How to Install Minecraft Server on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world developed by Microsoft Studious. Minecraft is a sandbox video game and allows you to build anything you need and explore it in a 3D world. With Minecraft, you can play the game online with your friends as well as in single-player mode. Minecraft is available on a wide range of platforms including, Linux, macOS, and Windows.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install a Minecraft server on Ubuntu 18.04 server.

Requirements

• A server running Ubuntu 18.04.
• A root password is setup to your server.

Getting Started

Before starting, you will need to update your system with the latest version. You can do this by running the following command:

apt-get update -y
apt-get upgrade -y

Once your server is updated, restart your server to apply the changes.

Next, you will need to install some dependencies on your server. You can install all of them with the following command:

apt-get install git build-essential -y

Install Java

Since Minecraft is developed with Java program language. So you will need to install Java development Kit or JRE on your server. You can install Java with the following command:

apt-get install openjdk-8-jre-headless -y

Once installed, verify the Java with the following command:

java -version

You should get the following output:

openjdk version "1.8.0_222"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_222-8u222-b10-1ubuntu1~18.04.1-b10)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.222-b10, mixed mode)

Install and Configure Minecraft Server

First, you will need to create an user to run Minecraft server. You can create it with the following command:

useradd -r -m -U -d /home/minecraft -s /bin/bash minecraft

Next, login to minecraft user with the following command:

su - minecraft

Next, create a required directory for minecraft with the following command:

mkdir backups tools server

Next, change the directory to the ~/tools directory and download mcrcon from the Git repository:

cd ~/tools
git clone https://github.com/Tiiffi/mcrcon.git

Next, change the directory to mcrcon and compile the mcrcon with the following command:

cd mcrcon
gcc -std=gnu11 -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -O2 -s -o mcrcon mcrcon.c

You should see the following output:

mcrcon.c: In function ‘get_line’:
mcrcon.c:752:2: warning: ignoring return value of ‘fgets’, declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
  (void) fgets(buffer, bsize, stdin);
  ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next, change the directory to ~/server and download the latest Mojang's official vanilla Minecraft server with the following command:

cd ~/server
wget https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/3dc3d84a581f14691199cf6831b71ed1296a9fdf/server.jar

Once the download is completed, start the Minecraft server with the following command:

java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar server.jar nogui

You should get the following error:

[06:00:45] [main/ERROR]: Failed to load properties from file: server.properties
[06:00:48] [main/WARN]: Failed to load eula.txt
[06:00:48] [main/INFO]: You need to agree to the EULA in order to run the server. Go to eula.txt for more info.

To resolve this error, you need to agree to the Minecraft EULA in order to run the server.

To do so, open eula.txt file:

nano eula.txt

Change eula=false to eula=true as shown below:

eula=true

Save and close the file. Then, open the server.properties file to enable the rcon protocol and set the rcon password.

nano server.properties

Change the following lines:

rcon.port=25575
rcon.password=admin@123
enable-rcon=true

Save and close the file when you are finished. Then, exit from the Minecraft user with the following command:

exit

Create a Systemd Service File for Minecraft

Next, you will need to create a systemd service file to manage the Minecraft service. You can create it with the following command:

nano /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service

Add the following lines:

[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=/home/minecraft/server
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar server.jar nogui
ExecStop=/home/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 25575 -p admin@123 stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file. Then, reload the systemd daemon with the following command:

systemctl daemon-reload

Next, start the Minecraft service and enable it to start after system reboot with the following command:

systemctl start minecraft
systemctl enable minecraft

You can also check the status of Minecraft service with the following command:

systemctl status minecraft

You should get the following output:

? minecraft.service - Minecraft Server
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2019-10-07 06:33:32 UTC; 6s ago
 Main PID: 4318 (java)
    Tasks: 34 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/minecraft.service
           ??4318 /usr/bin/java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar server.jar nogui

Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Loading properties
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Default game type: SURVIVAL
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Generating keypair
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Starting Minecraft server on *:25565
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Using epoll channel type
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Preparing level "world"
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Found new data pack vanilla, loading it automatically
Oct 07 06:33:37 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:37] [Server thread/INFO]: Reloading ResourceManager: Default
Oct 07 06:33:38 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:38] [Server thread/INFO]: Loaded 6 recipes
Oct 07 06:33:38 ubuntu1804 java[4318]: [06:33:38] [Server thread/INFO]: Loaded 811 advancements

Test Minecraft

Minecraft server is now installed and running. It's time to test it.

Open your terminal and access the Minecraft Console with mcrcon utility as shown below:

/home/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 25575 -p admin@123 -t

Once connected, you should get the following output:

Logged in. Type "Q" to quit!
>

Congratulations! you have successfully installed and configured Minecraft server on Ubuntu 18.04 server. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.