Dedicated MC server

[waggythegeek]

Hello, i'm planning a build to move my Spigot server off my desktop, so that I can give it the full attention of a computer and not run my client on the same rig. I'm currently at 8 plugins and around 12 users(just friends, and friends of friends). In case of massive growth, and because minecraft takes so few resources, i'd like to plan a build for 100 users, 50 plugins. That should cover every worst-case-scenario. The problem is, I have no clue what sort of workload a spigot server demands. Here's sort of the price/quality/ff I was looking for, plz fix this build: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/prs4sJ 

[alexjt11]

Hi,
So in my opinion and I have heard this for some years is to allow 2Gb of ram for the computer itself, so you should look at upping the ram.
The processor in my opinion will struggle with 100 players. Its really not very powerful and so should be looked at upgrading to an i5, i7 or xeon.
I know from running a modded server with an i5 - 4th gen, that 3 players after 5 days of playing would make the server lag. It had 14gb of ram out of 16gb. I would thus presume the processor needs upgrading.
While I have said the ram needs upping. The theoretical 2Gb you would be left with after the os is not going to support 100 players what so ever. I would look at upping the ram and using all the slots on the mobo.
I approve if the:
Case - small and cheap always good!
SSD - No need to go big just enough for the OS and server.
Network - If it can do high speeds then thats good!

I would also say that having 100 players on youre home internet is quiet interesting... Youre friends might not DDOS you but other people will. Also youre internet better be insane!
This brings me to ask you if you really want to pay for a PC? The money you will put into it might not be worth it. But if you ask the people who you plan to use it with to pay something towards it, but not all of it because it will come interesting when you stop playing. Then it could become more affordable

[manikyath]

16 hours ago, alexjt11 said:

Hi,
So in my opinion and I have heard this for some years is to allow 2Gb of ram for the computer itself, so you should look at upping the ram.
The processor in my opinion will struggle with 100 players. Its really not very powerful and so should be looked at upgrading to an i5, i7 or xeon.
I know from running a modded server with an i5 - 4th gen, that 3 players after 5 days of playing would make the server lag. It had 14gb of ram out of 16gb. I would thus presume the processor needs upgrading.
While I have said the ram needs upping. The theoretical 2Gb you would be left with after the os is not going to support 100 players what so ever. I would look at upping the ram and using all the slots on the mobo.
I approve if the:
Case - small and cheap always good!
SSD - No need to go big just enough for the OS and server.
Network - If it can do high speeds then thats good!

I would also say that having 100 players on youre home internet is quiet interesting... Youre friends might not DDOS you but other people will. Also youre internet better be insane!
This brings me to ask you if you really want to pay for a PC? The money you will put into it might not be worth it. But if you ask the people who you plan to use it with to pay something towards it, but not all of it because it will come interesting when you stop playing. Then it could become more affordable

You're quite far off, but on the right path.

 

Between the forum thunking out and a dayjob i'm quite late to the party, but i'll try to type out a more in-depth reply tonight (ETA 10-12hrs from now) but there's a quite big "D.O.N.T." to be added here...

[RealBuizel10]

On 9/4/2016 at 6:23 PM, waggythegeek said:

Hello, i'm planning a build to move my Spigot server off my desktop, so that I can give it the full attention of a computer and not run my client on the same rig. I'm currently at 8 plugins and around 12 users(just friends, and friends of friends). In case of massive growth, and because minecraft takes so few resources, i'd like to plan a build for 100 users, 50 plugins. That should cover every worst-case-scenario. The problem is, I have no clue what sort of workload a spigot server demands. Here's sort of the price/quality/ff I was looking for, plz fix this build: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/prs4sJ 

In my opinion, I would prefer a X5650 from Neahelm over this i3 for a server

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, RealBuizel10 said:

In my opinion, I would prefer a X5650 from Neahelm over this i3 for a server

those are absolute dog shit for minecraft servers (from experience)

 

on topic: there's a few issues with what you're wanting to do:

- hosting a minecraft server for friends, good friend

- hosting a minecraft server for friends, and friends of friends.. starts to get touchy...

- hosting a minecraft server for 100 people... danger zone.

- i'll add in a nice comparison about why plugins are your friends, but also your enemy.

- your build isnt a very good idea.

 

first, dissecting the build:

- i3 6100, should do the thing, minecraft server is actually completely single threaded except for plugins that specificly code addidional threads, and the network code (which will be doing lots of work for 100 people, but still not *this* much)

- a mobo is a mobo, i dont care

- ecc memory... is probably not worth it for a minecraft server, and 4GB is rather low for your requirements.

- running your server off an SSD is a very big help when loading or unloading chunks, but i VERY MUCH suggest a HDD for doing regular backups.

