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.
How far back did you upgrade from if you don’t mind me asking? I could theoretically fix this but I think it has been this way for a while. If I’m mistaken though I’d love to know more details!
Ramses
3 years ago
how do i convert a backup to a new version (1.17.11 to 1.17.3) downloaded it and then when I want to upload the backup i switches to 1.17.11 again
Bedrock doesn’t really let you target specific versions like Java. You can’t really roll it back as most updates come from the Microsoft Store / Playstation Store / Switch store / etc. This is not something that is allowed / supported in Bedrock and is exclusively a Java feature to be able to control which version you are running.
You can see if bedrock_server is in your backup still for that version but the game / server will fight you every step of the way you try to do this and it’s going to be a CONSTANT headache for both you and your players. People’s clients will constantly be trying to update to the latest even if you shut off updates, things like that. It’s simply not designed for it / allowed in Bedrock and for Java it’s literally a built in feature where you can choose the version from the menu / launcher. In Bedrock your clients will constantly update and will no longer be able to connect to your old version.
It won’t even be possible to try to hold the versions back on things like Xbox / PS4 / Switch. The only way you could temporarily run an old version is on PC with a separate backup copy of the files that the store won’t force to update. It’s not even an option on the other platforms. Maybe Android if you adb pushed an old apk if you had the foresight to adb pull the old version you want to target? It’s nearly impossible though off the PC to have any control over this at all.
This has come up a few times here over the years and I can tell you that I’ve never seen anyone successfully pull this off for more than a few days no matter how determined / sure they were they could do it / righteous and true their cause was / etc. It’s simply too annoying to do and it will no longer make sense to you to keep it up very quickly (just from past experience with others). Whatever problem this is trying to solve it will absolutely make zero sense to solve this way to you once you realize how much constant time/effort/work it is to try to stay on an old Bedrock version while it is fighting (both server and clients) every moment of every day. It really is painful!
If you have a older copy of bedrock_server you could get it to work temporarily if this happens to be because you updated before the new client was available in the store (this is basically the opposite problem as trying to roll back creates, now you’re too far ahead!). Microsoft is usually pretty good at releasing them at the same time but sometimes the server comes out before the client or the client will come out before the server and there will be a version mismatch. This happens from time to time and all you can really do is wait unfortunately. As far as staying on / targeting specific versions they did not give you the ability to do that in Bedrock like you have in Java!
Robert Wörz
3 years ago
I have Setup a new Raspian Light Image and installed the Bedrock Server.
It looks that the Server Crashing with
ERROR: ld.so: object ‘/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-${PLATFORM}.so’ from /etc/ld.so.preload cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
screen is terminating
i am a beginner with Raspian, so i have no idea what i could do.
No worries at all! It’s a miracle that it works at all on the Pi (an ARM device). Bedrock is basically C/C++ code instead of Java like the other version of Minecraft and Java is much better at running on pretty much every platform out there.
Let me know if you run into any other trouble!
Robert Wörz
3 years ago
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-${PLATFORM}.so' from /etc/ld.so.preload cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
Will
3 years ago
I’m back to bother for more questions! 🙂 EVerything has been running fine but i was wondering how i would go about reseting the world if i ever need to. Thanks!
Welcome back, you’re always welcome to come ask anything you want! The absolute easiest way is to close down the server and delete your “world” folder from the server you are resetting. Once you start the server back up everything will be reset back to default!
If you want to get a completely fresh start I would just completely set it up as a different server name/label and you can keep them separate (it supports multiple servers). Hopefully that helps!
Bob Macantosh
3 years ago
I apologize James, for asking all of these questions, but I seem to have another!
When I try and run, it ends with something similar to:
“Minecraft server has started. To view the server, type screen -r $ServerName”
So I type in “screen -r (and then my server name)”
It says, there is no screen matching….”
So i try to join the server from Minecraft I leave the port as the default because I had never changed it, and I put in the “IP”.
When I put the name does it have to be the name of the server that I made during the setup process?
Just incase it did matter, I used that one!
When I try to join, it says, “Can not connect to world”
I would try screen -r but honestly this one can be tough to get running on the Pi. Are you using the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 20.04? It won’t work on anything else currently because the Bedrock server is different than the Java one and is built specifically for a single platform. It’s difficult to explain but basically it works differently from the Java one in a way that makes things much more difficult for us!
It won’t work on Raspberry Pi OS or Ubuntu 32 bit because of this since it’s built for 64 bit (x86_64 actually, but the script has somethings to help it run on ARM but you have to be running Ubuntu 64bit).
If this is a project Pi and you don’t mind imaging it using the Ubuntu 64 bit OS (it’s available in the official Pi Imager tool that images the SD card for you) then I think we should still try it. If this is a Pi running a 32 bit OS that you have other stuff set up running on it / don’t have a spare SD card you could use to try this then it might not be the best approach.
Can you tell us what OS you’re running?
Steve
3 years ago
Just wanna say thanks a ton, man! Finally found a game that me and all my siblings can enjoy (they’re all very new to gaming in general), and this has made it easier than ever to bring us all together as quickly as possible! You’ve made more of a difference than you perhaps anticipated! 😀
Thanks for taking the time to leave the kind words Steve, I’m very glad that Minecraft has brought everyone together, it’s definitely one of the best parts!
There seems to be an error in the Server Config (at least on upgrade versions). Anything to be fixed on your end?
