Tom McKeesick

20220518 Minecraft

This article contains some handy tips and tricks around running Minecraft clients and servers, particularly in Linux

20220518 Minecraft

Client

Installing Java for client

Linux

Download the openjdk jre

 # debian-based
 ☯ ~ sudo apt install default-jre default-jre-headless
 # arch-based
 ☯ ~ sudo pacman -S jre-openjdk jre-openjdk-headless

Make sure $JAVA_HOME is set in your environment

For linux, this can be set in your /etc/environment file

  ☯ ~ echo "/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-amd64/" | sudo tee -a /etc/environment

If you installed the openjdk jre, you should be able to find your $JAVA_HOME with this command

  ☯ ~ find /usr/lib/jvm/ -iname java-1?-openjdk | sort | tail -1
  /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-amd64

You can combine the two commands to make this fully automatic, but it’s usually good to check things as you go when doing for the first time

  echo $(find /usr/lib/jvm/ -iname java-1?-openjdk | sort | tail -1) | sudo tee -a /etc/environment

M1 OSX

Download the openjdk jre

 # m1 osx
 ☯ ~ arch -arm64 brew install openjdk

Set up Java in your environment

This command comes from the output of the homebrew install, and seems to be needed to make minecraft work
```
 # For the system Java wrappers to find this JDK, symlink it with
 ☯ ~ sudo ln -sfn /opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk/libexec/openjdk.jdk /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk.jdk
```
Make sure that the openjdk bin directory is in your $PATH
You may use .zshrc/.bashrc or whatever else in place of the .bash_profile if you prefer
```
 ☯ ~ echo 'export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk/bin:$PATH"' >> $HOME/.bash_profile
```

Locations

$HOME/.minecraft/shaderpacks/1.18.2/
$HOME/.minecraft/mods/--

Mods & Shaders

There isn’t a way to fully automate the download of mods & shaders, as curseforge.com the site that normally hosts the files doesn’t host files at static URLS.

One bit of advice would be - for each major version of the minecraft client that you use, download all of the jars and store them in a “backup” location that you can use later if needed.

Mods - Recommendations

These links will trigger the “latest” download for each tool

The Fabric API is a tool that loads mods for your minecraft client. This means that you’ll need to use “fabric” mods if you look into installing others

Generic install link pages

Fabric Loader
Fabric API
Litematica (creates/loads schematic overlays)
- MaLiLib (dependency of Litematica)
MiniHUD (customise the F3 screen)
Tweakeroo (item placement)
Starlight (light engine optimisations)
OptiFabric (allows you to run OptiFine & Fabric together)

Latest install links (1.19.2)

Fabric Loader
Fabric API
Litematica (creates/loads schematic overlays)
- MaLiLib (dependency of Litematica)
MiniHUD (customise the F3 screen)
Tweakeroo (item placement)
Starlight (light engine optimisations)
OptiFabric (allows you to run OptiFine & Fabric together)

If you want to get fancy, you can use your browser to download these all simultaneously

replace firefox with your browser if you need
add/remove links as you like
paste all lines into your terminal and hit enter!

firefox https://maven.fabricmc.net/net/fabricmc/fabric-installer/0.11.0/fabric-installer-0.11.0.jar &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/fabric-api/download/3921681 &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/litematica/download &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/malilib/download &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/minihud/download &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/tweakeroo/download &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/starlight/download &
firefox https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/optifabric/download &

wait

Mods - Installation

Move all of the jars into your mods folder

 cd $HOME/Downloads
 mv -v \
   fabric-api*jar litematica*jar malilib*jar minihud*jar tweakeroo*jar starlight*jar optifabric*jar \
   $HOME/.minecraft/mods

Install fabric API

 cd $HOME/Downloads
 java -jar fabric-installer-*.jar

If you have optifine, you can install that too using java

cd $HOME/Downloads
java -jar preview_OptiFine_1.19_HD_U_H8_pre1.jar

Notes

In order for OptiFabric to work, you’ll need to move the optifine jar file to ~/.minecraft/mods after installing it. This isn’t usually required for optifine to work, but is required by OptiFabric

Recommendations - Shaders

Server

Docker

use itzg/minecraft-server

Using this awesome docker image, you can specify the VERSION of your server, and also optionally use FABRIC for installing server-side datapacks/mods

docker pull itzg/minecraft-server:latest

docker run \
  -d \
  --name mc \
  --restart=unless-stopped \
  -p 25565:25565 \
  -P 25575:25575 \
  -e VERSION=1.19 \
  -e TYPE=FABRIC \
  -e EULA=TRUE \
  -v $HOME/.minecraft-server/:/data \
  itzg/minecraft-server:latest

mcrcon

mcrcon is a cli tool that you can use for admin control over your server

https://github.com/Tiiffi/mcrcon

Install using:

git clone https://github.com/Tiiffi/mcrcon.git
cd mcrcon
make
sudo make install

You can then connect a mcrcon session using these parameters:

0.0.0.0 for the hostname of the docker container
25575 as the mcrcon port
minecraft as the default server password

 ☯ ~ mcrcon -H 0.0.0.0 -P 25575 -p minecraft
Logged in. Type 'quit' or 'exit' to quit.
>worldborder get
The world border is currently 59999968 blocks wide

Finding the world seed

via the Docker server

You can use mcrcon, just add your command that you want to run after you’ve specified your host/port/password

 ☯ ~ mcrcon -H 0.0.0.0 -P 25575 -p minecraft seed
Seed: [-2679236495807353480]

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