Minecraft server - advice?

[da na]

Hello all,

I've been wanting to run a small Minecraft server (Quite small, max people on it at a time would be 10 but usually only 2-4 actively playing.) I would like a bit of advice on what hardware to use. I have 3 options: 

1. Core2 Duo Mac Mini with OS X Snow Leopard, 8gb ram (preferred)

2. Raspberry Pi 4

3. PC with quad core i5 and GTX 750 equivalent with Ubuntu, 8gb ram (last resort)

I'm planning to run the server on my high school's network, I'm going to ask first to make sure running the server at all is allowed but would a small server be OK over wifi? Also is there a way to set up a server just over LAN, since everyone playing would be on the campus of the school and therefore on the same network?

Thanks for any help!

[Helpful Tech Witch]

What is teh ram amount on the pi 4?
 

If its going to be a public server get an adress assigned to the ip so your not giving out the ip

[Skiiwee29]

<-- Thread Moved to Servers and NAS -->

[da na]

Just now, HelpfulTechWizard said:

What is teh ram amount on the pi 4?
 

If its going to be a public server get an adress assigned to the ip so your not giving out the ip

Teh ram on the pi 4 is 4gb.

[da na]

2 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

What is teh ram amount on the pi 4?
 

If its going to be a public server get an adress assigned to the ip so your not giving out the ip

And also I would just share the IP with people at school.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, Mel0nMan said:

And also I would just share the IP with people at school.

Ok, aslong as they wouldn't use the ip to ddos the school you should be good

[Dedayog]

10 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Teh ram on the pi 4 is 4gb.

That seems light to me.  When I ran one for my kid and his friends, I thought it was 2GB per user recommended but I can't recall where I read it.

[da na]

1 minute ago, Dedayog said:

That seems light to me.  When I ran one for my kid and his friends, I thought it was 2GB per user recommended but I can't recall where I read it.

OK, good to know. I was thinking about using the Core 2 Duo system with 8gb but didn't know if the CPU was a big limitation, or if the fact it's a Mac was another limitation. 

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

OK, good to know. I was thinking about using the Core 2 Duo system with 8gb but didn't know if the CPU was a big limitation, or if the fact it's a Mac was another limitation. 

Then I find things like this and get all confused again... 

 

Minecraft Server Spec Calculations - Knowledgebase - Primed Hosting

 

[VectorTech]

28 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

And also I would just share the IP with people at school.

So if you're hosting the Minecraft server on the schools network and you want your friends / only digital friends to be able to access (from the internet) it then someone is going to have to configure port-forwarding / nat on schools network, which if I was an net admin for a school district would be a very hard no.
 

EDIT: This also likely violates your schools Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) if you don't notify and get approval from a network admin or higher.

While not as safe I recommend just hosting it from your home network, even if it's slow, it'll just be a matter of forwarding a port- you can even purchase a domain name and point to the address of your home for users to connect to- it's a bit more secure, but if they know how to use NSLookup then they can find the IP address of your home network.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

5 minutes ago, VectorTech said:

While not as safe I recommend just hosting it from your home network, even if it's slow, it'll just be a matter of forwarding a port- you can even purchase a domain name and point to the address of your home for users to connect to- it's a bit more secure, but if they know how to use NSLookup then they can find the IP address of your home network.

cant you use a dns like cloudflair to stop that? All the adresses for the forum come up as cloudflair adreses

[VectorTech]

Just now, HelpfulTechWizard said:

cant you use a dns like cloudflair to stop that? All the adresses for the forum come up as cloudflair adreses

Yes, but if this individual (op) is using a C2D / RPi to host a server I doubt they have the extra money to shell for cloudflair.

Additionally I doubt anyone is going to attack the MC server, worst comes to worst he gets DoS'd and the ISP catches and blocks traffic from that source IP.

[da na]

6 minutes ago, VectorTech said:

Yes, but if this individual (op) is using a C2D / RPi to host a server I doubt they have the extra money to shell for cloudflair.

Additionally I doubt anyone is going to attack the MC server, worst comes to worst he gets DoS'd and the ISP catches and blocks traffic from that source IP.

Yeah, I just don’t want to leave my main machine on 24/7. Also yeah I feel like spending on a DNS wouldn’t be worth it for such a small server.

[VectorTech]

2 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Yeah, I just don’t want to leave my main machine on 24/7. Also yeah I feel like spending on a DNS wouldn’t be worth it for such a small server.

If you're using your C2D workstation / RPi to host the server then it can stay online 24/7 (the RPi drawing very little power) and support the server with relative ease.

[da na]

19 minutes ago, VectorTech said:

If you're using your C2D workstation / RPi to host the server then it can stay online 24/7 (the RPi drawing very little power) and support the server with relative ease.

Yeah what I meant by my main machine was my Xeon system, consumes a lot of power and is loud so wanted a lower power dedicated server instead