo apt-get install php5-mysql
sudo apt-get install php5-mysqlnd
sudo service apache2 restart

I'm going to use MySQL as a database as it's a little easier to configure; As such I need to install MySQL server, login to the MySQL CLI and create the 2 databases needed:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo service mysql start
mysql -u root -p

then in the MySQL shell:

CREATE
DATABASE multicraft_panel;
CREATE
DATABASE multicraft_daemon;

Ensure the databases are showing up inside MySQL Server with:

SHOW
DATABASES;

Then exit out of the MySQL CLI.

Open a web browser and go to http://<your-server-ip>/multicraft/install.php (You may need to edit your AWS Security Group to allow HTTP connections)

Follow the installation process, you may need to do a little fiddling with the webserver to make sure everything on the install list succeeds!

On the last page, you'll be shown the Daemon Configuration and at the bottom your Daemon. If you don't see your Daemon, perform:

sudo /home/minecraft/multicraft/bin/multicraft start

I found a couple of issues with this.
Firstly, it failed to start the TCP server, as it was already running. I had to find the PID number of the multicraft service and then kill the service:

sudo netstat -tulpn | grep :25465
kill -9 <pid_number>

I then had an issue where it just didn't appear in the Daemon list, but seemed to start. After performing the start up command with Debug mode on:

sudo /home/minecraft/multicraft/bin/multicraft -n start

I found it couldn't connect to MySQL database as the database connection details it had in /home/minecraft/multicraft/multicraft.conf were empty.

Once the daemon appears, you can go to http://<your-server-ip>/multicraft/index.php, perform:

sudo rm /var/www/html/multicraft/install.php

And you're done!

Installation of servers/Spigot

From the Multicraft menu, you can just create your servers! But before you can actually START them, you'll need to use the most recent Spigot jar.

Thankfully in Multicraft if you go to Settings > Update Minecraft you can download, install and update versions of the Minecraft Server (including Spigot).

At the time of writing this, Minecraft and Spigot version 1.9.2 is the most recent Minecraft version. Unfortunately, Multicraft would only update Spigot to version 1.9.0 so I'm going to have to add a custom Spigot jar.

In our preparation we've already got the most recent version of Spigot generated (by running BuildTools.jar). So all we need to do is:

cp /home/minecraft/spigot/spigot-1.9.2.jar /home/minecraft/multicraft/jar/.

Now that the most recent version of spigot is multicraft, let's go back to the Multicraft panel.

Create a server and only enter the Name field. All other fields will be set to default and can later be configured.

Once the server has been created, Go to Servers and click on the server we've just created.

Go down to JAR File, select Default in the upper drop-down menu and type spigot-1.9.2.jar.
Click Save
Then, click Accept EULA
Click Save again.

Now start your server! You should be able to connect by going into Minecraft and using <your-server-ip>.

As we're going to be using BungeeCord as a front end proxy, we'll need to shutdown each server and change the port number for each server to 25566, then 25567, then 25568 and so on for each server we've setup.

Installation of BungeeCord

Ah...BungeeCord! A lot of people hate BungeeCord and complain it's too complicated.

I suspect these people don't really understand what BungeeCord is. (FYI it's just a proxy server designed to handle multiple Minecraft Servers)

As per our preparation we already have BungeeCord.jar in /home/minecraft/multicraft/bungee/. What we need to do now is generate the configuration files. To do this we need to run BungeeCord:

java -jar BungeeCord.jar

Once you see:

18:48:23 [INFO] Listening on /0.0.0.0:25577
>

Hit Ctrl+C to end BungeeCord running.
If you run ls now, you'll see we have a load of configuration files!

Open config.yml in your favourite terminal editor and configure it how you want it to run! However, I'd highly recommended setting the following things:

Under servers:, define all your servers that you're using and name them how you want. By default, you'll have one server there already called lobby:.
You'll want to define the address: for each server to localhost: with 25566, then 25567, then 25568 and so on. The default minecraft server port is 25565 but we're going to use that for BungeeCord itself. This will mean that when we do /server <server_name> in game, we can change/jump to that server! Wooo!
Speaking of which, under listeners:, define query_port: to 25565 and then define host: to 0.0.0.0:25565.

Once you've defined everything, open a tmux session called bungee, run BungeeCord then detach from the session:

tmux new -s bungee
java -jar BungeeCord.jar

Ctrl+B D

BungeeCord is now set up and running! We're done!

Installing Plugins and Worlds

If we want to install any new plugins to our server, we can either:

  • Dump and configure them in /home/minecraft/multicraft/servers/server<#>/plugins.
    or
  • FTP to our server and install them through there. (FTP Access can be found out from Servers > <server_name> > Files > FTP File Access).

If we want to install any new worlds to our server, we can either:

  • Dump and configure them in /home/minecraft/multicraft/servers/server<#>/plugins.
    or
  • FTP to our server and install them through there. (FTP Access can be found out from Servers > <server_name> > Files > FTP File Access).

For the latter (FTP) option, we'd need to install a FTP client on your server and configure it with Multicraft.

Remember you'll if you're installing a new plugin on a server you'll need to restart that server for the plugin to be registered.

Domain Name Registration

I'm going to be using AWS's Route 53 to configure DNS Registration but most DNS providers will work in a similar way.

Within a domain's hosted zone, simply create a new Record Set that is of type A.

So for me, I'm entering my harmelodic.com hosted zone and creating an A type Record Set.

Then name it your chosen subdomain (I'm going to use mc.harmelodic.com) and define the value of the Record Set to <your-server-ip>.

Create/Confirm it and you're done!

End-to-end pattern

Assuming you've done all the above, you should now have a server that maps as follows:

  1. Requests going to mc.DOMAIN.TLD are directed to your dedicated server.
  2. BungeeCord (running in a tmux session) listens at port 25565 for your normal Minecraft requests.
  3. BungeeCord redirects requests to a Multicraft managed Minecraft Server (defaulting to a lobby styled server).
  4. Each server has its own plugins and worlds.

Congratulations!