See How to install a Minecraft Bedrock Server on Ubuntu
I’ll note here that this works perfectly, but it doesn’t do what I wanted it to! What I discovered afterwards is that there is Minecraft Java Edition which is the original product but Java Edition only supports cross play with Java Edition endpoints such as a PC or Mac. iPhones/iPad use the newer C++ Edition and there is a new Bedrock Edition server which works across both Java and C++ endpoints.
Install Ubuntu 18.04.4 using VMware Fusion. Create a bridged connection to the LAN not the default NAT’ed connection. Allow SSH. Install my SSH key using ssh-copy-id user@192.168.1.127
Sign on on the console sudo -Es, then install the essentials
apt update
apt install git build-essential
apt install openjdk-8-jre-headless
Create, and then switch to a user account
useradd -r -m -U -d /opt/minecraft -s /bin/bash minecraft
su - minecraft
Create a folder structure to work with
mkdir -p ~/{backups,tools,server}
Clone the git repository for the micron tool
cd ~/tools && git clone https://github.com/Tiiffi/mcrcon.git
Compile it
cd ~/tools/mcrcon && gcc -std=gnu11 -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -O2 -s -o mcrcon mcrcon.c
Download the JAR file
wget https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/bb2b6b1aefcd70dfd1892149ac3a215f6c636b07/server.jar -P ~/server
Make an initial run on the server
cd ~/server
java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -jar server.jar nogui
Updated the eula.txt to accept the EULA
sed -i "s/false/true/g" ~/server/eula.txt
Edit server.properties to enable RCON and set the password
sed -i "s/enable-rcon=false/enable-rcon=true/g" ~/server/server.properties
sed -i "s/rcon.password=/rcon.password=s3cr3t/g" ~/server/server.properties
Create a cron job to create backups
cat > /opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh <<'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
function rcon {
/opt/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 25575 -p s3cr3t "$1"
}
rcon "save-off"
rcon "save-all"
tar -cvpzf /opt/minecraft/backups/server-$(date +%F-%H-%M).tar.gz /opt/minecraft/server
rcon "save-on"
## Delete older backups
find /opt/minecraft/backups/ -type f -mtime +7 -name '*.gz' -delete
EOF
Make it executable
chmod +x /opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh
Schedule the backup to run at 3am via CRON using crontab -e
0 3 * * * /opt/minecraft/tools/backup.sh
As root, create /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service
cat > /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Minecraft Server
After=network.target
[Service]
User=minecraft
Nice=1
KillMode=none
SuccessExitStatus=0 1
ProtectHome=true
ProtectSystem=full
PrivateDevices=true
NoNewPrivileges=true
WorkingDirectory=/opt/minecraft/server
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xmx2048M -Xms1024M -jar server.jar nogui
ExecStop=/opt/minecraft/tools/mcrcon/mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 25575 -p s3cr3t stop
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
Refresh systemd, set the service to start at boot, start the service and check the status:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable minecraft
sudo systemctl start minecraft
sudo systemctl status minecraft
Open the firewall port
sudo ufw allow 25565/tcp
If, down the road, you want to create a new world, just stop the server and delete /opt/minecraft/server/world. Alternatively, edit server.properties and set a new name on level-name=world.