Articles on: Dedicated Servers / VPS

How to install Java & run a Minecraft server on a Linux VPS

Connect to your Linux VPS via SSH, then choose one of the following Java versions to use when running Minecraft:

To install Java 8 (Recommended for Minecraft 1.8 - 1.16.5), Launch terminal, Run the command sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk -y.
To install Java 11, Launch terminal, Run the command sudo apt install openjdk-11-jdk -y.
To install Java 16 (Recommended for Minecraft 1.17 - 1.17.1), Launch terminal, Run the command sudo apt install openjdk-16-jdk -y.
To install Java 17 (Recommended for Minecraft 1.18 - Newer Versions), Launch terminal, Run the command sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk -y.

Once you install Java, type in “mkdir Minecraft”, this will make a minecraft folder/directory, then cd into the directory by typing “cd Minecraft”.

Once you're in the directory, get whatever jar file you would like (i.e. Spigot, Bukkit, Paper, etc.), I will use the spigot for this tutorial.

Go back to the terminal and we will type the command “wget -O server.jar file_link_here”, this allows us to download the jar and move it to the minecraft directory. You are also able to use SFTP to upload the JAR file.

We need to make it an executable, so we will type sudo chmod +x file_name_here.

To run the server we will type in the terminal java -Xmx4096M -Xms4096M -jar file_name_here nogui.

We then need to accept the eula, to do this we will type “nano eula.txt”, then change false to true. This is also possible using SFTP.

Then use the command again to run the server.

If you require any further assistance, please create a ticket here.

Created By: Greg K.

Updated on: 11/11/2022

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