Here’s a recipe for setting up Minecraft server on OS X. Since I don’t fully trust the server not to have some security hole, I want it to run as user nobody so it doesn’t have a lot of permissions. And I also want it to restart automatically when I reboot the computer. Finally I show how to backup the worlds you create.

There’s three parts to this hint.

Oct 15, 2012  This guide is here to help you create and launch a Minecraft Craftbukkit server. Home Forums Bukkit Bukkit Help Assigning more RAM to a server GUIDE! Discussion in 'Bukkit Help' started by InhumanSkills, Jan. It will not give your actual server more ram. There is a config file for the rtoolkit thing that lets u set how much ram is. For more information on Minecraft servers, see the Server page. Don't try to set up a server unless you have some basic computer and networking abilities. Probably, your. Double-click the start.command file to start the server.

1) creating the launchDaemon that starts the minecraft server.
2) how to turn it on and off
3) maintaining backups

The first step is to download the minecraft server jar file from the Mojang website. Currently that site is https://minecraft.net/download but that might change in the future. And currently the jar filename is: minecraft_server.1.6.2.jar, but that will change too.

1) Creating a place for it. When you run the jar the first time it’s going to create a lot of files and subdirectories the in the current working directory (CWD) so we want to create a nice place to do this. It doesn’t matter where this it, but the permissions on the folder do matter. I put mine in /opt

Now if your user name is bob then move the minecraft jar into place:

and make sure the top level folder and executable are owned by root. This will assure that no one can change the jar file without root access. Since the system is going to invoke this file automatically you don’t want it changing with simple user level permissions.

Minecraft is going to run as user nobody, and it will need permission to modify the state folder contents.

2) Creating the launch daemon:

As root, create the file

U2913wm drivers for mac download. The file name is not important, but it’s tradition to name the Daemon for website that it came from. You need to create this as root or otherwise assure it’s owned by root:wheel and can be read. It’s not an executable.

The above is plist speak to tell it that it should change into the working directory where we want it to store its data, then launch the java jar with a memory size of 1G. You can adjust the values for your system if that turns out to be too much. It also tells it to run the job as the username nobody. And it will start the server when the Daemon is loaded, which happens either at boot time or if you explicitly tell the daemon to load.

The key thing here is that the paths to the “state” folder and the executable are hardcoded. You must change these paths if you set this up in a different place.

Stylish calligraphy font. 2) testing it. first make sure you have java installed. /usr/bin/java -version if java is installed then this will reply with the java version at that path. If it’s not installed OSX will usually ask you if you want to install java and then automagically do this for you.

as root, (sudo -s -) run the following: launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.minecraft.plist

test to see if it worked:

does the output include something like this:

If so then the server jar is running and is running as nobody.

If not then you made a mistake. To help diagnose this try running the command right from the command line. note, at this point you are running the server as root. This is reasonably safe, assuming you trust mojang, to do for a moment just to eliminate the permission issues. If you are nervous, disconnect your ethernet cable for a moment.

You may see some java exceptions printed in the process, but if the program stays running then it’s working. Once it stops printing stuff out, type ctrl-c to kill it. List the current directory (state) and you will see a whole bunch of files and folders have been created. So now you know the program and the paths are right. You’ll need to find the error you made. Most likely a permissions issue.

2) controlling it. to load the server by hand:

it will start when you load it the first time.

to stop the server temporarily

Here I used the name not the path. The name is one given in the plist file not the actual file name. Normally you want to make these the same for sanity sake. This command stops the server but it doesn’t remove the autostart Daemon—next boot it will start again.

to restart it after stopping:

to unload the daemon (so it won’t autostart at boot)

If you edit the plist file, you need to stop the server and unload the daemon then (re)load the daemon. Otherwise it will ignore your edits till next reboot.

3) backing up the state. from time to time you may want to back up the state of your minecraft world and the server configuration (banned-IP, whitelist, config…)

To do that:

this command will create a snapshot backup of the state of your system. This will look like a copy off the state directory tree and files. But it’s not a copy. It’s a hardlinked image. It doesn’t actually occupy any (significant) disk space unless your world is changed. The command names the new snapshot for the date and time down to the hour.

You can restore an older image to being the current state by deleting the current state folder and moving the state folder from the image folder to the minecraft working directory.

Lex adds: I haven’t tested this one.

These instructions will allow setting up Minecraft server to launch automatically when computer starts. I used Windows 8.1 Pro machine, but setting this up on different Windows versions would be very similar.

• First of all setup Minecraft server and make sure you can launch it manually.
• You could skip this step and use an existing admin account (with password enabled), but it's best security practice not to give any service more permissions than it requires.
• Create a new non-admin user account minecraft with secure password. Set password to never expire.
  
• To run scheduled task, our account will need Log on as batch job right:
• Open Local Security Policy
• Navigate to Local Policies > User Rights Assignment
• Find and open policy Log on as a batch job
• Click on Add User or Group and add your new minecraft account.
  
• Create a scheduled task:
• Open Task Scheduler and create a new task. Setup it up in a following way:
• General tab
• Click on Change User and Group and select account you created in the previous step
• Select Run whether user is logged on or not
  
• Triggers tab
• Click New and create a trigger
• Under Begin the task: select At startup
• Make sure Enabled is checked and click OK
  
• Actions tab
• Click New and create a new Start a Program type action
• In Program/script field enter:
  C:ProgramDataOracleJavajavapathjavaw.exe
  This path may be different depending on your Java installation
• In Add argument field enter your Minecraft server launch commands (as you would do in .bat file when starting the serve manually). I.e:
  -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M -d64 -jar 'C:DATAminecraft_serverminecraft_server.1.8.jar' nogui
  In this particular case we are assigning 1024MB RAM to the server on a 64bit machine. Path to the server file is in quotes, and nogui tells to launch server without GUI.
• In Start in field enter path to the directory where your server java file resides, i.e:
  C:DATAminecraft_server
  
• Conditions tab
• Clear all checkboxes
  
• Settings tab
• Check Allow task to be run on demand
• In the drop down under If the task is already running, then the following rule applies: select Do not start a new instance
  
• Now just click OK to save all changes. You will be prompted to enter your minecraft user account password.

That should be it. First run the task manually and make sure it stays running and your Minecraft server is accessible. Then restart the computer and Minecraft server should launch automatically without you even having to log-on with your user account.

If you let your computer to go into sleep mode and find that sometimes Minecraft server crashes after resuming from sleep, read this.

Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit
Minecraft Server 1.8