Minecraft Bedrock Edition is the version of Minecraft that powers the iPhone / Android versions (formerly Minecraft Pocket Edition), the Xbox / PlayStation / Nintendo Switch editions and the free Windows 10 Minecraft edition.
Mojang has released a dedicated server which is considered to be in alpha testing. I have found it to be very stable and able to run on a wide variety of hardware.
This script and guide are written to help you get a robust Minecraft Bedrock dedicated server up and running in only a few minutes!
This is the standalone version. The easiest and most problem-free way to run this is using Docker (installed as simply as sudo apt install docker.io): Legendary Minecraft Bedrock Container
Sets up the official Minecraft Bedrock Server (currently in alpha testing)
Fully operational Minecraft Bedrock edition server in a couple of minutes
Ubuntu / Debian distributions supported
Sets up Minecraft as a system service with option to autostart at boot
Automatic backups when server restarts
Supports multiple instances — you can run multiple Bedrock servers on the same system
Updates automatically to the latest or user-defined version when server is started
Easy control of server with start.sh, stop.sh and restart.sh scripts
Adds logging with timestamps to “logs” directory
Optional scheduled daily restart of server using cron
Requirements
A computer with a 64 bit processor (if you are trying to use ARM read my article on the limitations). 32 bit binaries of the official server are not available so it needs to be 64 bit!
1 GB of RAM or higher
The only officially supported platform by Microsoft is Ubuntu 22.04 / 20.04 (current LTS, recommended)
Other Linux flavors supported by this script as well as long as they use systemd (for the service). The script assumes apt is installed but there are minimal dependencies so you could install these on another distro (that doesn’t have apt present) and use the script normally.
Recommended Gear
Game Editions
Minecraft: Bedrock Edition is the “Windows 10” version of Minecraft as well as the version of Minecraft on the Xbox / Playstation / Switch. The versions of Minecraft for Android and iOS are also the Bedrock edition.
All of these versions support cross-platform play with each other (but not with the Java edition).
Minecraft Bedrock Digital Code
This is the PC Minecraft for Windows 10 (Bedrock) edition of Minecraft. It is able to play cross-platform with other players on Android / iOS / Playstation / Xbox / Switch. Available as a code that is instantly activated to give you permanent access to the game!
I strongly recommend a Solid State drive (SSD) for your server. This is because Minecraft is constantly reading/storing chunks to the disk which makes I/O performance very important.
These are much cheaper than they used to be. Here’s a decent 120 GB one (higher capacity options are available) at a very low price:
Kingston A400 2.5″ SATA SSD
The Kingston A400 is reliable, widely available around the world, has low power requirements and performs very well. It’s also very affordable. This drive has been benchmarked over 1000 times at Pi Benchmarks and is the #1 most popular SSD among the community!
If you have a M.2 NVME slot in your motherboard you can go with a high end drive. This will give your server maximum performance even if a large number of players are running around on the server changing blocks and triggering disk writes.
This is the one I have in my machine. These range from 250 GB to 2 TB depending on how big your server might grow:
The Samsung 980 Pro (NVMe) is a professional grade SSD and one of the fastest in the world. The Samsung NVMe drives have been at the top of this category for a long time and are well trusted for both their performance and reliability / long life.
Almost any PC made in the last few years will be a x86_64 bit computer. If you have an older computer around that isn’t being used then it will most likely have the right CPU and amount of memory (as well as fast storage) to run a basic server.
Throwing a SSD in one of these older computers will provide an excellent server experience for small and larger player counts.
The speed of your storage will make the largest difference. Older HDDs are going to have significantly slower performance than any modern SSD even with all other hardware equal. This is because the Minecraft server is constantly reading/writing chunks of your world as well as updates to it to the disk so this tends to be the bottleneck.
Operating System
I highly recommend using Ubuntu Server to run the Minecraft dedicated server. It is available here.
At the time of writing the current version is Ubuntu Server 20.04. This is a secure and robust operating system and will leave plenty of resources available for the server to run.
