Deploying a Minecraft Server on Linux (CentOS)

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:48:59 +0800

I recently set up a physical server and wanted to use it to host a Minecraft server. After staying up late researching, I succeeded and am sharing this guide in hopes that it helps everyone, especially Linux users without a public IP environment (like me).

Reference Websites

Installing and using Red Hat build of OpenJDK 21 on RHEL | Red Hat Product Documentation

SakuraFrp Launcher Installation / Usage Guide | SakuraFrp Documentation

CentOS | Docker Docs

Linux Terminal Server Hosting Tutorial ★ No Panel ★ Minecraft_bilibili

From the Bilibili uploader 翱翔大使, which is the main source of ideas for this whole article.

Java Configuration

Running Minecraft requires the corresponding version of the Java environment; here I installed OpenJDK 21.

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sudo yum install java-21-openjdk
java -version // verify if successfully installed

If the server has multiple Java versions, you can use alternatives to switch versions.

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alternatives --config java

As shown below, we enter 2 and press Enter to switch to the required version.

Game Deployment

First, download the Minecraft server software from the following URL. Here I downloaded Banner (1.20.1), which supports Fabric.

[MohistMC](MohistMC - Home)

Once downloaded, you will get a file like banner-1.20.1-800-server.jar. Next, open your SSH client to operate on the server:

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cd /home/username // switch to personal directory or desired installation location
mkdir Minecraft // create a folder for the game
cd Minecraft

Using the SFTP feature in your SSH client (or any other file transfer method), copy the game file banner-1.20.1-800-server.jar you just downloaded into the newly created /home/username/Minecraft folder.

Next, let’s write a startup script for the server.

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nano start.sh

Fill in the following content, but note the purpose of each parameter:

-Xmx is the maximum allocated memory, -Xms is the minimum allocated memory. I have 32GB of memory and allocated 6GB to the game (feel free to allocate more).
banner-1.20.1-800-server.jar is the name of the game file you just downloaded.

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java -Xmx6144M -Xms6144m -jar banner-1.20.1-800-server.jar
stty echo

Press Ctrl + O to write, Enter to confirm, and Ctrl + X to exit.

Next, grant execution permissions to start.sh to avoid permission denied issues.

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chmod 777 start.sh

Then install screen. Simply put, screen is a tool that helps users create independent sessions that can be resumed at any time.

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yum install screen

screen has the following common commands:

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screen -S [name] // create a new screen named "name"
screen -ls // list names and ports of all running screens
screen -r [port] // attach to the screen with the specified port

Next, create a new screen to run the script.

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screen -S Minecraft

In the newly appeared session, run start.sh.

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./start.sh

Then everything should go smoothly. I didn’t encounter any errors here. Finally, it comes to ...EULA... asking us to agree to the EULA. Enter true and press Enter. After a short wait, the game server will run successfully on port 25565.

To leave this Minecraft screen, just press Ctrl+A+D.

For game rule changes (like ‘whether cracked players are allowed to join’), you need to modify the contents of server.properties.

Regarding connection: If it’s a cloud server, map the port in the administration panel, then connect to domain:port in your Minecraft client.

However, for a physical server like mine, or a Linux device, or a personal PC without a public IP, we need to proceed with Intranet Penetration.

Intranet Penetration

Here I am using SakuraFrp, which is well-known and reliable in the Minecraft community, for intranet penetration. Other tools are mostly similar.

Docker

SakuraFrp on Linux runs on Docker, so let’s deploy Docker first. The operations entirely follow the official documentation.

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sudo dnf -y install dnf-plugins-core
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

I encountered very slow installation speeds and download failures here. Running the command again solved the problem.

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sudo dnf install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

After the installation is complete:

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sudo systemctl enable --now docker

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sudo docker run hello-world

The run hello-world test above is very likely to fail. Let’s solve this issue by referring to the following two articles:

[Complete Solution] Failed to run hello-world image after Docker installation: Unable to find image ‘hello-world:latest’ locally - CSDN Blog

Failed or Timeout Running hello-world Image in Docker - Paul7777 - cnblogs

Combining the two above will eventually solve the problem. First, let’s configure the daemon file.

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nano /etc/docker/daemon.json

Copy the following content into it:

At the time of my testing (2025/3/19), the following mirrors are still working.

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{
 "registry-mirrors": [
 "https://h59pkpv6.mirror.aliyuncs.com",
 "https://registry.docker-cn.com",
 "https://docker.mirrors.ustc.edu.cn",
 "https://hub-mirror.c.163.com",
 "https://mirror.baidubce.com",
 "https://do.nark.eu.org",
 "https://dc.j8.work",
 "https://docker.m.daocloud.io",
 "https://dockerproxy.com",
 "https://docker.nju.edu.cn"
]
}

Save + Exit. Next, restart docker, and execute the test once more.

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart docker
docker run hello-world

I successfully installed docker up to this point. If the test still fails, please check the content of daemon.json to see if there are missing or extra commas and brackets.

SakuraFrp

For deploying SakuraFrp on Linux, the official documentation provides a detailed solution.

First, run the following command as an administrator in the terminal:

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sudo bash -c ". <(curl -sSL https://doc.natfrp.com/launcher.sh)"

After installation, it should automatically output logs and prompt you to fill in the access token. This (or the subsequent operations) can be found in the management panel on the SakuraFrp official website.

After logging in, you will be able to see its log files. Below are the common operations to start it and view logs:

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docker start natfrp-service
docker logs natfrp-service

As shown below, we now need to physically operate the server.

Open a browser (Linux usually comes with Firefox) and access the URL after “Usage” to open the WebUI.

Then you will see there is nothing under “Tunnels”, only a plus sign. At this time, we enter the SakuraFrp management panel, find Tunnel List under Services, and create two new tunnels as shown below:

The first one with port 7102 is the WebUI for SakuraFrp on the server, intended for remote management.

The second one with port 25565 is for the Minecraft server.

Return to the WebUI interface and refresh, you will see the two tunnels just created. Double-click them respectively, and then go back to the terminal log interface.

The links in red characters as shown in the image are the remote access links for the WebUI and Minecraft. Just copy the Minecraft one into the game, and you can connect to it.

Conclusion

We are done! (A screenshot of my server’s spawn point >w<)

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