Questions regarding hosting a Minecraft server

For Minecraft Java edition you can run a server. I did for quite some time. To answer your questions:

1 - Hardware customization would be limited to dedicated CPU.

Nanodes are going to be too limited to run Minecraft. 2GB minimum for ram or the $10 plan.

2 - Don’t know personally. I’d ask support.

3 - Yes, You can stop the world as /OP in Minecraft or typing /stop in the terminal console.

You can shutdown the server in the terminal or use Linode’s web admin option and shut it down that way too.

And yes you are charged regardless of whether or not the server is running.

4 - Yes, you download the world from the world directory you created on your server.

Hi @SleepyWizzardo! I think @LouWestin has covered most of it but I wanted to give a bit of info as well.

I've run a few Minecraft servers on Linodes and while a 2GB will run Minecraft for one or two people, if you're using any large mods or expect three or more people on a server in different places at the same time I'd recommend a Linode 4GB.

As for the credit, you can absolutely use it for a Minecraft server. As long as the credit's on your account you can put it towards any invoice for any service.

@mjones Yeah, he'll probably need the 4GB plan since I noticed the 1.14 update really made things more resource intensive.

Oh, also forgot to mention that you should white-list your server too, because you'll random players joining. Most (not all) like to use hacked clients to X-Ray mine and use other various cheats.

Wow. I'm quite surprised at how quick you guys are at responding!

For the Minecraft server, I'd say the server will have approx. of 3-8 players. And vanilla 1.9.4. No mods, plugins, and such. But I'd doubt it'll have 8 players at once.

Regarding hardware, can I upgrade a Nanode 1GB to a 2GB without moving up to a Linode 2GB? Or just Linode 2GB right away?

As for the credit and pricing. How does hourly pricing work? Should I just leave the server on or off? And does CPU/Memory/Disk space usage affect the pricing at all?

Thanks again and for the pretty snappy responses!

Bump and a follow up.

If I were to make a Nanode now and upgrade later (let's say to a Linode 2GB), how much would I pay for an upgrade?

Still say 2GB minimum for running Minecraft, even if you're running 1.9.x.

Hourly billing is…you get billed by the hour. The monthly price are what they have listed in their pricing section.

Example: Nanode 1GB = $5 a month. Linode 2GB = $10 a month.

You're still billed regardless of whether the server is on or off, so normally I just keep mine running.

As far as the resources, you're capped at what you can use, with a couple of exceptions.

Data transfers do incur a small charge if you go over the limit. I don't know the exact numbers, support will most likely respond with that information.

Memory usage is like running out of ram in your computer, on Linode/Linux you have a swap file (Windows they call it a page file) this is hard drive space that is used for storing things from RAM that aren't being used to make more space in RAM for things that need to run right now.

A little bit of swap is ok. If you're using 50 percent or more Swap, you're going to have performance issues and possibly have server crashes.

You can use the htop command to see in real time what these numbers look like.

CPU usage, like running 100% constantly, I can't remember what's Linode's policy is on that, so I would ask support on that. I haven't run into any issues with that though.

And upgrades are simply just billed at the hourly rate for that plan. If you upgrade from a $5 plan mid-month to a $10 plan, expect that the price increase will be around an extra $5 dollars at the end of the month, give or take.

I would also do daily backups. Check the prices on those, because the price does increase with the higher plans.

Ahh okay. If that's the case, I'll keep an eye on monitoring resources.

I guess everything seems alright. I've already made a Nanode 1GB just to test it out.

Thanks again.