Minecraft Bedrock Edition – Ubuntu Dedicated Server Guide

Minecraft Bedrock Edition Logo
Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Logo

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

I’ve also released a way for Java and Bedrock players to play on the same server using Geyser: Minecraft Java + Bedrock Server Together – Geyser + Floodgate

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 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
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!

Links: Amazon.com*, Amazon.co.jp*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*

Minecraft Bedrock Playstation
Minecraft Bedrock Playstation

The Sony PlayStation version of Minecraft: Bedrock edition.

Links: Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.jp*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.se*, Amazon.sg*

Minecraft Bedrock Nintendo Switch
Minecraft Bedrock Nintendo Switch

This is the Nintendo Switch version of Minecraft: Bedrock edition.

Links: Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.jp*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.pl*, Amazon.se*, Amazon.sg*

Minecraft Bedrock Xbox One
Minecraft Bedrock Xbox One

This is the Microsoft Xbox version of Minecraft: Bedrock edition.

Links: Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.sg*

Recommended Storage (Solid State Drive)

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 SSD
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!

Links: AliExpress*, Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.jp*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.pl*, Amazon.se*, Amazon.sg*

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.

Links: AliExpress*, Amazon.com*, Amazon.ca*, Amazon.com.au*, Amazon.co.jp*, Amazon.co.uk*, Amazon.de*, Amazon.es*, Amazon.fr*, Amazon.it*, Amazon.nl*, Amazon.pl*, Amazon.se*, Amazon.sg*

Computer / CPU / Memory

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:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/MinecraftBedrockServer/master/SetupMinecraft.sh | bash

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.

[2019-03-30 20:25:12 INFO] Starting Server
[2019-03-30 20:25:12 INFO] Version 1.10.0.7
[2019-03-30 20:25:12 INFO] Level Name: Bedrock level
[2019-03-30 20:25:12 INFO] Game mode: 0 Survival
[2019-03-30 20:25:12 INFO] Difficulty: 1 EASY
[2019-03-30 20:25:20 INFO] IPv4 supported, port: 19132
[2019-03-30 20:25:20 INFO] IPv6 supported, port: 19133
[2019-03-30 20:25:23 INFO] Server started.

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:

cd ~/minecraftbe
./start.sh
./stop.sh
./restart.sh

-OR-

sudo systemctl start minecraftbe
sudo systemctl stop minecraftbe
sudo systemctl restart minecraftbe

Automatic Backups

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.

Installing Resource Packs / RTX Support

For instructions on how to install resource packs (including optional RTX support) view my step by step Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server Resource Packs guide here.

Scheduled Daily Reboots

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
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:

echo "bedrock-server-1.18.33.02.zip" > version_pin.txt

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:

sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/PiBenchmarks/master/Storage.sh | sudo bash

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.

Have fun!

Other Resources

For a guide on how to set up resource packs check out my Minecraft Bedrock Resource Pack guide

If you’re trying to run this on the Raspberry Pi check out the Raspberry Pi specific guide here

1,529 thoughts on “Minecraft Bedrock Edition – Ubuntu Dedicated Server Guide”

    1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

      Hey Hugoshido,

      You can try the following:

      sudo wget https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/box64.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/box64.list
      wget -qO- https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/KEY.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/box64-debs-archive-keyring.gpg
      sudo apt update && sudo apt install box64-rpi4arm64 -y

      Or alternatively use the Docker version to get around the dependency issues (highly recommended).

      Hopefully that helps!

  1. Avatar for Gerrit Tolkes

    Hi James,

    i installed the server a month ago and it’s running perfectly with 8 people playing it. Updates and backups are also working as described. Thanks for this script!

    1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

      Hey Gerrit,

      Thanks so much for leaving this comment! 8 people is a really good crowd. I’m glad everything has been working well. Definitely don’t hesitate to stop by if you run into any issues.

      Thanks again and take care!

      1. Avatar for Gerrit Tolkes

        hey james,
        now there is actually a problem. Unfortunately none of the players can join the server anymore. All receive the error message “You Need To Authenticate to Microsoft Services”. I have already tried:
        -server restart
        -log out and log in microsoft account in minecraft
        -updating the server
        nothing worked.
        if i set the online mode to false i can join the game but of course no one else.
        Do you have a tip for me?

        1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

          Hey Gerrit,

          Welcome! So the problem is likely your system’s time / time zone. You may need to fix this with:

          sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

          Also make sure the clock is set right. That’s just about all it could be other than running a very old operating system. Can you share your:

          cat /etc/os-release
          uname -a

          This is a relatively uncommon error to encounter to be honest so I suspect something is misconfigured here. Hopefully that helps!

          1. Avatar for Gerrit Tolkes

            Hi,

            the clock is/was set right, but i did it again with your command. After a server restart i tried to connect, but the same error appeared. Then i saw that the minutes didn’t fit exactly to my time.. after using a ntp-server it works and i can join the server in online mode.

            Thanks a lot for your help!! But can you explain me why it works for 2 months and suddenly this error accured?

            1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

              Hey Gerrit,

              Excellent, I’m glad that got it working! So I can’t explain why your clock is off. Maybe your CMOS battery is dead on your motherboard and the server lost power briefly? That could definitely do it. It would indicate there’s some kind of hardware issue though if the computer can’t keep the time right anymore.

              Hopefully that helps!

              1. Avatar for Gerrit Tolkes

                that could be an explanation.. my hardware is an old intel nuc that was previously used as a desktop pc in a company.
                Thanks for your help

              2. Avatar for James A. Chambers

                Hey Gerrit,

                No problem! They usually take CR2032 batteries and can be replaced. If it keeps happening it would definitely be worth replacing it I would say (easy, they pop right out usually and should on the Intel NUC).

                This is a pretty common problem on older computers. Intel even says this in the above linked article:

                If the battery and standby current both fail:

                Date and time values in BIOS might not be accurate.
                The error message CMOS Battery Low appears when the computer starts.

                Of course it’s also a problem in newer computers. They all still work this way. Newer computers are just not likely to have reached the end of life of the battery it shipped with originally but they can all do this for sure.

                Take care!

    1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

      Hey jose alfaro,

      The only way to do it is in single player. You can then export your single player world and use it with the dedicated server. I don’t think it really does much for the dedicated server but you could absolutely create a world with experimental features on and then copy that world to your dedicated server.

      You can read more about it here. If the add-on just has some silly check for this flag then exporting a single player world should check this box. There’s not a setting or easy way to do this though. You’ll have to do it in single player and then export.

      It’s possible to do binary patching of level.dat but to say it is hard is an understatement:

      Proceed at your own risk! The below may corrupt your world.

      First find the file

      server_folder/world/world_name/level.dat

      If you use Notepad++ it will say something like

      experimentalgameplay[NUL][SOH]

      [NUL] and [SOH] are each just one special control character. Copy the [SOH] character and replace the [NUL]. Make it look like

      experimentalgameplay[SOH][SOH]

      Needless to say I highly recommend just creating a new world in single player and checking the box and then copying your local world folder to your dedicated server. If you make any mistakes with the special characters trying to patch the binary the world will be corrupted.

      Hopefully that helps!

      1. Avatar for jose alfaro

        I exported my single player world with experimental features but when I copy it to the server it shows as offline and doesn’t show number of players but connects normal

        1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

          Hey jose,

          That is a bit strange. It sounds like the pinging port isn’t working perhaps. Do you have both TCP and UDP port forwarding enabled on the firewall? I believe the “ping” port uses TCP while the rest of Bedrock uses UDP. If this was working before though it’s definitely strange.

