Run a simple* Minecraft server on Azure!

* Might require containerisation, Flatcar/CoreOS knowledge, Terraform, Azure and general Linux/SSH proficiency.

When done, you'll have a Minecraft server that can be stopped and spun up again automatically to save money on the VM size, which you can also choose. You can also use terraform destroy to quickly get rid of it, if you only need a server for testing purposes.

Requirements

• Azure account
• Azure CLI
• Terraform

How to

More on: Running Flatcar Container Linux on Microsoft Azure

1. Install az, set up an Azure account

az login
az account set --subscription <azure_subscription_id>
az ad sp create-for-rbac --name <service_principal_name> --role Contributor
az vm image terms accept --urn kinvolk:flatcar-container-linux:stable:<flatcar_stable_version>
export ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID="<azure_subscription_id>"
export ARM_TENANT_ID="<azure_subscription_tenant_id>"
export ARM_CLIENT_ID="<service_principal_appid>"
export ARM_CLIENT_SECRET="<service_principal_password>"

You can get <flatcar_stable_version> using:

curl -sSfL https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/version.txt | grep -m 1 FLATCAR_VERSION_ID= | cut -d = -f 2

2. Set up your Terraform variables

vim terraform.tfvars

cluster_name            = "minecraft"
machines                = ["bronze"]
ssh_keys                = ["ssh-rsa ..."]
flatcar_stable_version  = "<flatcar_stable_version>"
resource_group_location = "westeurope"
server_type             = "Standard_B2s"
os_disk_size_gb         = 64
create_ssh_hosts        = true

3. Change your deployed Minecraft server setup in cl/machine-bronze.yaml.tmpl

See more: itzg/docker-minecraft-server

For example, run a 1.8.9 server instead of 1.14.4 and use 6 instead of 3 gigabytes of RAM:

-        ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run -i -p 25565:25565 --pull always -e EULA=TRUE -e VERSION=1.14.4 -e MEMORY=3G -v /home/core/minecraft-data:/data --name mc itzg/minecraft-server
+        ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run -i -p 25565:25565 --pull always -e EULA=TRUE -e VERSION=1.8.9 -e MEMORY=6G -v /home/core/minecraft-data:/data --name mc itzg/minecraft-server

4. Deploy to Azure

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

You'll be given dynamic IP address(es) (changed every reboot) and FQDN(s) (doesn't change) to join the server(s). You can create CNAME record(s) to the FQDN(s) for custom domains.

Work with worlds

You're provided with two scripts: download_worlds.sh and upload_worlds.sh in backup/.

The scripts expect the worlds (server configs) to be in backup/worlds/${hostname}. By default ${hostname} is generated as ${cluster-name}-${machines.key}.

As an example, in the provided README the hostname for the created machine will be minecraft-bronze. Thus you can put your world files (including server.properties and world/) to backup/worlds/minecraft-bronze, run

./upload_worlds.sh

and now your server will run from your uploaded world.