MeseCraft A blocky survival game.
MeseCraft
A blocky survival game.

Host

Building and configuring a dedicated MeseCraft server on Minetest is simple. This guide is mainly for Debian & Ubuntu Linux users.

SECTION 1: Installing the server software

STEP 1: Install required software dependencies.

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install g++ make libc6-dev cmake libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libxi-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libsqlite3-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libopenal-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libfreetype6-dev zlib1g-dev libgmp-dev libjsoncpp-dev libzstd-dev libluajit-5.1-dev

STEP 2: Install Git.

sudo apt install git

STEP 3: Use Git to download the Minetest source code and its dependencies.

sudo mkdir /opt/mesecraft-server && cd /opt/mesecraft-server/
sudo git clone -b stable-5 --depth 1 https://github.com/minetest/minetest.git
cd minetest
sudo git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/minetest/irrlicht.git lib/irrlichtmt
sudo mkdir logs

STEP 4: Use Git to download MeseCraft game files.

sudo git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MeseCraft/MeseCraft.git games/MeseCraft

STEP 5: Build a version of Minetest that runs from the source directory.

sudo cmake . -DRUN_IN_PLACE=TRUE -DBUILD_SERVER=TRUE -DBUILD_CLIENT=FALSE
sudo make install

SECTION 2: Configure the software

STEP 1: Create the server configuration file.

sudo cp minetest.conf.example minetest.conf

STEP 2: Edit the configuration file

sudo nano minetest.conf

STEP 3: Create a system service for your server.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/mesecraft-server.service
[Unit]
Description=MeseCraft Server
Documentation=man:minetestserver(6)
After=network.target
RequiresMountsFor=/opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/worlds
[Service]
Restart=on-failure
User=root
Group=root
ExecStart=/opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/bin/minetestserver --config /opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/minetest.conf --logfile /opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/logs/minetest.log
StandardOutput=null
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable mesecraft-server
sudo systemctl start mesecraft-server

Section 3: Maintaining your Server

Updating MeseCraft (game)

sudo service mesecraft-server stop
cd /opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/games/MeseCraft/
sudo git pull
sudo service mesecraft-server start

Updating Minetest (engine)

sudo service mesecraft-server stop
cd /opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/
sudo git pull
cd /opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/lib/irrlichtmt/
sudo git pull
cd /opt/mesecraft-server/minetest/
sudo cmake . -DRUN_IN_PLACE=TRUE -DBUILD_SERVER=TRUE -DBUILD_CLIENT=FALSE
sudo make install

Section 4: Additional Reading

Now that you’ve set up your own MeseCraft server, you can share it with the world! Let us know that you have a new server in the MeseCraft forum!

For more information: