Minecraft Server on Google Cloud – Tech Tip #82

Minecraft Logo

Bukkit Logo

If you’ve not followed the Minecraft/Bukkit saga over the past few months, Bukkit and CraftBukkit downloads were taken down by DMCA because a developer (@wolvereness) wanted Mojang to open up. Mojang (@vubui) posted an official statement in their forums. The general feeling is that @wolvereness left the Bukkit community hanging, and Mojang is not responsible for this debacle.

One of my friends (@ryanmichela), and a contributor to Bukkit, prepared a slide deck explaining the unfortunate debacle:

Anyway, leaving all the gory details behind, this blog will show how to get started with Bukkit 1.8.3.

What?

You just said, Bukkit was shutdown by DMCA.

SpigotMC LogoHail Spigot for reviving Bukkit, and updating to 1.8.3!

Its still not clear how did Spigot get around DMCA shutdown but the binaries seem to be available again, at least for now.

As a refresher, Bukkit is the API used by developers to make plugins. CraftBukkit is the modified Minecraft server that can understand plugins made by the Bukkit API.

Minecraft Server Hosting on OpenShift already explained how to setup a Minecraft server on OpenShift. This Tech Tip will show how to get a Minecraft server running on Google Cloud.

Lets get started!

Get Started with Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform logo

  1. Sign up for a free trial at cloud.google.com. This gives you credit of $300, which should be pretty decent to begin with.

Create and Configure Google Compute Engine

  1. Go to console.developers.google.com and create a new project by specifying the values as shown:Create Project on Google Cloud
  2. In console.developers.google.com, go to “Compute”, “Compute Engine”, “Networks”, “default”, “New firewall rule” and enter the values as shown and click on “Create”.Google Cloud Firewall Rule
  3. In the left menu bar, click on “VM Instances” under “Compute Engine”, “Create instance”. Take everything default except:
    1. Provide a name as “minecraft-instance”
    2. Change Image to Ubuntu 14.10.
    3. Change External IP to “New static IP address” and fill in the details. IP address is automatically assigned.

    Exact values are shown here:

    Google Cloud Create Instance

    And click on “Create”.

    Note down the IP address, this will be used later to connect from Minecraft launcher.

  4. Click on the newly created instance, “Add tags”, and specify “minecraft” tag. Exact same tag on the VM instance and Firewall rule ensures that the rule is applied to the appropriate instance.

Install JDK, Git, and Spigot

In console.developers.google.com, select the recently created instance, click on “SSH”, “Open in browser window”. The software is installed in the shell window.

Install JDK

Make sure to answer questions and accept license during the install. Using OpenJDK 8 to install Spigot gives the following exception:

Install Git

This is required for installing Spigot.

Install Spigot

Download and Install Spigot

A successful completion of this task shows the following message:

Start Minecraft Server on Google Cloud

Run the server as:

This will generate “eula.txt”. Accept license agreement by giving the following command:

Run server as:

This will start the CraftBukkit 1.8 server in background.

Connect to Minecraft Server from the Client

Launch Minecraft client and create a new Minecraft server as:

Google Cloud Minecraft Multiplayer

Clicking on Done shows:

Google Cloud Multiplayer Minecraft Server

Now your client can connect to the Minecraft server running on Google Cloud.
Google Cloud Minecraft Client

The server is now live. Add 104.155.38.193  to your Minecraft launcher and put some Google resources to test :)

I was hoping to provide a script that can be run using Google Cloud SDK but the bundled CLI seems to have some issues creating the project. CLI equivalent for other commands can be easily seen from the console itself.

Enjoy and happy Minecrafting!

Be Sociable, Share!
  • Tweet

9 thoughts on “Minecraft Server on Google Cloud – Tech Tip #82

  1. Pingback: Reminder: Google offers a 60 day trial of cloud servers, perfect for a small MC Server | XL Craft
  2. Quick question:
    I keep getting “connecting to hub.spigotmc.org (hub.spigotmc.org) 108.162.202.249 | :443. . . connected.
    HTTP request sent,, awaiting response. . . 404 Not Found
    2015-07-11 02:18:56 ERROR 404: Not Found”

    HELP please… My 10 yo wants this up and running by Monday

    Frustrated Dad

  3. i cannot connect to my server, i have the network firewall set for tcp:25565 in and out, i have a static ip.
    the server runs and i can run commands by ssh on te google server but i cannot go to te server on my minecraft client

  4. I want to ask a question about how to import a map and export a map through/from the server?

  5. Thank you very much.
    How would you download your minecraft server or server world if needed?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *