How It Works

How It Works

Two parts

• A background service runs the Minecraft server. Your computer starts it when the snap is installed and at every boot, outside anyone's login, so logging out doesn't stop the server.
• The menu (mc-server-installer) only talks to the service. Closing it changes nothing.

Before 15.0, the server ran inside your login session. When the last login ended (closing an SSH window was enough), the system stopped everything in that session, including the server, with no warning in the log. That's why 15.0 moved it into a service.

Who can change the server

The first person to set it up becomes its owner. Other people on the computer can open the menu and watch, but changes are refused. sudo mc-server-installer.ctl set-owner user=NAME hands it over.

Safety

• The server runs as an unprivileged system user (snap_daemon), never as root.
• The only network port open is the game's own, 25565. RCON is switched off; the service talks to the server through its console.
• By default anyone at home can join. Naming players (in the setup or under Players) and switching on the whitelist limits it to them - do that before opening the server to the internet. Minecraft's own online-mode setting, on unless you change it, means only real Minecraft accounts can join.
• Downloads of the server are checked against Mojang's checksum.
• Stopping always saves the world first. If the server won't stop, it is asked again, then told to shut down (which also saves), and only forced as a last resort.

Where files are

What	Where
The server (world, settings, players)	/var/snap/mc-server-installer/common/server
Backups	/var/snap/mc-server-installer/common/backups
The service's log	sudo snap logs mc-server-installer.service

For support

mc-server-installer.ctl status prints the service's view of things. mc-server-installer.ctl --help lists the rest.