nsnow/minecraft-server repository overview

⁠minecraft-server

Run a minecraft spigot server in a Docker container.

Now with automated server updates and smart spigot compiling logic (see setting spigot version below).

This Dockerfile will download the Minecraft Server app and set it up, along with its dependencies.

If you run the container as is, the worlds directory will be created inside the container, which is inadvisable. It is highly recommended that you store your worlds outside the container using a mount (see the example below). Ensure that your file system permissions are correct, chown 1000:1000 mount/path, and/or modify the UID/GUID variables as needed (see below).

It is also likely that you will want to customize your server.properties file. To do this, use the -e <ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE>=<value> for each setting in the server.properties. The server.properties file will be overwritten every time the container is launched. See below for details.

⁠Run the server

Use this docker run command to launch a container with a few customized server.properties.

docker run -d -it --name=minecraft -v /opt/minecraft/world1:/home/minecraft/server -p 25565:25565/udp -p 25565:25565/tcp \
  -e "MINECRAFT_ONLINE-MODE": "true" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_ALLOW-FLIGHT": "true" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_DIFFICULTY": "normal" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_LEVEL-NAME": "minecraft" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_LEVEL-TYPE": "amplified" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_MAX-BUILD-HEIGHT": "1024" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_MOTD": "Welcome to my minecraft server" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_PLAYER-IDLE-TIMEOUT": "60" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_PVP": "false" \
  -e "MINECRAFT_EULA": "TRUE" \
  -e "SPIGOT_VERSION": "1.16.3" \
  -e "JAVA_MEMORY": "1024" \
  nsnow/minecraft-server:latest

⁠Additional Docker commands

kill and remove all docker containers

docker kill $(docker ps -qa); docker rm $(docker ps -qa)

docker logs

docker logs minecraft

attach to the minecraft server console

You don't need any rcon nonsense with docker attach!

Use ctrl+p then ctrl+q to quit.

docker attach minecraft

exec into the container's bash console

docker exec minecraft bash

NOTE: referencing containers by name is only possible if you specify the --name flag in your docker run command.

⁠Set selinux context for mounted volumes

chcon -Rt svirt_sandbox_file_t /path/to/volume

⁠Server properties and environment variables

Override the minecraft server version

By default restarting the container will pull down the latest version. However, you should version pin your spigot version, use the following environment variable override.

If you don't set a version, it can't know which version you want and will compile spigot from scratch each time. This will drastically increase your container start times.

To update, simply set the new version number and restart your container!

• SPIGOT_VERSION=latest

or

• SPIGOT_VERSION=1.16.3

NOTE: See BuildTools Install Docs⁠ for versioning info.

Set user and/or group id (optional)

• MINECRAFT_UID=1000
• MINECRAFT_GUID=1000

⁠server.properties

Use this file⁠ for the full environment variable reference.

This project uses Remco config management⁠. This allows for templatization of config files and options can be set using environment variables. This allows for easier deployments using most docker orchistration/management platforms including Kubernetes.

The remco tempate uses keys. This means you should see a string like "/minecraft/some-option" within the getv() function. This directly maps to a environment variable, the / becomes an underscore basically. The other value in the getv() function is the default value. For instance, "/minecraft/some-option" will map to the environment variable MINECRAFT_SOME-OPTION.

getv("/minecraft/some-option", "default-value")

becomes

docker run -e MINECRAFT_SOME-OPTION=my-value ...