The script should run on any Debian based flavor of Linux but since the Minecraft Bedrock server is compiled natively for Ubuntu I recommend sticking with it. If you have a GUI flavor of Ubuntu and a decent PC (>= 2 GB of RAM) the server will work just fine on it.
Note: People have reported in the comments that Ubuntu 16.x is no longer working with the latest official Mojang binaries. Ubuntu 18.04 is the minimum requirement for the latest versions, and 20.04 is recommended!
Installation
Log into your Linux server either using SSH or a mouse and keyboard and paste/type the following command:
The script will setup the Minecraft sever and ask you some questions on how to configure it. I’ll explain here what they mean.
The first question will be the installation path. This is the root installation path for ALL servers you will have. If you add additional servers later you should select the exact same installation path. It should always be left as the default (~).
The only exception is if you have something like a completely dedicated disk for the Minecraft server. In that case you should always use the same root path of /mnt/yourdrive or wherever the path is for every new/additional server you install.
“Start Minecraft server at startup automatically (y/n)?” – This will set the Minecraft service to start automatically when your server boots. This is a great option to set up a Minecraft server that is always available.
“Automatically restart and backup server at 4am daily (y/n)?” – This will add a cron job to the server that reboots the server every day at 4am. This is great because every time the server restarts it backs up the server and updates to the latest version. See the “Scheduled Daily Reboots” section below for information on how to customize the time or remove the reboot.
That is it for the setup script. The server will finish configuring and start!
First Run
The server will start up and start displaying output to the console.
Once you see the “Server started” line you will be able to connect from the client.
To add the server to the client open Minecraft and click “Play”. Then at the top of the screen select the “Servers” tab and click “Add Server”.
This will ask you for a Server Name and Server IP Address. For the name you can put anything and for the server IP address put the address of your Linux server. Leave the port as the default 19132. For more information on how to let people from outside your network on go to the “Port Forwarding” section below.
Now choose the server you just added in the list and connect!
Start, Stop and Restart Server
The server can be started, stopped and restarted two different ways. You can use the provided scripts in the Minecraft folder or you can use systemctl. Here are the commands:
The server backs up each time it starts. This helps you recover easily if something goes wrong. This system works best if you configured the server to restart daily since it means you will have a backup every day.
To access these backups type:
cd ~/minecraftbe/backups ls
When a backup is made the filename will be the date and time the backup was taken. If you need to restore a backup it’s very easy. Substitute the timestamp in my example to the backup you want to roll back to. Type:
cd ~/minecraftbe
./stop.sh
rm -rf worlds
tar -xf backups/2019.02.15.22.06.30.tar.gz
./start.sh
Your world has now been restored! It’s a good idea to download these backups off the server periodically just in case the server’s storage fails.
The daily reboots are scheduled using cron. It’s very easy to customize the time your server restarts.
To change the time that the server restarts type: crontab -e
This will open a window that will ask you to select a text editor (I find nano to be the easiest) and will show the cronjobs scheduled on the server. The Minecraft one will look like the following:
0 4 * * * /home/ubuntu/minecraftbe/restart.sh
Crontab’s syntax layout
There are 5 fields here. The default restart time is set to reboot at 0 minutes of the 4th hour of the day (4 AM). The other 3 fields are left as * to represent every day of every month. Make any desired changes here and press Ctrl+X to exit nano and update the cronjob.
To remove the daily reboot simply delete the line and save.
Reconfigure / Update Scripts
The scripts can always be reconfigured and updated by downloading the latest SetupMinecraft.sh and running the installer again. It will update all of the scripts in the Minecraft directory and reinstall the startup service for you.
Running SetupMinecraft.sh again will also give you a chance to reconfigure options such as the memory dedicated to the server, daily reboots, starting the server on boot, etc.
This will not overwrite your world or any other data so it is safe to run!
Port Forwarding
If everyone on your server is on the same LAN or WiFi network as you then you don’t need to do this. If you want people to connect from outside your local network then you need to set up port forwarding on your router.