          It might be worth restarting the server (as in the entire server PC) as sometimes there can be some weird port conflicts. It shouldn’t run two instances at once but sometimes the ports get stuck and restarting it will clear this out so it’s worth a try to see if that will get it to show as “online” again with the player count.

          Does everything seem to be in order on the server? Did this let you install those add-ons you were looking for?

          1. Avatar for jose alfaro

            yes ,I was able to install all the addons, it’s just the ping and player count and i try to restart the server but not working however it connects normally thanks

  2. Avatar for Soma

    Hi there, when I ran the main curl command it created a bunch of files in the base server directory – lib*.so.* Is that expected – can I delete them?

      1. Avatar for Soma

        Thanks James! I’m more used to running java servers – so not used to seeing a cluttered server root directory. Thanks again.

        1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

          Hey Soma,

          No problem at all! Those .so files are basically the equivalent of .dll files for Windows. They’re libraries so we wouldn’t want to remove them from this.

          Enjoy and take care!

  3. Avatar for Server terminating
    Server terminating

    I keep running the server, but I keep getting “screen is terminating”, and then the server stops. I can start it up with ./start.sh, but I want to have the server up for more than 5 minutes… How do I fix this?

    1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

      Hey Server terminating,

      The log files for sure. Go to the logs folder of your server and it will tell you why it’s crashing.

      Screen is only terminating because the server is crashing. The logs will tell us why.

      Hopefully that helps!

    1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

      Hey Pedro,

      There’s a script called “clean.sh” in the folder that should take care of it for you.

      This removes everything to do with reverting and gives you a clean slate again. Hopefully that helps!

  4. Avatar for Quinnly

    Do I want to forward 19132 still even if I set a different port? I’m trying to set this up on ubuntu server in a proxmox VM and it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve forwarded ports from my windows desktop before just fine.

    1. Avatar for James A. Chambers

      Hey Quinnly,

      No essentially. This is going to be a pretty tricky configuration I think. There’s potentially firewalls on the node, the datacenter, as well as the Ubuntu Server instance if it has ufw or firewalld installed (varies).

      The server is actually identical to the Windows one. It works exactly the same. It’s just built for Linux instead of Windows but it all comes from the same code. You could take your Linux dedicated server files and copy them to a Windows machine and run it and it would work just fine.

      The network configuration for this is most likely going to be among the most complex I’ve ever seen to be honest with you. This one reminds me a lot of the free Oracle VM which nobody will be able to connect to even though it looks like it’s working normally. In Oracle there’s all kinds of rules you have to create that are different from everything else (related to all the additional firewalls and security). This one looks like it has some additional configuration as well.

      Here’s someone fighting with it for Java edition. That is some nasty looking configuration. You may want to consider the Docker version.

      What have you tried? What does your /etc/network/interfaces configuration look like? If it’s not completely customized like the above examples I don’t think it’s going to work. I don’t think you could find a more difficult platform to configure this on to be honest. Even the free Oracle VM would be easier (and I have documentation for that one).

      Basically the server just listens on the ports you are specifying. Anything past that has to do with your configuration. There’s nothing weird going on in the scripts or Minecraft server that would really explain this. It works the exact same as on Windows. The differences here are explained by using virtual machines / proxmox / other platforms which all have their own configuration.

      You’re the first person I’ve ever seen try to do this in over 5 years. I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t do it using this setup. I’m just saying I’ve literally never seen anyone do it or try to do it until now. I couldn’t give you a working configuration for this platform. Some of the examples I found were for Java but not Bedrock. It looks possible but I couldn’t think of a more difficult way to set this up. If containerization is desired Docker will be up and running doing this in like 1-2 minutes.

      Hopefully that helps!

      1. Avatar for limitlesskeil

        Quinnly I can give you some hope in your config I actually do have proxmox running on my Dell R620 running a ubuntu ser VM with Minecraft installed. The only difference from you description to what I’ve done is I left the port for this at 19132 as I have friends that use bedrock together app on their phones to connect to my server.

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