- that case 'with psu' looks like potential house fire...

- windows 10 on a minecraft server is wrong on so many layers...

 

second: the plugins.

- grab a piece of paper and a pen.

- put a dot in the middle, that's the core minecraft server

- use the rest of the paper to draw dots for every plugin you'd like to have

- now draw lines between the dots

- every dot, and every line between two dots is a potential for bugs, issues, or explots to happen.

- conclusion: less REALLY is more.

 

third: the danger zone:

you can trust your friends not to be horrible people, to some degree you can trust your friends' friends as well, but at some point you no longer can, and then all these "strangers" are connecting to your home IP address, have ACCESS to your home IP address, and have a way into your LAN. this is a BIG security risk, this is a data cap and bandwidth hog, and your ISP will most likely not be happy that you have 100 people connecting to what pretty much cant be anything else than a server. (which for most ISPs breaks ToS of home connections)

 

not to mention the risk of DDoS attacks is trough the roof, and in the case of a home connection could potentially not only take down you, but the entire neighborhood for weeks. i'm not gonna help you explain to your neighbors and the local supermarket what happened.

 

fourth: the solution:

- rent a server at a propper datacenter, dont even touch minecraft/gameserver hosting companies, they all suck. 

- use linux, not only because it's cheaper (free), not only because it uses MUCH less ram (you can go all the way down to 64MB for your OS if you're finnicky enough), but most importantly because minecraft server runs more efficiently on linux java.

- if you so much insist on hosting yourself, and if you're gonna take the stupid "i'll be fine" approach to the risks, this is the kind of build i'd push for:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6320 3.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: MSI B150M PRO-VDH Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($68.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($32.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.54 @ Amazon) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-02 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($24.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $500.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-06 14:31 EDT-0400

 

quick summary:

- that overpriced core i3 is what i'm currently eyeing myself for my server, because it's as of yet the highest single threaded performance chip i know of, and combining that with 2c/ht should be more than plenty for minecraft server duty for as long as you're not dealing with custom written software.

- a motherboard is a motherboard, this one has 4 ram slots and is good enough quality to stop the cares there.

- 8GB ram, expandable to 32, not that i'd ever recommend that. i'd suggest starting with ~4GB allocated, and monitoring the server's ram usage (and expanding allocation as needed.)

- 250GB SSD, the size will do more for you than the NVMEness, especially high player count servers where the larger population are explorers rather than "townies" (yes, that name is taken from the ever popular plugin) can have map size go quite stupid.

- backup hard drive, it's slow, but #GoodEnough for backup duty.

- a case is a case, it's a 140 watt machine, there's no need for 140mm fans or an optimal airflow setup here.

- a gold rated power supply of sufficient quality, when you do the math it does actually add up to get a more efficient unit.

- PUT LINUX ON THE DAMN THING, A DESKTOP OS HAS NO PLACE ON A SERVER. (in fact, the 'desktopness' of the OS will lead to more downtime in the end, once again from expeirence)

 

funnily enough it came down around the $500 mark, which was where i aimed but not worked towards specificly.

[waggythegeek]

4 hours ago, manikyath said:

those are absolute dog shit for minecraft servers (from experience)

 

on topic: there's a few issues with what you're wanting to do:

- hosting a minecraft server for friends, good friend

- hosting a minecraft server for friends, and friends of friends.. starts to get touchy...

- hosting a minecraft server for 100 people... danger zone.

- i'll add in a nice comparison about why plugins are your friends, but also your enemy.

- your build isnt a very good idea.

 

first, dissecting the build:

- i3 6100, should do the thing, minecraft server is actually completely single threaded except for plugins that specificly code addidional threads, and the network code (which will be doing lots of work for 100 people, but still not *this* much)

- a mobo is a mobo, i dont care

- ecc memory... is probably not worth it for a minecraft server, and 4GB is rather low for your requirements.

- running your server off an SSD is a very big help when loading or unloading chunks, but i VERY MUCH suggest a HDD for doing regular backups.

- that case 'with psu' looks like potential house fire...

- windows 10 on a minecraft server is wrong on so many layers...

 

second: the plugins.

- grab a piece of paper and a pen.

- put a dot in the middle, that's the core minecraft server

- use the rest of the paper to draw dots for every plugin you'd like to have

- now draw lines between the dots

- every dot, and every line between two dots is a potential for bugs, issues, or explots to happen.

- conclusion: less REALLY is more.