The process for this is different for every router so the best thing to do is just look at your router and find the model # and put that in google with port forwarding for easy instructions on how to do it for your specific router.
You want to forward port 19132. The type of connection is both TCP and UDP. On some routers you need to do both a TCP entry and then a second entry as UDP.
Once you do this people will be able to connect to your Minecraft server through your public IP address. This is different than your local IP which is usually a 192.x.x.x or 10.x.x.x. If you don’t know what that is just go to google and type “what’s my ip” and Google will kindly tell you!
Version Override
You can revert to a previous version with the revert.sh script included in your directory like this:
james@jamesgigabyte-linux:~/minecraftbe/james$ ./revert.sh
Set previous version in version_pin.txt: bedrock-server-1.19.10.20.zip
If you have a specific version you would like to run you can also create version_pin.txt yourself like this:
The version hold can be removed by deleting version_pin.txt. This will allow it to update to the latest version again!
Wired vs. Wireless
Going with an ethernet (wired) connection is going to be faster and more reliable. There’s so much wireless traffic and other interference in the air that running your server on WiFi is not recommended.
Even if it is working great 99% of the time it can ruin your experience very quickly if the WiFi drops for a couple of seconds and you get blown up by a creeper!
All that being said, the server works fine on wireless. The script will work fine as is with a wireless connection.
Benchmarking / Testing Storage
If you’re getting poor performance you may want to run my storage benchmark with:
PC results won’t show up on the site yet (it’s meant for Raspberry Pi) but it will run on Linux just fine and give you a score. If you search for the model of your drive on Pi Benchmarks you can compare your score with others and make sure the drive is performing correctly!
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 fix for this is that you have to use a Generation 1 VM with the Legacy LAN network driver.
Conclusion
The Minecraft Bedrock Edition dedicated server runs much better than previous third party servers in the past that were missing critical features. The performance is very good even on low end hardware. It has never been easier to set up a Minecraft Bedrock server.
If you have any feedback or suggestions let me know in the comment section. A lot of the changes and developments in this script and guide are directly from readers.
1,555 thoughts on “Minecraft Bedrock Edition – Ubuntu Dedicated Server Guide”
Tim
Hi James,
Thanks for the great guides, really simple to follow!
I’m really just a beginner with Ubuntu and servers and all the Linux commands. So keeping this in mind am I better installing Ubuntu desktop and installing the minecraft server? I figure I can go headless eventually once I learn more. Would the desktop version be to heavy on my computer resources?
If you have the 4-8GB Pi or the Pi 400 I would not worry about it at all and use the desktop version. It’s much easier to get into it for beginners. You have a more familiar GUI and then can open the console app to run the commands. It’s a pretty slick experience on the Pi.
I would go with the latest Ubuntu 20.10 version for the best/smoothest experience. I’ve done some testing on it and it feels really great! Only if you are using a Pi with a 1 – 2 GB capacity would it get in the range where I would say you will have a better experience on CLI only. Hopefully that helps!
Sorry my bad, I replied quickly but I didn’t realize I wasn’t talking in a Pi thread! I had also just replied to 3 other messages that were in Pi threads and my mind wasn’t keeping up apparently!
That should be a fantastic setup. Running native x86_64 I would say that the server is much more efficient than the Java version (especially with memory). It’s written in C++ so it’s compiled code and it seems to perform very well even on low powered devices. The rub with the Pi is the ARM part for sure!
I’m glad you found success, cheers to you as well!
This is related to the “online-mode” in the server.properties file. It means that players need to be signed into Xbox Live to log into the server. Sometimes it can also mean your server is having trouble communicating with Microsoft’s authentication servers.
online-mode=true
# If true then all connected players must be authenticated to Xbox Live.
# Clients connecting to remote (non-LAN) servers will always require Xbox Live authentication regardless of this setting.
