MC Wrapper v0.1.3

MC Wrapper is a simple Perl script designed to help you run a 
Minecraft Server on Linux.
See INSTALL to get started quickly or read on about how to 
configure MC Wrapper to your liking.

MC Wrapper is free software is provided to you with NO WARRANTY.
You are free to distribute and modify this program under the
terms of the GNU GPL v2.1. See the LICENSE file for details or
visit http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

Features:
 - runs minecraft without the need for an open shell or programs
   such as screen
 - forks the process and runs as a regular user
 - allows start, stop and backup of the minecraft server through
   the use of the init script
 - Allows you to set a Message of the Day
 - Configurable delay and warning so users can disconnect 
   before the server stops
 - Allows non-ops users to use the /list command
 - Ability to configure jar file name (if you're using something
   other than the default minecraft_server.jar)
 - Ability to update the server using the included update script
   (separate from the main mcwrapper.pl program)

Currently it is designed to work on Redhat and derivitives. It
has been tested extensively on CentOS 5. The Perl script itself
was also tested on Ubuntu but I've not taken the time to write
a Debian based init script. 

It should work on any Unix or Unix-like system with Perl. It 
currently won't work on Windows.

-------------------------------------------------------------
CONFIGURATION

The minecraft.config file is intended to be copied to 
/etc/sysconfig/minecraft to be read by the init file on a
Redhat-like system. However it can be sourced anywhere to set the
various environment variables used by the wrapper. 

Variables used:

MINECRAFT_HOME (required)
Set this to the path where your minecraft installation is. 
Copy the bin folder from this package to the same directory

MINECRAFT_BACKUP_DIR (default: '$MINECRAFT_HOME/backup')
Set this to the folder where you want to store backups

MINECRAFT_WORLD (default: 'world')
Set this to the folder your world files are in

JAVA (defaults to the output of `which java`)
Path to Java

JAR (default: 'minecraft_server.jar')
Name of the .jar file to start minecraft with.

TAR (defaults to the output of `which tar`)
Path to your tar program.

MINECRAFT_MOTD
A Message of the day to display to users when they log in.

MC_WRAPPER_PID (default: /var/run/mcwrapper.pid)
Path to the PID file for the wrapper. Changing this
may cause the init script to fail.

MC_SERVER_PID (default: /var/run/minecraft.pid)
Path to the PID file for the minecraft server itself. 
Changing this may cause the init script to fail.

MINECRAFT_USER (default: root)
*HIGHLY* recommended you change this to another user.
Will run the minecraft wrapper and server under the specified
username. 

MINECRAFT_SHUTDOWN_WARN (default: 5)
Number of seconds before the server will stop gracefully. The
Console will warn all users that the server is shutting down.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
USAGE

Server control:
service minecraft start | stop | restart | backup

Server Update:
cd $MINECRAFT_HOME
bin/update_minecraft.sh

MC-Wrapper Debug options:

mcwrapper.pl --console
Don't fork, send output to STDOUT

mcwrapper.pl --debug
Enables console mode and outputs debug information

-------------------------------------------------------------------
SIGNALS

MC-Wrapper can be communicated with via signals. The following 
signals are trapped and used:

SIGTERM, SIGINT, SIGHUP
All shutdown the server gracefully. In the future SIGHUP may be
used to reload configuration of the wrapper only. 

SIGUSR1
Tells the wrapper to stop world saves, force a save all and then 
backup the world files. World save will then be re-enabled.

SIGKILL cannot be trapped. If for some reason SIGKILL is issued to 
the wrapper then the actual server will keep running and you'll have
to kill it manually. To be safe use the included init script to 
control both processes. (the included init script will try to kill
the main server process if for some reason it fails to kill the 
wrapper)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
TODO
 
  - Init scripts for other distros
  - Configuration to allow other commands to be used by non-ops
  - Multi-line MOTD
  - Installer or RPM?
  - Windows support (probably not soon)
  - Anything else I think of to improve!

------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHOR

Chris Brown
<cfreak@gmail.com>

Feel free to contact me with questions, bugs, suggestions or offers
of free stuff :)