Initscript for Minecraft servers on Ubuntu

This is a script for starting a single-world vanilla Minecraft server at boot, and comes with a bunch of other features that make maintaining a server fairly simple.

Features

• Easy interactive setup feature. (NEW in 1.3.0)
• Help command shows you all commands and their uses. (NEW in 1.3.0)
• Whitelist commands (on, off, add, remove, and display). (NEW in 1.3.0)
• Op commands (add, remove, and display). (NEW in 1.3.0)
• Choose to use a ramdisk to speed up server read/write times to the world files.
• Specify max RAM the server process should use.
• Stop, start, restart, and update the server with simple console commands.
• See who is currently connected, and all connects/disconnects since the last log-roll.
• Easily push a message to people playing on the server.
• Use Minecraft server commands without opening the server console screen.
• Automatic backups using cron jobs.
• Log-roll function to backup and clean the server.log, as a big logfile can slow down the server.

Requirements

screen, rsync

Easy Setup

New in version 1.3.0 is the ability to set up a Minecraft server in minutes!

First, install the script by placing it in /etc/init.d/ as minecraft and run these commands:

	sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/minecraft
	sudo update-rc.d minecraft defaults

Then, run:

	sudo service minecraft setup

...and follow the on-screen instructions!

IMPORTANT: After that's done, you'll have to add the cron jobs manually so that things are properly backed up on a schedule. Follow step 7 in "Manual Setup" below.

If you want full control over your setup, see "Manual Setup" below.

Manual Setup

1. Edit the script's settings to your liking, then put it in /etc/init.d/ as minecraft, set the required premissions, and set it to start at boot and stop at shutdown:

    sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/minecraft
    sudo update-rc.d minecraft defaults
   

2. Setup minecraft user and home directory:

    sudo useradd -m minecraft
   

3. Setup ramdisk (this script will not run without it):

   Create the ramdisk mount point:

    cd /home/minecraft
    sudo mkdir ramdisk
   

   Open fstab for editing with:

    sudo nano /etc/fstab
   

   ...and add the line (tab deliniated):

    tmpfs	/home/minecraft/ramdisk	tmpfs	defaults,size=512m	0	0
   

   I'm setting my ramdisk up with 512MB, which is more than enough for my 43MB total world files; you may wish to use more or less. Make sure you have enough RAM for this!

   The ramdisk will mount every time you boot. For the first time you have to mount it manually:

    sudo mount /home/minecraft/ramdisk
   

   See http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Ramdisk_enabled_server for more info on ramdisks.

4. If you haven't already, download minecraft_server.jar to /home/minecraft/server (or move it if you are applying this script to an existing server).

    sudo mkdir /home/minecraft/server
    cd /home/minecraft/server
    sudo wget 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/MinecraftDownload/launcher/minecraft_server.jar'
   

5. If you already have a world generated (and it is located, along with the rest of you server files, in /home/minecraft/server), move your world directory into /home/minecraft/server/world_storage:

    cd /home/minecraft/server
    sudo mv world world_storage/world
   

   If your world folder has a unique name, like "foo", do this instead:

    sudo mv foo world_storage/foo
   

6. Make sure permissions on ALL files and folders in /home/minecraft are owned by the minecraft user:

    cd /home
    sudo chown -R minecraft:minecraft minecraft
   

   You can check permissions on all files within a folder by cd'ing into it and using:

    ls -al
   

7. Edit crontab to do a backup at 5am and copy the world from the ramdisk every 10 minutes:

    sudo crontab -e
   

   Add these lines (tab deliniated):

    #m 	h 	dom	mon	dow	command
    05 	05 	*	*	*	/etc/init.d/minecraft backup
    00 	05 	*	*	*	/etc/init.d/minecraft log-roll
    */10 	* 	*	*	*	/etc/init.d/minecraft to-disk
   

And that should be all there is to it. Please file an Issue if you have trouble with this setup.

Usage

The script starts your server at boot and, if you added the cron jobs, will backup your worlds every day.

You can issue a command to the script by calling:

	sudo service minecraft [COMMAND]

Available commands:

• setup Interactive prompt for setting up the server with this script
• start Starts the server
• stop Stops the server
• restart Restarts the server
• backup Backups the worlds defined in the script
• full-backup Backups the entire server folder
• to-disk Copies the world from the ramdisk to world_storage
• update Fetches the latest version of $SERVICE
• log-roll Moves and gzips the logfile
• say Prints the given string to the in-game chat
• command Executes a command in-game
• connected Lists connected users
• recent Displays recently connected users
• whitelist Displays server whitelist
• whitelist-on Tells server to use whitelist (server open to only those players listed in whitelist).
• whitelist-off Tells server to NOT use whitelist (server open to all players).
• whitelist-add NAME Adds the specified player to the server whitelist
• whitelist-remove NAME Removes the specified player from the server whitelist
• ops Displays server ops
• op NAME Grants NAME operator status.
• deop NAME Revokes NAME's operator status.
• console Displays the server console screen, exit with Ctrl+A, D
• status Displays server status
• version Displays $SERVICE version and then exits
• fix-permissions Sets ownership of all files in /home/$USERNAME to $USERNAME
• help Displays this list of commands

To Do List

• Update updater for 1.6.2+
• Autodetect WORLDNAME
• Provide commands for restoring backups
• Remove backups older than a specified time period
• Add/remove from whitelist/ops when server is not running
• Automatically detect errors in java process and restart accordingly
• Only perform world backup if change has been detected (players logged in, level.dat change in size, etc)

Tested on Ubuntu 12.04.1 server; may work on other flavors of Debian