# If the server accepts connections from the Internet, then it’s highly recommended to enable online-mode.
# Allowed values: “true” or “false”
You can try adjusting this to see if it alleviates the problem! You would just edit server.properties and change the “true” value for online-mode to false and then restart the server.
If this has already been changed to false or you know you changed this value to false then try changing it back to the other way and see if it works. In that case your authentication wasn’t being sent to Microsoft on a platform that required it. It can be situational which is why they have this option in there (for example very secure firewall setups that can’t contact Microsoft’s servers but are all on PC, like a classroom etc).
This may or may not work depending on the platforms involved. Some platforms require you to be logged in and have a working connection with Microsoft to play at all like some of the consoles, etc. If this is the case you may need to figure out what is going on with the connection or server setup that might be blocking Microsoft authentication. If this is a cracked/patched/non-legit version of Minecraft then you will need to turn this off since Microsoft will never authenticate a cracked client and they won’t be able to play unless it is disabled.
You usually want to leave this on unless you have a reason to disable it as it can break certain types of cross-platform play and internet play. If everyone is playing on the PC on LAN it’s probably fine to shut it off but if someone is trying to connect from an Xbox or some of the other consoles it’s going to prevent that. You are also limited to LAN only in this mode (thus the “online-mode” name of the option). Not 100% sure if Android/iOS will allow it or not. Give that a try and let us know!
Hi All,
Has anyone else had a version issue connecting to your minecraft server? My Win10 client says server out of date. My client is V.1.16.201. My server is V.1.16.40.02.
Am I missing something here? Before this my server worked flawlessly for about a year.
There was an issue where Mojang updated the web site to reject “spider” connections. Long story short, you just need to download and run SetupMinecraft.sh again which will update all your scripts. Make sure to take a full backup and have copies before you do this but it’s pretty easy and painless.
When SetupMinecraft.sh asks you for the server label just put in the folder name of your existing server and it will detect it’s already there and upgrade the scripts instead!
I have fixed several other things as of late as well so give updating to the latest a try here and let us know if it is working then!
It should work theoretically, but it is on a separate port. The IPv6 server port (19133) is different than the IPv4 one (19132) so check for that first.
There’s a good chance it’s the “client” that is the problem or the device that is connecting. Do you have other devices that can run Minecraft you can try with using IPv6 to narrow it down?
Hi James,
I have successfully updated the scripts. The Server did not automatically update. I manually installed the latest version. I cannot get the server to load my old world. I have updated server.properties but no luck. Help!
Thank you for this script and the guide!
I wanted to move the server to a different location and I manage to edit everything so all the scripts and the .service are directed to the right location. The server is running perfect and starting up at boot.
But, I was wondering if it would be possible to edit the install script so I can then select where the server should be stored? That would make this job more easy.
Hi James,
Me again!
Just thought I’d post here in case anyone else found it useful.
I needed to know when people were connecting and disconnecting, but Minecraft server does not timestamp its log output on it’s own, so I added the following to /etc/screenrc:
logtstamp on
logtstamp after 10
logtstamp string "%d/%m/%Y - %c:%s\012"
This adds a timestamp after 10 seconds of inactivity, and then again before the next line, in the format:
29/01/2021 – 22:29:30
the double quotes and ‘\012’ escape were needed to make it add a new line after each timestamp.
You could also add the above to ~/.screenrc if you only want to affect the screens for a single user.
Now, all output in the log files in ~/minecraftbe//logs has the required timestamps.
Cheers!
Hi James! I am having an issue starting the server. I have setup the server completely but when I go to start it, it gets to the “[2020-01-24 17:17:04 INFO] Level Name: LCSN Whitelisted SMP” part in the starting process and then it says “[screen is terminating]”. Do you know how to fix this issue?
We may need to go to the logs to find out some more information. Can you check the logs folder?
One thing to check: does your level name have spaces in it? I think that line is okay but I have seen spaces and symbols in level names cause problems like this before so I thought I would throw this out there.
If you can pull the log file it should tell us why the server is terminating! Feel free to paste it here as well, web space is cheap these days!
