How To Install Minecraft Server on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Minecraft server on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft allow players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Minecraft servers allow players to play online or via a local area network with other people. They may either be run on a hosted server, on local dedicated server hardware, on a Virtual Private server on a home machine, or on your local gaming computer.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Minecraft Server on an Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Minecraft Server on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Installing Java-JDK.

Minecraft server setup requires Java to be installed on your system. To do this, follow these steps:

apt-get install openjdk-8-jre-headless screen

Step 3. Installing Minecraft Server on Ubuntu.

First, create a new user for Minecraft to run as:

adduser minecraft

Create a Minecraft directory:

mkdir minecraft
cd minecraft

Now download and install your own Minecraft server:

wget -O minecraft_server.jar https://s3.amazonaws.com/Minecraft.Download/versions/1.12.2/minecraft_server.1.12.2.jar

Accept Minecraft’s end-user license agreement:

echo "eula=true" > eula.txt

Get screen up and running, so that the server can run in the background:

screen -S "Minecraft server 1"

Step 4. Running Minecraft Server.

Now you only need to run the installed server (you can edit the 1024M value to match your server’s RAM):

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui

To get back to the normal screen, press these keys: Control+A+D, To get back to the screen where Minecraft is running:

screen -r

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Minecraft. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Minecraft server on your Ubuntu 16.04 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Minecraft website.