How to Run a Minecraft Server on FreeBSD

FreeBSD has always been a solid server platform. Minecraft server is nothing more than a Java application. Minecraft was written in Java. That is why Minecraft has been ported to so many platforms, such as Xbox, PC, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. Java runs on almost every platform out there, one of it's strong points.

One thing you have to ask yourself is do you want vanilla minecraft or a heavily modded one. I have a daughter who really wanted a heavily modded minecraft. She wanted the one from Forge called Plexiglass Mountain. It has 270 mods on it, so a lot of it is not stock minecraft. So I had to download the Forge Plexiglass Mountain server from Forge. You can download tons of different modded servers. All of them you download one jar file and that is what you will set up to run your server. Do your research to determine which one you want. BUT there are other things to consider. You can run multiple servers, or you can always change the server out if you decide you don't like it. None of this is permenant and can't be changed.

Setting up a Minecraft server on FreeBSD is actually pretty easy. First we need to install some packages, namely java and a few other things. This guide assumes it is either a dedicated server or you have a vm running and know how to do the vm part of this.
# pkg install -y openjdk18 screen vim

Now if you want a different editor than vim, put in your favorite editor.

now add a user with the adduser command. Name the user minecraft. Now we switch to that user:

# su - minecraft

Now we create the directory to run the server from and change into it:

$ mkdir ~/mcserver
$ cd ~/mcserver


 Now I assume you downloaded your desired version of minecraft server, and we will assume it is named minecraft_server.jar. Either rename yours or substitute your name in the rest of this how-to. You must accept the EULA to run the server. So do the following:

$ echo "eula=true" > eula.txt

Now fire up your editor and create a file called startup.sh (or whatever you want to name your startup script). Put the following content in the file:

#!/bin/sh
java -Xmx7G -Xms7G -XX:parallelGCThreads=4 -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui

 Now make it executable:

$chmod _x startup.sh

Now run the following to start the server in a screen terminal so you can disconnect and the server will continue to run:

$ screen sh startup.sh

You should now have a running minecraft server. Now if you go to a client and put in the ip address of your server you should be able to log in. I run one in my house so my daughter and I connect to the ip of the server on my local network, my son connects remotely through an open port on the firewall. My suggestion is that if you open a port on your firewall you port forward from some OTHER port than the default minecraft one. If you port forward the standard port then anyone can connect to your server and mess with your game. Pick some easy to remember port like 50000 or something to port forward to your minecraft server.