docker-minecraft

Standalone Docker-based Minecraft server setup with backups, primarily for Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM. Also contains Terraform scripts for deployment into AWS.

• Prerequisites
• Customizations
• Docker build and run
• Stopping the server
• Backups
• AWS Deployment

Prerequisites

1. Install this repo to a fast SSD located at /mnt/ssd.

2. Install Docker for aarch64.

Optionally, for supporting scripts:

3. Install AWS CLI v2.

4. Install node 20 with nvm.

Customizations

For each configured server, the files unique to it are stored in a directory in ./config. This allows the project to build and run multiple servers from the same set of scripts.

Change the server icon, Message of The Day, and more in the server.properties file.

Change the amount of memory allocated in config.json to be no more than 75% available on the system.

Mods for Paper/Bukkit (nominal choice of server) go in plugins, and Minecraft datapacks go in datapacks - if you want them running, copy them to world/datapacks once a world is created.

Docker build and run

Once running, all files changed in the container except the mounted /world* and config/$SERVER_NAME/plugins directories will be lost when the container exits. Use docker exec -t -i $CONTAINER_OR_IMAGE /bin/bash to explore and copy needed files out.

Choose a set of configuration files from ./config to use when building and running the server image. For example:

./scripts/start-docker.sh test

Add to crontab to run on boot with sudo crontab -e, assuming a location of /mnt/ssd/. Make sure the desired server config is included, such as test:

@reboot sleep 15 && cd /mnt/ssd/docker-minecraft && ./scripts/start-docker.sh test

Logs will be stored in docker-minecraft.log.

Stopping the server

To safely stop the server, log in as an Op user and run the /stop command.

If not possible, force-stop the container:

docker ps

With the container ID:

docker stop $CONTAINER_ID

Backups

Local

Backup manually and copy somewhere safe:

sudo ./scripts/local-backup.sh $SERVER_NAME $USER

Add the local-backup.sh script to crontab to run once a day and copy a file for each day of the week (7 day rolling backups), for example at 3 AM:

0 3 * * * cd /mnt/ssd/docker-minecraft && ./scripts/local-backup.sh test pi > /home/pi/local-backup.log 2>&1

S3 Remote

Requires the AWS CLI.

Upload a backup to an AWS S3 bucket that you have credentials to use:

sudo ./scripts/upload-backup.sh $SERVER_NAME $USER

Add to crontab for weekly backups (4AM Monday) with your AWS credentials:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=

0 4 * * 1 cd /mnt/ssd/docker-minecraft && ./scripts/upload-backup.sh test pi > /home/pi/upload-backup.log 2>&1

AWS Deployment

Experimental

Deploy infrastructure and a Docker image to AWS. Creates a Fargate instance connected to an EFS filesystem, and attempts to download the latest world backup on launch.

For convenience, you can use ./scripts/aws/deploy.sh $SERVER_NAME.

cd terraform

terraform init
terraform apply -var "server_name=test-aws"

Then push an image to ECR:

./scripts/aws/push-image.sh $SERVER_NAME

Wait for a task to start and get to the RUNNING status:

watch ./scripts/aws/get-tasks.sh

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                DescribeTasks                                                |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
|  arn:aws:ecs:eu-west-2:617929423658:task/dkr-mc-dengie-cluster/024176ebd297426293f35a551ad32e6f  |  RUNNING |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------+

To retrieve a backup of the world, use the script to launch a dedicated Fargate task and monitor the logs:

./scripts/aws/launch-backup-task.sh $SERVER_NAME

The result will be store in S3.

TODO: Compare backup file contents with manual script.