So, you’re looking to set up a Minecraft server, but you aren’t really sure where to start. All you know is that the basic platform isn’t enough for you. The standard server tools just aren’t customizable enough for your tastes. You want a grand, glorious world that you can easily modify at will. You want towns, and cities, and nations. You want full-fledged, fully-functional economies for your players to toy with, complete control over what mobs spawn where, and access to a whole catalogue of powerful admin commands. You want a Bukkit server, pure and simple.

Setting one up isn’t as easy as simply downloading the client and deciding you’re done for the day. You’re going to need to do a bit of legwork to get things going properly. Trust me, it’s well worth the effort  in the long run- and it’s really not all that complicated once you’ve worked out the basics of it.

1. To start with, you’re going to want to download Craftbukkit from this website. That’s their official site, so I wouldn’t recommend looking anywhere else. Download the recommended build, and move forward.

2. Place the .jar file you downloaded into the folder you plan to run your server from. The name doesn’t matter- just be sure it’s somewhere you can find it. I’m partial to simply putting it in the Minecraft directory, in a folder called “Bukkit Server.” You can access this directory by typing %appdata%/.minecraft into the address bar in Windows Explorer.

3. If the .jar file you downloaded is named anything but “Craftbukkit,” rename it. You’ll need to do this in order for the application to run properly.

4. In the same folder you saved craftbukkit.jar to, create a new folder known as “plugins-” after all, the whole reason you downloaded bukkit was so that you could run some of the vast selection of plugins available for it, right? Copy any plugins you’ve downloaded to this folder.

5. You’re almost done, and you’re just about ready to start up your server. One thing, though- don’t access the .jar file directly. While this will most certainly allow your server to run, you won’t be able to access any server or administrative commands unless you actually connect to it. What you want to do is open up Notepad, and type the following:

@ECHO OFF SET BINDIR=%~dp0 CD /D “%BINDIR%” “%ProgramFiles%\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe” -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar PAUSE

Save this file as “RUN.bat” in the same folder as craftbukkit.jar. If the above command doesn’t work, the Bukkit wiki features a few others you might try, as well.

6. That’s it! You’re done! Enjoy your server!

Image Credits: The Mine Colony

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