Love the script! Set up a server in the small hours last night when the kids were asleep. There was a grumble this morning that their seed was not the same as the server I had set up on my first attempt. I think I used your script to get the server installed >and then< changed to the seed they wanted to use. Is the world generation a one time thing? Is there a way to reset and generate a world with the new seed? TIA. Lloydy
The server will start one time before you’re able to change the seed. This means that the starting area will be generated before your seed takes effect. You can just shut down the server and set level-seed= and remove the “world” folder to force it to regenerate with your seed.
You’re very close but if they’ve made new things on the new seed they will be lost when you remove the “worlds” folder so I wanted to give you the heads up first! Also, backup everything before attempting to remove any folders of course!
Hi James,
Thanks for the great guides, really simple to follow!
I’m really just a beginner with Ubuntu and servers and all the Linux commands. So keeping this in mind am I better installing Ubuntu desktop and installing the minecraft server? I figure I can go headless eventually once I learn more. Would the desktop version be to heavy on my computer resources?
Cheers, Tim
Hey Tim,
If you have the 4-8GB Pi or the Pi 400 I would not worry about it at all and use the desktop version. It’s much easier to get into it for beginners. You have a more familiar GUI and then can open the console app to run the commands. It’s a pretty slick experience on the Pi.
I would go with the latest Ubuntu 20.10 version for the best/smoothest experience. I’ve done some testing on it and it feels really great! Only if you are using a Pi with a 1 – 2 GB capacity would it get in the range where I would say you will have a better experience on CLI only. Hopefully that helps!
Hi James, wow I did not expect a reply that quickly, thanks!
I installed the desktop version of the software on an old htpc, Intel gen 4, now running headless. It seems to be working well.
I didn’t think it could run successfully on a rpi?
Cheers once again,
Tim
Hey Tim,
Sorry my bad, I replied quickly but I didn’t realize I wasn’t talking in a Pi thread! I had also just replied to 3 other messages that were in Pi threads and my mind wasn’t keeping up apparently!
That should be a fantastic setup. Running native x86_64 I would say that the server is much more efficient than the Java version (especially with memory). It’s written in C++ so it’s compiled code and it seems to perform very well even on low powered devices. The rub with the Pi is the ARM part for sure!
I’m glad you found success, cheers to you as well!
I keep getting this error, you need to authenticate to microsoft services and i don’t know what to do
Hey Mikhail,
This is related to the “online-mode” in the server.properties file. It means that players need to be signed into Xbox Live to log into the server. Sometimes it can also mean your server is having trouble communicating with Microsoft’s authentication servers.
Here’s some information from the Minecraft wiki:
You can try adjusting this to see if it alleviates the problem! You would just edit server.properties and change the “true” value for online-mode to false and then restart the server.
If this has already been changed to false or you know you changed this value to false then try changing it back to the other way and see if it works. In that case your authentication wasn’t being sent to Microsoft on a platform that required it. It can be situational which is why they have this option in there (for example very secure firewall setups that can’t contact Microsoft’s servers but are all on PC, like a classroom etc).
This may or may not work depending on the platforms involved. Some platforms require you to be logged in and have a working connection with Microsoft to play at all like some of the consoles, etc. If this is the case you may need to figure out what is going on with the connection or server setup that might be blocking Microsoft authentication. If this is a cracked/patched/non-legit version of Minecraft then you will need to turn this off since Microsoft will never authenticate a cracked client and they won’t be able to play unless it is disabled.
You usually want to leave this on unless you have a reason to disable it as it can break certain types of cross-platform play and internet play. If everyone is playing on the PC on LAN it’s probably fine to shut it off but if someone is trying to connect from an Xbox or some of the other consoles it’s going to prevent that. You are also limited to LAN only in this mode (thus the “online-mode” name of the option). Not 100% sure if Android/iOS will allow it or not. Give that a try and let us know!
Hi All,
Has anyone else had a version issue connecting to your minecraft server? My Win10 client says server out of date. My client is V.1.16.201. My server is V.1.16.40.02.
