Setting Up A Minecraft Server on a Mac (Mac OS X)

I've never done a 'how-to' but I noticed that there currently isn't a lot of information on creating a Minecraft server if your machine runs Mac OS X.

Here's what you need to know.

Firstly, if you are using a router you need to make sure you use port forwarding to ensure that port 25565 is open; this is the default port Minecraft uses. This is very important. If you don't take this step you are going to have a very lonely time on your server as it will just be you standing around looking at cross-eyed animals.

• Download the minecraft_server.jar from here
• Create a new folder and pop the aforementioned file in it
• Open Textedit, change the format to plain text
• Type the following:

#!/bin/bash
cd "`dirname "$0"`"
java -Xmx1G -Xms1G -jar minecraft_server.jar

• Save as 'start.command' and put it in the same folder as the .jar
• Open Terminal and type or paste 'chmod a+x' into it (without the inverted comas), followed by a space.
• drag and drop the 'start.command' file onto the terminal and hit enter
• Double click the 'start.command' file to generate a new world

This will generate several files including a properties file. By editing the details of this file you can specify mobs, pvp, etc. Don't change the world name unless you are sure you know what you are doing as this tells the server what your world is called and if its unable to find a world folder with that exact name it will make a new one.

I learned this the hard way, so you don't have to...

Minecraft man approves this message