If a new version of Minecraft is out and the script hasn't been updated yet you can change it in the SetupMinecraft.sh script. If you use the command nano SetupMinecraft.sh it will be the first line in the file like this:
Version="1.18.1"
AllowLocalCopy="1"
Make sure to change AllowLocalCopy="1" to tell the script you want to actually run the local copy instead of the latest version.
Note that for this to work the Paper Minecraft server must also have released the latest version or the download will fail. You can check here: https://papermc.io/downloads
Check Java Version
Sometimes if you have multiple versions of Java installed the wrong version of Java will be selected as the default. If the server didn't start check that the right version of Java is selected with this command:
If you get the message "update-alternatives: error: no alternatives for java" then you only have one version of Java installed and can skip to the next section.
If you are presented with a list of choices then your machine has multiple versions of Java installed. It will look like this:
update-alternatives: warning: /etc/alternatives/java has been changed (manually or by a script); switching to manual updates only
There are 2 choices for the alternative java (providing /usr/bin/java).
Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64/bin/java 1101 auto mode
1 /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64/bin/java 1101 manual mode
2 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java 1081 manual mode
You will usually want to just select the newest version of OpenJDK that is listed so you would type 0 and press enter. In some cases on some platforms you may want to switch to the official Oracle JDK although I strongly recommend sticking with OpenJDK!
Moved custom directories to the top of SetupMinecraft.sh to eliminate confusion about how to use the feature (and almost nobody should unless you are storing your server on a separate drive)
Improve JRE update detection in SetupMinecraft.sh
August 6th 2022
Upgrade to 1.19.2
August 4th 2022
Script now removes non-alphanumeric characters from the servername variable (to prevent using quotes and other symbols that will break it)
August 2nd 2022
Fix ARM link for Adoptium OpenJDK
(thanks zqigolden, PR #42
OpenJDK will now detect if you have an older version than SetupMinecraft is installing (or a broken Java install) and reinstall the newest version
July 31st 2022
Upgrade Adoptium OpenJDK to 18.0.2 -- if you want to upgrade your Adoptium you can remove the ~/minecraft/jre folder and run SetupMinecraft.sh again to upgrade to the latest one
July 27th 2022
Update to 1.19.1 (always make sure you've copied some backups out of the backups folder first!)
June 15th 2022
Fix Paper 1.19 version upgrades (thanks Meganium97, issue #41)
June 11th 2022
Update to Paper experimental 1.19 release as default installation
Make sure you have backups of your server from your "backups" folder stored separately before upgrading
If you have problems with 1.19 you need to restore a backup to go back to 1.18 as it will not take your server data files on 1.18 once the 1.19 structures/data have been added
Change update.sh to /bin/bash instead of /bin/sh
Add PATH variable to update.sh
May 22nd 2022
Update OpenJDK installation paths
May 21st 2022
Switched from JDK to JRE to save space
Added Adoptium OpenJDK support for s390x and ppc64le architectures
May 16th 2022
Add -DPaper.IgnoreJavaVersion=true to allow OpenJDK 17 to run the older Paper Minecraft versions (thanks NotMick, issue #39)
May 15th 2022
Added screen -wipe to beginning of start.sh to prevent a startup issue that could occur if there was a "dead" screen instance (thanks grimholme)
May 11th 2022
Fix Adoptium arm and aarch64 OpenJDK links (thanks 407pilot, issue #38
May 10th 2022
Update Adoptium OpenJDK version
Add safety check for backups to make sure folder exists before pruning
May 8th 2022
Fixed a problem with restart.sh having a #!/bin/sh at the top which could cause restart.sh to run in a POSIX shell that doesn't recognize the [[ operator (thanks jmswan, issue #37
May 4th 2022
Fixed "route" command used to detect internet access to be compatible with Debian
April 24th 2022
Fixed mistake in new multicore compression (thanks pmcmorris) and related mistake in SetupMinecraft.sh dependency check
April 16th 2022
Remove "jre" folder if JDK installation fails so it will attempt to download a fresh copy upon running SetupMinecraft.sh again
Added support for the tar command to use multiple CPU cores instead of a single core. This should speed up backups and reduce instances of when it takes longer to back up than the server's startup time (thanks SudosFTW, issue #36)
April 6th 2022
Fixed issue that prevented detecting a broken OpenJDK installation
Added language headers to OpenJDK download
March 24th 2022
Dedicated OpenJDK 17 install is now used (stored in your server's directory) to avoid apt / snap issues
Create "logs" folder for new servers to avoid harmless error messages (cleanup)
Add new "jre" folder to backup command's ignore list to avoid bloated backups
March 23rd 2022
Removed snapd installation as the snapd repository will only install OpenJDK 18 or higher which won't work with Paper
Paper still does not support OpenJDK 18 and will give errors using a version that high
Working on a new more reliable method to install OpenJDK 17
March 23rd 2022
Removed obsolete requirement not allowing OpenJDK versions above 17 as Paper now supports this
March 5th 2022
Update to 1.18.2 -- make sure you have backups first if you are upgrading from an existing server!