Hey YZFDonor,
How far back did you upgrade from if you don’t mind me asking? I could theoretically fix this but I think it has been this way for a while. If I’m mistaken though I’d love to know more details!
how do i convert a backup to a new version (1.17.11 to 1.17.3) downloaded it and then when I want to upload the backup i switches to 1.17.11 again
Hey Ramses,
Bedrock doesn’t really let you target specific versions like Java. You can’t really roll it back as most updates come from the Microsoft Store / Playstation Store / Switch store / etc. This is not something that is allowed / supported in Bedrock and is exclusively a Java feature to be able to control which version you are running.
You can see if bedrock_server is in your backup still for that version but the game / server will fight you every step of the way you try to do this and it’s going to be a CONSTANT headache for both you and your players. People’s clients will constantly be trying to update to the latest even if you shut off updates, things like that. It’s simply not designed for it / allowed in Bedrock and for Java it’s literally a built in feature where you can choose the version from the menu / launcher. In Bedrock your clients will constantly update and will no longer be able to connect to your old version.
It won’t even be possible to try to hold the versions back on things like Xbox / PS4 / Switch. The only way you could temporarily run an old version is on PC with a separate backup copy of the files that the store won’t force to update. It’s not even an option on the other platforms. Maybe Android if you adb pushed an old apk if you had the foresight to adb pull the old version you want to target? It’s nearly impossible though off the PC to have any control over this at all.
This has come up a few times here over the years and I can tell you that I’ve never seen anyone successfully pull this off for more than a few days no matter how determined / sure they were they could do it / righteous and true their cause was / etc. It’s simply too annoying to do and it will no longer make sense to you to keep it up very quickly (just from past experience with others). Whatever problem this is trying to solve it will absolutely make zero sense to solve this way to you once you realize how much constant time/effort/work it is to try to stay on an old Bedrock version while it is fighting (both server and clients) every moment of every day. It really is painful!
If you have a older copy of bedrock_server you could get it to work temporarily if this happens to be because you updated before the new client was available in the store (this is basically the opposite problem as trying to roll back creates, now you’re too far ahead!). Microsoft is usually pretty good at releasing them at the same time but sometimes the server comes out before the client or the client will come out before the server and there will be a version mismatch. This happens from time to time and all you can really do is wait unfortunately. As far as staying on / targeting specific versions they did not give you the ability to do that in Bedrock like you have in Java!
I have Setup a new Raspian Light Image and installed the Bedrock Server.
It looks that the Server Crashing with
ERROR: ld.so: object ‘/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-${PLATFORM}.so’ from /etc/ld.so.preload cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
screen is terminating
i am a beginner with Raspian, so i have no idea what i could do.
Hey Robert,
It won’t work on Raspbian. You should definitely check out the Raspberry Pi specific article here: Official Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server on Raspberry Pi*
Basically it has to be emulated so you will need Ubuntu x86_64 to run it. Beyond that it should be pretty easy. Hopefully that helps!
Thanks for that fast Reply. I didn´t know that i need a 64 bit OS. I try it again with an other 64bit OS.
Hey Robert,
No worries at all! It’s a miracle that it works at all on the Pi (an ARM device). Bedrock is basically C/C++ code instead of Java like the other version of Minecraft and Java is much better at running on pretty much every platform out there.
Let me know if you run into any other trouble!
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-${PLATFORM}.so' from /etc/ld.so.preload cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.I’m back to bother for more questions! 🙂 EVerything has been running fine but i was wondering how i would go about reseting the world if i ever need to. Thanks!
Hey Will,
Welcome back, you’re always welcome to come ask anything you want! The absolute easiest way is to close down the server and delete your “world” folder from the server you are resetting. Once you start the server back up everything will be reset back to default!
If you want to get a completely fresh start I would just completely set it up as a different server name/label and you can keep them separate (it supports multiple servers). Hopefully that helps!
I apologize James, for asking all of these questions, but I seem to have another!
When I try and run, it ends with something similar to:
“Minecraft server has started. To view the server, type screen -r $ServerName”
So I type in “screen -r (and then my server name)”
It says, there is no screen matching….”
So i try to join the server from Minecraft I leave the port as the default because I had never changed it, and I put in the “IP”.
When I put the name does it have to be the name of the server that I made during the setup process?
Just incase it did matter, I used that one!
When I try to join, it says, “Can not connect to world”
-Bob
Hey Bob,
I would try screen -r but honestly this one can be tough to get running on the Pi. Are you using the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 20.04? It won’t work on anything else currently because the Bedrock server is different than the Java one and is built specifically for a single platform. It’s difficult to explain but basically it works differently from the Java one in a way that makes things much more difficult for us!
It won’t work on Raspberry Pi OS or Ubuntu 32 bit because of this since it’s built for 64 bit (x86_64 actually, but the script has somethings to help it run on ARM but you have to be running Ubuntu 64bit).
If this is a project Pi and you don’t mind imaging it using the Ubuntu 64 bit OS (it’s available in the official Pi Imager tool that images the SD card for you) then I think we should still try it. If this is a Pi running a 32 bit OS that you have other stuff set up running on it / don’t have a spare SD card you could use to try this then it might not be the best approach.
Can you tell us what OS you’re running?
Just wanna say thanks a ton, man! Finally found a game that me and all my siblings can enjoy (they’re all very new to gaming in general), and this has made it easier than ever to bring us all together as quickly as possible! You’ve made more of a difference than you perhaps anticipated! 😀
Thanks for taking the time to leave the kind words Steve, I’m very glad that Minecraft has brought everyone together, it’s definitely one of the best parts!