Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I am turning my attention back to the Minecraft server I’m trying to hold together. Let’s get started!
Quick Recap: I delved deep into MicroCore Linux, learned a ton about Linux’s underbelly, then moved on to MineOS to host my server on a computer I’ve named ButtonMash.
I have run Minecraft server software for years — almost as long as I’ve been playing Minecraft. Ever since I saw the Last Airbender plugin for Bukkit back in 1.6. All you had to do back then was download the Bukkit server jar, put your plugins in the right folder, and copy some text in a batch file you run. If you want to invite friends over for a visit, you need to open a port on the router, or ask your admin to do so.
Depending on the plugin or plugins, configuration could be a challenge. I already knew a thing or two about in-game command lines from playing a Sonic fan game I played previously, so it wasn’t that new of a concept at the time.
My entry-level skill set for Minecraft servers was rounded out when I learned to update. Modded servers need time to update after the official release, so I learned how to fix my launcher settings to the correct version early on. I learned how to edit the startup file so it actually works, and that was enough to get me going for a while.
Even back then, knowing what went into making a simple wold made me appreciate how more elaborate servers were set up. I spent a while on someone else’s server, where things didn’t go completely smoothly. There was a childish griefer who possibly had his real name for his account, and an overagressive profanity filter was blocking perfectly innocent words that come up on a daily basis both in-game and on a university campus.
A world or two and a couple family members with accounts later, I furthered my craft some more. I remember running a family server on quad witch hut seed in a then-new amplified terrain world. We dropped the Airbender plugin for this one over an infestation of cactus blocks spawning at the same spot in every chunk just above sea level. We kept the seed, but when an update expanded witch huts’ bounding box, I got in there and manually updated the NBT data on our old huts.
At some point, I got my father playing as well. One family server I think he was on, I learned a painful lesson about backing up. We had a nice, little cove we were all building in. I made a note to backup the whole server in the morning. Someone found our IP in the night. He followed our nether tunnel from spawn to our cove, then raided our stash of gunpowder and sand. The damage from his TNT spree was too much to bounce back from, even with creative mode to speed repairs. The next server, we started using spectator mode to contain new players until an OP can let them out.
Another tool I learned as a more journeyman server sysadmin was Spigot. After Bukkit was shut down, Spigot became the go-to unofficial server provider. The only catch: You needed to follow some more dark, spooky instructions to get your .jar file by compiling it. The hard part is setting it up the first time. There are a lot of steps, and a brand new server operator won’t know if anything is working until they get their working .jar file out the other end. Updating? Good luck remembering where to start in that textbook of an instruction list, because most of them only need to happen once!
This server is getting me to push my Minecraft server sysadmin skills to the next level. Somewhere in my history, I learned how to allocate more RAM to improve server performance, but with more friends frequenting than just immediate family members, I want to make this experience the best I can offer. One of the biggest possible improvements a sysadmin can do is to leave the host machine alone. At that point, you need to start thinking about hardware and operating system, and up to this point, it should be fairly easy for an aspiring sysadmin to grow their trade without crossing their skills over with related fields. Tutorials abound for focused subjects, and one can look up a subject and gain knowledge. Not so, for me anymore.
It feels like I’m crossing some kind of invisible line — or a spread out boundary — where I have been following the footsteps of well-known trails so far, but I have come to a path less followed. People can only write tutorials about their experiences, and as you advance in a field of study, you pass up many of the people you’ve learned from.
While I am not blazing entirely new trails here, I am feeling a little starved for variety of people to choose instruction from. My only guess is that most people who make it this far have either moved on to other pursuits, or are tending their own servers, some of which are monetized through dues or donations. All I want right now is to run my server as smoothly as possible, and I’m going to need to learn a lot more to succeed.
Final Question: What are some stories you’ve gotten over the years while honing your trade?