December 12th 2021
Update to 1.18.1 -- make sure you have backups first if you are upgrading from an existing server!
Update_Sudoers
November 30th 2021
Update to 1.18 -- make sure you have backups first if you are upgrading from an existing server!
September 15th 2021
Update to allow OpenJDK 17 which is now the default "snap"
September 2nd 2021
Update to Paper Minecraft Server API v2
August 1st 2021
Fixed a missing -A parameter for a curl command (thanks davie2000, issue #27)
July 27th 2021
Added PATH variable to scripts to improve compatibility on some distros
Server now fixes permissions upon startup
July 21st 2021
Switched from wget to curl to fix spacing issues experienced by some users
Added error redirection to crontab line to help diagnose failures during scheduled restarts
July 19th 2021
Fixed an issue where SetupMinecraft.sh could throw an error if no Java version was installed
July 17th 2021
Fixed server name prompt
Added username missing to fix service issue
Reduced memory recommendation by 100MB to allow more space for the OS / other processes since newer versions of Minecraft are requiring more memory. Remember, if you don't leave enough memory for other things the Minecraft server will crash for memory issues, but it's because you set it too high (counterintuitive I know) and didn't leave enough for the OS and it killed your Minecraft server to prevent the entire OS from crashing.
Added in check to ensure start.sh and other scripts are not being ran as root. If this happens you have to use sudo screen -r to find the screen and the permissions will be wrong since root isn't the owner of the server files
If you know you ran the script/server as root (which starts creating files owned by root instead of the regular user) and your server won't start/is wonky run the fixpermissions script from your server folder with ./fixpermissions.sh and it will correct them for you!
July 15th 2021
Added safety check for path to server -- please use the default path of ~ if you aren't familiar with fully qualified Linux paths/directories -- you really don't want to change the safe defaults unless you have a really specific need.
July 14th 2021
Fixed a issue that was causing backups to not rotate (it should only keep 10). Thanks Olli
July 8th 2021
Update to 1.17.1
Update documentation to explain new AllowLocalCopy="1" flag. This flag tells the script not to run the latest online version and to run the local copy. You want to use this if you are changing the version or making any modifications to the script itself before running it.
Added update.sh convenience script that calls the latest version of SetupMinecraft.sh
Fixed a bug where having an OpenJDK greater than 16 was not triggering the snap configuration (usually only seen on the cutting edge Ubuntu flavors)
July 5th 2021
Fixed an issue with SetupMinecraft.sh saving scripts to the home folder instead of the minecraft folder (thanks Ryan A J.)
July 3rd 2021
Add option to choose a custom directory instead of forcing the home path
June 24th 2021
Removed installation of OpenJDK above OpenJDK 16 as the Paper Minecraft server is not working with versions higher than 16
If you have a higher version of Java installed use the following command: sudo update-alternatives –config java and select OpenJDK 16
June 19th 2021
1.17 Release
Make sure you have backups and take copies of your backups and place them outside the Minecraft folder to be 100% safe
Once running the new version you can't go back to the old one without restoring a backup because it writes new stuff in your server the old version doesn't understand and crashes on
As long as you have backups you should be okay!
June 16th 2021
Raised minimum OpenJDK requirement to 16 in preparation for the 1.17 Paper Minecraft server release
If a new enough OpenJDK is not available in apt (Raspberry Pi OS is on OpenJDK 11 for example) it will be installed via snapd
If snapd is not installed it will ask you if you want to install it (reboot required) or abort
After the reboot run SetupMinecraft.sh again and it will finish installing OpenJDK 16! Be patient, it can take some time, even 10-15 minutes on a good connection and longer on a bad one
Sorry for the inconvenience, there isn't an easier way to get it until the Raspberry Pi OS apt repositories are updated!
