Legendary Paper Minecraft Java Container

This is a containerized version of my Paper Minecraft Java server. The image works great on all Docker platforms including Raspberry Pi!

There is also a version that has Geyser + Floodgate installed which will let Minecraft Bedrock players connect to your Java server!

The official GitHub repository is located here.

The official Docker Hub repository is located here.

The Minecraft Bedrock version of the container is located here. This is for the Java version.

It’s now possible to convert your worlds between Bedrock and Java versions. Check out my guide on Chunker here for more information.

Features

• Sets up fully operational Minecraft server in less than a couple of minutes
• Runs the highly efficient “Paper” Minecraft server
• Plugin support for Paper / Spigot / Bukkit
• Uses named Docker volume for safe and easy to access storage of server data files (which enables more advanced Docker features such as automatic volume backups)
• Installs and configures OpenJDK 18
• Automatic backups to minecraft/backups when server restarts
• Full logging available in minecraft/logs folder
• Updates automatically to the latest version when server is started
• Runs on all Docker platforms including Raspberry Pi

Usage

First you must create a named Docker volume. This can be done with:

docker volume create yourvolumename

Now you may launch the server and open the ports necessary with one of the following Docker launch commands.

With default port:

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 25565:25565 --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

With custom port:

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 12345:12345 -e Port=12345 --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

With a custom Minecraft version (add -e Version=1.X.X, must be present on Paper’s API servers to work):

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 25565:25565 -e Version=1.17.1 --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

With a maximum memory limit in megabytes (optional, prevents crashes on platforms with limited memory, -e MaxMemory=2048):

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 25565:25565 -e MaxMemory=2048 --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

Using a different timezone:

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 25565:25565 -e TZ="America/Denver" --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

Skipping backups on a certain folder:

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 25565:25565 -e NoBackup="plugins" --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

Skipping permissions check:

docker run -it -v yourvolumename:/minecraft -p 25565:25565 -e NoPermCheck="Y" --restart unless-stopped 05jchambers/legendary-java-minecraft-paper:latest

Configuration / Accessing Server Files

The server data is stored where Docker stores your volumes. This is typically a folder on the host OS that is shared and mounted with the container. I’ll give the usual locations here but if you’re having trouble just do some Googling for your exact platform and you should find where Docker is storing the volume files.

You can find your exact path by typing:

docker volume inspect yourvolumename

This will give you the fully qualified path to your volume like this:

{
        "CreatedAt": "2022-05-09T21:08:34-06:00",
        "Driver": "local",
        "Labels": {},
        "Mountpoint": "/var/lib/docker/volumes/yourvolumename/_data",
        "Name": "yourvolumename",
        "Options": {},
        "Scope": "local"
}

On Linux it’s typically available at:

/var/lib/docker/volumes/yourvolumename/_data

On Windows it’s at

C:\ProgramData\DockerDesktop

but may be located at something more like

\wsl$\docker-desktop-data\version-pack-data\community\docker\volumes\

if you are using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

On Mac it’s typically

~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/

If you are using Docker Desktop on Mac then you need to access the Docker VM with the following command first:

screen ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/com.docker.driver.amd64-linux/tty

You can then normally access the Docker volumes using the path you found in the first step with docker volume inspect

Most people will want to edit server.properties. You can make the changes to the file and then restart the container to make them effective.

Backups are stored in the “backups” folder

Log files with timestamps are stored in the “logs” folder.

Plugin Support for Paper / Spigot / Bukkit

This is a “Paper” Minecraft server which has plugin compatibility with Paper / Spigot / Bukkit.

Installation is simple. There is a “plugins” folder on your Docker named volume.

Navigate to your server files on your host operating system (see accessing server files section if you don’t know where this is) and you will see the “plugins” folder.

You just need to drop the extracted version of the plugin (a .jar file) into this folder and restart the container. That’s it!

Some plugins have dependencies so make sure you read the installation guide first for the plugin you are looking at.

A popular place to get plugins is: dev.bukkit.org

Troubleshooting Note – Oracle Virtual Machines

A very common problem people have with the Oracle Virtual Machine tutorials out there that typically show you how to use a free VM is that the VM is much more difficult to configure than just about any other product / offering out there.

It is because there are several steps you need to take to open the ports on the Oracle VM. You need to both:

• Set the ingress ports (TCP/UDP) in the Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) security list
• *and* set the ingress ports in a Network Security Group assigned to your instance

Both of these settings are typically required before you will be able to connect to your VM instance. This is purely configuration related and has nothing to do with the script or the Minecraft server itself.

I do not recommend this platform due to the configuration difficulty but the people who have gone through the pain of configuring an Oracle VM have had good experiences with it after that point. Just keep in mind it’s going to be a rough ride through the configuration for most people.

Troubleshooting Note – Hyper-V

There is a weird bug in Hyper-V that breaks UDP connections on the Minecraft server. The easy workaround for this is that you have to use a Generation 1 VM with the Legacy LAN network driver.

There is a second fix that was shared by bpsimons here. For that fix you need to install ethtool first with sudo apt install ethtool. Next in your /etc/network/interfaces file add “offload-tx off” to the bottom as the issue appears to be with TX offloading.

Here’s an example:

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.5
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
offload-tx off

This can also be done non-persistently with the following ethtool command:

ethtool -K eth0 tx off

Additional Support

The comments section right here is the best place for support. The second best place is the GitHub issues section.

I will add additional documentation based on what problems people are running into / questions people are asking because right now I’m not really sure what those will be yet. Definitely let me know if you need any of these things!