Minecraft Server Mods

My son today wanted to use a couple of his favorite mods on a server that I setup for him and his friend. I've setup plenty of vanilla minecraft servers, but never successfully one with Forge and mods installed.

The first thing to realize is the basic steps are the same as installing Forge mods on the client:

1. Download the appropriate version of forge installer (Forge Site)
2. Run the installer
3. Start the server and make sure Forge is loaded
4. Copy the mod to the mods directory
5. Restart the server and make sure the mod loads

Some additional information will help. I'm doing this on a headless Ubuntu server so the instructions are tailored for that, but should be similar for other servers.

Installer

You want the plain installer download, not the installer-win or any of the others.

I don't have a GUI to my server, so I download files onto another PC and SFTP them to the server.

This process will create a new server setup, so go ahead and create your server directory now and put the installer in there to run it.

Run the Installer

In the new server directory, execute the installer with a command like this:

java -jar forge-1.7.10-10.13.2.1291-installer.jar --installServer

You will need to update the forge filename to match the version you are installing.
This should run for a while, downloading files and such, and then tell you it succeeded. There should be a forge "universal" file and a minecraft-xxx.jar file in the directory now.

Start the Server

To run the server, first copy the other server setup files. I have these available in a template directory. You need the edited eula.txt file and server.properties, and I include an ops.txt file to setup my initial operators.

When you start the server, you use the forge-XXX_universal.jar file in place of the minecraft.jar file.
So the command should look something like this:

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar forge-YYY_universal.jar nogui

If it works, you should see some log messages with [FML] in them saying what Forge is doing.

FYI, on my headless server I don't want to keep a terminal session open the whole time the server is up, so I use the "screen" command to keep it running. I think screen is included by default in Ubuntu now. Anyway, the command I use is:

screen -S $sname -d -m /usr/bin/java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar $jar nogui

Once you are happy the server is up, just detach with Ctrl-A d. But in this case you can just enter the 'stop' command to shutdown the server.

Install the Mod

If the mod is just a jar file, celebrate!  Just put it in the new mods directory under the server directory. If it is a ZIP file, you at least have to unzip it. Then it may be a jar file, or a directory with class files. Both those options should work if you transfer them as-is into the mods folder.

MCHeli

This one is a ZIP file wth two folders, mcheli and META-INF. Take the mcheli folder out and put it directly in your mods directory. It should have an assets folder and another mcheli folder plus a couple files.

Restart Server

Restart your server using the same command as above. If it crashes, check that you copied the files correctly. Usually reading the first few lines of the crash report gives a hint as to what the problem is. If nothing else, google the first exception you see.

Minecraft: Forge

Minecraft Forge is a basically a mod development kit and framework for Minecraft.

If you are a user, and not a mod developer, all you need to know is how to install the right Forge for your Minecraft version, and how to install mods once you have Forge. Okay, and I'll go over how to download the Forge version as well.

Recent versions of Forge have a very, very nice java installer. First, go to the download page at the Forge site, http://files.minecraftforge.net. Wow, they have just changed this page around significantly. Looks like you scroll down to where the Minecraft versions are listed, then select your version, then the page reloads, then you can click the Installer-Win icon for Recommended or Latest. I recommend Recommended.

On the next page, don't be fooled by the stuff on the page, just click Skip in the upper right corner.

This should start the download however that works for your browser. You should save the file, then open it when the download is complete.

When you run the installer it will look something like this:

This is a good time to confirm that you have the right version. Leave "Install client" selected and leave the path alone and just click Ok.

After a short time it should complete:

At this point, load the launcher and create a new profile.

And now your launcher should allow you to select the new version with Forge, like so:

That's it as far as installing goes.

Before you try to add a mod, though, you'll want to startup the profile first. Make sure the profile is selected in the launcher and click Play. Then wait for Minecraft to load. When it does, you should see the confirmation that Forge is active in the lower left corner:

Now you can should exit Minecraft. This little exercise allows Forge to create the mods directory, which is where you will copy your Forge-enabled mods.

The simple way to find the directory is to go back to the launcher, Edit Profile and click the Open Game Dir button. You will see a list of directories, including the new "mods" directory. Just copy your mod's jar file there and hit Play and that's all it should take.

Minecraft: The Launcher

Around version 7, Mojang came out with a new launcher for Minecraft. This new launcher easily manages multiple Minecraft versions and adds "profiles" and "game directories."

Before the new launcher, all Minecraft used a single directory in the user's AppData path. This meant that as you started using the game, creating worlds, adding mods and so on, it would all go in the same directory. Then if you wanted to play a different version of the game, you would still have most of the old stuff. It got very messy.

In the new launcher, we have Profiles. Profiles simplify using Minecraft for multiple different playing environments on a single computer. For instance, if you want to run version 1.6.2 with Flan's Mod, you setup a profile for that. Then if you want to run a different version with different mods, you create a new profile.




To create a profile, click on "New Profile" in the lower left corner of the launcher.



This will bring up the profile editor page.

This looks complicated, but for now you only need to worry about here things: the profile name, the game directory, and the version selected.

The profile name can be pretty much anything you want. Most people put the minecraft version or the name of the main mods they are using or something like that.

Above all, you need to check the "Game Directory" checkbox. This tells the launcher that you want to use a directory that is specific to this profile, and not lump all the profiles into a single location.
Then you just fill in the directory name.  I suggest putting all your game directories into the same parent folder, for example "C:\MC", and then add the name of the profile as the subfolder.

In the "Use version" dropdown box, just pick the version of Minecraft you want to use. It's that easy. If you've installed Forge for any versions, the Forge versions will be listed separately at the bottom of the list.

Save your profile, and you are done. One warning - when you go back to the main launcher page, you may be expecting the profile you just created to be selected, but usually it isn't. So change to the newly created profile before you hit Play!