June 12th 2021
Fixed syntax error (thanks aruthir!)
June 10th 2021
Added OpenJDK 17 and 18 placeholders for prerequisite installations
Added a fallback to the non-headless JRE for platforms that don't offer that metapackage
Paper Minecraft 1.17 is not yet available but should be soon. If you go to https://papermc.io/api/v1/paper/ and see 1.17 in the list it's available and you can change the version variable at the very top of SetupMinecraft.sh otherwise it hasn't been released yet. Should be soon!
March 22nd 2021
Lowered amount of recommended memory by a flat 200MB due to so many people having "Out of Memory" errors
Note: Nobody has ever really been "out of memory" on the Pi since like the Pi 1. The problem is you're using TOO MUCH.
If you're getting memory related crashes you need to turn your memory DOWN. The server will recommend lower amounts going forward.
March 16th 2021
Added backup rotation - server keeps the last 10 backups by default
If you want to change the amount of backups held it is located in the "start.sh" script with a comment of '# Rotate backups -- keep most recent 10'
This adds a little responsibility for saving really old backups but fixes the issue I and many others have had of the server getting filled with backups and crashing
January 31st 2021
Update to 1.16.5
Server now takes ownership of server files on each start to prevent folks a whole heap of trouble and heartache when restoring backups/moving files/etc.
Added check to make sure script isn't being ran as sudo to prevent installing to the /root folder
December 5th 2020
Update to 1.16.4
Fixed a bug where if your username on the Pi was Minecraft it would cause the script to break (thanks Minecraftschurli, pull request #20)
Fixed a bug that could cause OpenJDK 10 to try to be installed even if OpenJDK 11 installation was successful
September 25th 2020
Update to 1.16.3
August 28th 2020
Update to 1.16.2
July 4th 2020
Update to 1.16.1
January 25th 2020
Update to 1.15.2
December 28th 2019
Backup system now takes a backup of your entire server folder (minus logs and cache) instead of just the world folders. This mean it now backs up things like server.properties and other worlds if you are running a multiverse setup.
December 20th 2019
Updated to version 1.15.1
Added more information to script installation warnings to help with initial configuration
Added warning to 2700MB limit on 32 bit operating systems explaining that you can lift the 3 GB limit by using a 64 bit Pi distribution
Cleaned up Java installation in setup script
August 26th 2019
Fixed a silly bug causing recommended memory to be stuck at 2700
August 25th 2019
Improved server startup detection after running SetupMinecraft
Added terminal colors to improve visibility
Cleaned up script substantially by breaking out duplicate code to functions
Fixed issue where when reconfiguring an existing server you would not be prompted to configure daily reboots
Removed /boot/config.txt tweaks as they are no longer compatible with Pi 4
August 24th 2019
To prevent startup failure on 32bit ARM the maximum memory for the Minecraft server is capped at 2700MB. This is a per process limitation of 32 bit on ARM and Linux. This restriction can be lifted by using a 64 bit operating system.
July 19th 2019
Updated development version to 1.14.4
Added OpenJDK 13 support
July 2nd 2019
Removed bc dependency to improve portability
June 30th 2019
Raspberry Pi 4 support (all memory sizes)
Updated development version to 1.14.3
Fixed issue that could cause 1.13.2 servers to crash when going to the Nether
June 1st 2019
Added option to select stable or development version
Current stable version of the Paper Minecraft server is 1.13.2
If you want to install 1.14.2 you may select to do so during installation
Be aware that 1.14.2 continues to have severe performance issues for the entire Minecraft server/hosting community. After playing on it myself and talking to the Paper developers I can personally state that performance on 1.14.2 is really bad right now and highly recommend sticking with the stable version.
May 31st 2019
OpenJDK 12 and OpenJDK 10 package checks added into the script
Script will attempt to install OpenJDK 10 from package on Raspbian if it isn't in apt
Added many paper.yml, bukkit.yml and spigot.yml changes to server config files to help with the ongoing lag affecting all Minecraft servers in 1.14
To configure them open start.sh in nano after running SetupMinecraft and you will see the different options and what they do
Updated Java certificates installer link
Fixed bug where changing GPU memory wasn't being applied