Spigot is a modification of the Minecraft server software, CraftBukkit. Spigot optimizes server resource usage, ensuring your players have the best experience and is also backwards compatible with most CraftBukkit modifications, allowing you to make your server unique. In this guide, we will setup Spigot on Ubuntu Server.
Setting up Ubuntu Server
It is recommended to run all commands as a user with sudo privileges that is not root.
Start by ensuring that your server is up to date.
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
Install the needed packages.
sudo apt-get install git openjdk-7-jre tar -y
Create a swap file
Allocate the desired amount of memory. Replace 1G accordingly.
sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
Secure the permissions of your new swap file.
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
Allocate the swap space.
sudo mkswap /swapfile
Turn on swap.
sudo swapon /swapfile
Make your swap file permanent. Add the line below to the bottom of the fstab file.
sudo nano /etc/fstab
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0
Download and use BuildTools
Ensure you are in the home directory of the user used for installing Spigot.
cd ~
Create a folder for BuildTools.
mkdir build
cd build
Download BuildTools.jar Look for updates on their Jenkins page.
wget -O BuildTools.jar https://hub.spigotmc.org/jenkins/job/BuildTools/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/target/BuildTools.jar
Configure git.
git config --global --unset core.autocrlf
Run BuildTools.jar.
java -jar BuildTools.jar
Make note of the name of your spigot.jar file. For example, spigot-1.8.3.jar.
ls
Make a directory for your server.
cd ~
mkdir server
cd server
Move your spigot.jar into your server directory. Replace spigotname.jar with the name of your file.
mv ~/build/spigotname.jar ~/server/spigot.jar
Starting your server
Create a start up script for your server.
nano start.sh
Make start.sh match the following, replacing -Xmx1024M with the amount of RAM installed on your server.
#!/bin/sh
java -Xms512M -Xmx1024M -XX:MaxPermSize=128M -jar spigot.jar
Make start.sh executable.
chmod +x start.sh
Start your server.
./start.sh
Optional: Run your server in the background
Install screen.
sudo apt-get install screen -y
Open an instance of screen.
screen -S "Spigot Server"
Start your server script.
~/server/start.sh
Troubleshooting
Accept EULA.
If you are asked to confirm eula.txt, change eula to true.
nano eula.txt
BuildTools.jar wont run?
You need more RAM on your server or a larger swap file.
start.sh can’t run the file command on your jar file?
Check to ensure everything is typed exactly the same, Linux IS case sensitive.
Want to download a specific Minecraft version?
java -jar BuildTools.jar --rev 1.8.4
Replace 1.8.4 with the version of your choice.