Am I missing something here? Before this my server worked flawlessly for about a year.
Hey Chad,
There was an issue where Mojang updated the web site to reject “spider” connections. Long story short, you just need to download and run SetupMinecraft.sh again which will update all your scripts. Make sure to take a full backup and have copies before you do this but it’s pretty easy and painless.
When SetupMinecraft.sh asks you for the server label just put in the folder name of your existing server and it will detect it’s already there and upgrade the scripts instead!
I have fixed several other things as of late as well so give updating to the latest a try here and let us know if it is working then!
Thank You for the quick reply. I will do this as soon as possible and post the results.
The server’s IPv6 can’t be used on the mobile version. What’s the reason?
Forgive me for my poor English.
Hey zym,
It should work theoretically, but it is on a separate port. The IPv6 server port (19133) is different than the IPv4 one (19132) so check for that first.
Here’s a link to a bug report that may help too with some troubleshooting steps from the devs.
There’s a good chance it’s the “client” that is the problem or the device that is connecting. Do you have other devices that can run Minecraft you can try with using IPv6 to narrow it down?
Hi James,
I have successfully updated the scripts. The Server did not automatically update. I manually installed the latest version. I cannot get the server to load my old world. I have updated server.properties but no luck. Help!
I got it! Everything seems to be back to normal.
Hey Chad,
I’m relieved to hear it, I was slow replying since I was tied up with real life stuff, that’s fantastic that you got it working!
Thank you for this script and the guide!
I wanted to move the server to a different location and I manage to edit everything so all the scripts and the .service are directed to the right location. The server is running perfect and starting up at boot.
But, I was wondering if it would be possible to edit the install script so I can then select where the server should be stored? That would make this job more easy.
Hi James,
Me again!
Just thought I’d post here in case anyone else found it useful.
I needed to know when people were connecting and disconnecting, but Minecraft server does not timestamp its log output on it’s own, so I added the following to /etc/screenrc:
# ——————————————————————————
# LOGGING OPTIONS
# ——————————————————————————
logtstamp onlogtstamp after 10
logtstamp string "%d/%m/%Y - %c:%s\012"
This adds a timestamp after 10 seconds of inactivity, and then again before the next line, in the format:
29/01/2021 – 22:29:30
the double quotes and ‘\012’ escape were needed to make it add a new line after each timestamp.
You could also add the above to ~/.screenrc if you only want to affect the screens for a single user.
Now, all output in the log files in ~/minecraftbe//logs has the required timestamps.
Cheers!
Welcome back Oli!
That’s a very useful tip. Thanks for leaving it!
Hi James! I am having an issue starting the server. I have setup the server completely but when I go to start it, it gets to the “[2020-01-24 17:17:04 INFO] Level Name: LCSN Whitelisted SMP” part in the starting process and then it says “[screen is terminating]”. Do you know how to fix this issue?
Hey Jack,
We may need to go to the logs to find out some more information. Can you check the logs folder?
One thing to check: does your level name have spaces in it? I think that line is okay but I have seen spaces and symbols in level names cause problems like this before so I thought I would throw this out there.
If you can pull the log file it should tell us why the server is terminating! Feel free to paste it here as well, web space is cheap these days!
Love the script! Set up a server in the small hours last night when the kids were asleep. There was a grumble this morning that their seed was not the same as the server I had set up on my first attempt. I think I used your script to get the server installed >and then< changed to the seed they wanted to use. Is the world generation a one time thing? Is there a way to reset and generate a world with the new seed? TIA. Lloydy
Hey Lloydy,
The server will start one time before you’re able to change the seed. This means that the starting area will be generated before your seed takes effect. You can just shut down the server and set level-seed= and remove the “world” folder to force it to regenerate with your seed.
You’re very close but if they’ve made new things on the new seed they will be lost when you remove the “worlds” folder so I wanted to give you the heads up first! Also, backup everything before attempting to remove any folders of course!