 

third: the danger zone:

you can trust your friends not to be horrible people, to some degree you can trust your friends' friends as well, but at some point you no longer can, and then all these "strangers" are connecting to your home IP address, have ACCESS to your home IP address, and have a way into your LAN. this is a BIG security risk, this is a data cap and bandwidth hog, and your ISP will most likely not be happy that you have 100 people connecting to what pretty much cant be anything else than a server. (which for most ISPs breaks ToS of home connections)

 

not to mention the risk of DDoS attacks is trough the roof, and in the case of a home connection could potentially not only take down you, but the entire neighborhood for weeks. i'm not gonna help you explain to your neighbors and the local supermarket what happened.

 

fourth: the solution:

- rent a server at a propper datacenter, dont even touch minecraft/gameserver hosting companies, they all suck. 

- use linux, not only because it's cheaper (free), not only because it uses MUCH less ram (you can go all the way down to 64MB for your OS if you're finnicky enough), but most importantly because minecraft server runs more efficiently on linux java.

- if you so much insist on hosting yourself, and if you're gonna take the stupid "i'll be fine" approach to the risks, this is the kind of build i'd push for:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6320 3.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: MSI B150M PRO-VDH Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($68.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($32.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.54 @ Amazon) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-02 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($24.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $500.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-06 14:31 EDT-0400

 

quick summary:

- that overpriced core i3 is what i'm currently eyeing myself for my server, because it's as of yet the highest single threaded performance chip i know of, and combining that with 2c/ht should be more than plenty for minecraft server duty for as long as you're not dealing with custom written software.

- a motherboard is a motherboard, this one has 4 ram slots and is good enough quality to stop the cares there.

- 8GB ram, expandable to 32, not that i'd ever recommend that. i'd suggest starting with ~4GB allocated, and monitoring the server's ram usage (and expanding allocation as needed.)

- 250GB SSD, the size will do more for you than the NVMEness, especially high player count servers where the larger population are explorers rather than "townies" (yes, that name is taken from the ever popular plugin) can have map size go quite stupid.

- backup hard drive, it's slow, but #GoodEnough for backup duty.

- a case is a case, it's a 140 watt machine, there's no need for 140mm fans or an optimal airflow setup here.

- a gold rated power supply of sufficient quality, when you do the math it does actually add up to get a more efficient unit.

- PUT LINUX ON THE DAMN THING, A DESKTOP OS HAS NO PLACE ON A SERVER. (in fact, the 'desktopness' of the OS will lead to more downtime in the end, once again from expeirence)

 

funnily enough it came down around the $500 mark, which was where i aimed but not worked towards specificly.

This is a wonderful post, probably the most helpful i've gotten from anyone, thank you  Yes, despite the fact that I know home hosting isn't ideal, it really just is for friends, and friends of friends, 100 players is a gross exaggeration, and i figured could compensate for most anything the server might ever, maybe, in the rarest of temporary circumstances, come close to. There will be no strangers. Furthermore, I have an awful $20 machine that I either call the ghettobox 9001 or the housefire currently open for testing. Can you give me a more in-depth guide as to how to get No-IP and a minecraft server running on whatever distro of Linux you think is best? I've only used linux a couple times, and will need a little spoon-feeding to start me off.

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, waggythegeek said:

This is a wonderful post, probably the most helpful i've gotten from anyone, thank you  Yes, despite the fact that I know home hosting isn't ideal, it really just is for friends, and friends of friends, 100 players is a gross exaggeration, and i figured could compensate for most anything the server might ever, maybe, in the rarest of temporary circumstances, come close to. There will be no strangers. Furthermore, I have an awful $20 machine that I either call the ghettobox 9001 or the housefire currently open for testing. Can you give me a more in-depth guide as to how to get No-IP and a minecraft server running on whatever distro of Linux you think is best? I've only used linux a couple times, and will need a little spoon-feeding to start me off.

well, in terms of learning linux its best to get slapped in the face with it and figuring out how the hell it works.

 

few recommendations:

- ubuntu server, it has a huge amount of information available 'on the google' so if you're stuck usually google knows the answer

- put an ssh and ftp server on it for remote access, if memory serves these are both options on the installer (could be wrong, i dont have time to check right now)

- get putty and filezilla on your desktop for accessing the server

- htop, screen, and offcourse java are must-have packages IMO.

- you could look into webmin, it's an absolute horror show sometimes, but it is okay enough for some remote management trough the browser, especially programming in cron jobs trough the webmin interface is godly. (cron = timed events like "every hour, do a backup of the server")

- no-ip is pretty self explanatory, and they have a little program available for linux that keeps the domain 'alive' (otherwise you have to confirm you still need it every month) and keeps it tied to the public IP address of the box its running on.

- do NOT run things as root if not necessary, thats how stuff gets broken. keep root (sudo) for things that need it like doing updates, editing OS configs, and fixing things you previously broke.