Linux: How to start a Minecraft server at boot via Systemd

01/29/2018

I am not into Minecraft, but my kids are.

I decided to local host a small Minecraft server on a RHEL 7 vm. There are tons of guides on how to install Minecraft on Linux, but I did not find much of anything that details how to get the software to start at boot-time via systemd.

Below are the steps that I took. These instructions should work on RHEL 6/7, Centos 6/7, or any other Linux that utilizes systemd for starting services.

Change directory to the systemd directory.

# cd /etc/systemd/system

Create a systemd service file using your favorite text editor. Mine is called minecraft.service.

[root@minecraft system]# cat minecraft.service
[Unit]
Description=Start Minecraft
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/root/start_minecraft_server.bash
TimeoutStartSec=0

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Make the systemd script executable.

# chmod +x /etc/systemd/system/minecraft.service

Next, create a startup script. Again use your favorite text editor. In the example above, systemd is configured to run the script “/root/start_minecraft_server.bash”. We now need to create that script. Its contents are below.

#!/bin/bash

#Standard Minecraft
cd /home/mcserver/minecraft
exec java -Xmx2048M -Xms2048M -jar minecraft_server.1.12.2.jar nogui

Make the script above executable.

#chmod +x /root/start_minecraft_server.bash

Now reload systemd.

# systemctl daemon-reload

Enable and start your service

#systemctl enable minecraft.service

#systemctl start minecraft.service

Comments

7 responses to “Linux: How to start a Minecraft server at boot via Systemd”

02/08/2018

Andralyn

If your aritelcs are always this helpful, “I’ll be back.”

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10/03/2019

Christopher Laudenschlager

This article was super helpful! Thank you for posting this. I do, however, have a few questions:

1.) I setup my bash file to enable the gui but it doesn’t show up. Is there anyway to get the gui activated?

2.) Is there a way to properly shut down the server manually? Maybe a command to run in the terminal?

3.) Is there a way to shut down the server automatically on system shut down? When it does this, can I make it save the map and back it up to a compressed folder?

4.) This is a curiosity question: Before this method, I was booting the Minecraft server from the terminal. When I was watching the processor usage (while the server was up), it was idling around 60% with no one on the server and 80-90% when some one was on. After setting it up to run on boot, the processor now idles around 10-20% with no one on and I only managed to get it up to 60% by flying (in creative mode). Can you explain why that made such a big difference?

I am new to Linux and have little experience with it but I am learning. Thanks again, I really appreciate the help.

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1. 07/03/2022
  
  vince
  
  Hi Christopher, to stop you can run: systemctl stop minecraft.service
  
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10/04/2019

Christopher Laudenschlager

I am very new to Linux but I managed to get through and get it working. This was super helpful! Thanks you for posting it. I do have a few questions though:

1) On boot up, I have the command in the bash file to start up the gui however, the gui doesn’t pop up. Is there a way to get it to come up on boot? Or is there a command I can type in the terminal after its running?

2) Is there a way to manually shut it off? I used to to stop it by typing Ctrl+C in the terminal to end the process but on boot, the terminal window doesn’t pop up. So I can’t actually see the process running.

3) Before when I executed the command that starts the server in the terminal by hand, my processor was running at about 60% with no one on the server and about 80-90% when someone was on. However, now that the server starts on boot, it runs at about 20% with no one on and 60% while I fly in creative (I was trying to push the server). My question is, what is the difference between starting it normally and starting it on boot up? Why is there such a drastic reduction in processor usage?

Again thank you for your help!

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05/19/2020

ChildishGiant

admin@yuno:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo systemd-analyze verify minecraft.service
[/etc/systemd/system/./minecraft.service:1] Invalid section header ‘[root@minecraft system]# cat minecraft.service’
minecraft.service: Failed to create minecraft.service/start: Unit minecraft.service is not loaded properly: Bad message.

Looks like the first line of the service is causing errors, removing it seems to fix it.

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06/30/2023

Lord

thx you it’s working

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07/25/2023

Hazard1nc

make sure to remove the line with cat in it. thats just how he made the script, if your using copy and paste its fine, but if using your favorite editor, then the first line in the minecraft.service script is useless and will cause errors.

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