rdall96/minecraft-server repository overview

⁠Minecraft Server - Docker

Project Repository⁠

This docker image based on Alpine Linux contains the necessary components to run a Minecraft server. The project supports the following Minecraft versions:

• Vanilla (Java) - Official site⁠
• Forge - Minecraft Forge⁠
• Fabric - Fabric MC⁠
• NeoForge - NeoForged⁠
• Quilt - Quilt Project⁠

⁠Installation

Pull the image to your local machine with:

docker pull rdall96/minecraft-server:latest

Start a new container:

docker run -d --name minecraft -p 25565:25565 -e EULA=true rdall96/minecraft-server:latest

The new server will be running at localhost:25565 or <your-ip-address-here>:25565. For access outside your home network you need to open a port on your router. It is strongly encouraged to setup DDNS (Dynamic DNS) to link your public IP to a domain name, so you don't get disconnected or loose access if your IP changes.

⁠Customization

⁠World data

You can map the container path to the world file to a local directory on your system (or a Docker volume) in order to persist the data throughout server restarts and updates on a location of your choosing. To do so, just simply add this to your docker run command: -v <host-path>:/minecraft/world.

Complete example mapping the world data to a directory on your desktop:

docker run -d --name minecraft \
    -v ~/Desktop/minecraft:/minecraft/world \
    -p 25565:25565 \
    -e EULA=true \
    rdall96/minecraft-server:latest

For modded versions of Minecraft, you will likely want to map more folders to volumes like mods folders, or other configs. All the Minecraft server files can be found in the image at /minecraft, so for example the mods folder can be found at /minecraft/mods`.

If you're setting server operators (ops), a server whitelist, and/or banning players and want to persist those configurations on your local file system, map the /minecraft/configurations directory. Here's an example with the white list enabled and the configuration mapped to a local directory:

docker run -d --name minecraft \
    -v ~/Desktop/minecraft/world:/minecraft/world \
    -v ~/Desktop/minecraft/configurations:/minecraft/configurations \
    -p 25565:25565 \
    -e EULA=true \
    -e WHITE_LIST=true \
    rdall96/minecraft-server:latest

The /minecraft/configurations directory will contain files for the JSON configurations (i.e.: whitelist.json), as well as the legacy text format (.txt). For more information consult the guide in the README that is generated in that directory upon starting the server.

⁠Server properties

There are a number of environment variables you can pass to your container in order to customize the server.properties file associated with a Minecraft server. Below is a complete list.

For more details and information regarding each of the properties above, please consult the Minecraft wiki on server properties⁠

Any of these environment variables can be passed to the docker start container command with the argument -e <NAME>=<VALUE>. If you're using a lot of these properties, you want to consider passing Docker an environment file instead. This file is stored on your system and it lists all the of properties neatly in one place. You can an environment file to Docker using the flag --env-file <file-path>.

For example, here's the contents of an environment file stored at path ~/minecraft_server/properties.env on the host computer.

EULA=true
MOTD=Hello from Docker!
DIFFICULTY=hard
MAX_PLAYERS=5
WHITELIST=true

This file can then be used to start the Minecraft server as follows:

docker run -d --name minecraft \
    -v ~/Desktop/minecraft:/minecraft/world \
    -p 25565:25565 \
    --env-file ~/minecraft_server/properties.env \
    rdall96/minecraft-server:latest

⁠Server arguments

You can specify additional Minecraft server (or mod loader) arguments by adding them to the docker command to create the container. For example, docker run rdall96/minecraft-server:latest --help, will print out all the server CLI options and quit.

⁠JVM Properties

You can customize the JVM runtime using JVM args. Add your args to the jvm_args.txt file in the server configurations directory (/minecraft/configurations in the container, or use the default mapped volume). For example, an argument you may want to specify is the maximum Java memory for the Minecraft server. i.e.: Add -Xmx8G in that file to allow the server to use up to 8GB of RAM. All arguments in this file are forwarded to the java process used to run the Minecraft server. You can add -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal to log all of the JVM parameters at startup.

⁠Issues

All users are encouraged to report any issues they might run into or suggestions that would improve the experience of using this docker container. Simply send an email to Minecraft Docker - Support⁠.