Setting up a Minecraft Server

[Allen]

How hard can it be? Seriously...

First of all I tried renting a VPS, problem is I read that the server needs less than 100MB of RAM, so I got a server with 256MB, turns out it was under 100MB per person connected and with OS and Java overheads I couldn't even run the server, let alone connect to it. I'm not going to fork out a stupid amount of money for 512MB RAM or higher on a VPS, so that's out of the window.

Then I tried running it on Windows 7, and although it ran and worked locally, I could not for the life of me connect remotely, despite setting up port fowarding on my router and opening the ports in Windows Firewall. Even canyouseeme.org advised that the port was open.

So, lastly, I have tried to follow a guide I found which uses a virtual server running Debian (or any Linux distro for that matter) on Windows. Again, this worked perfectly, locally, but wouldn't work remotely. I even tried following a guide to set up port forwarding from my PC to the virtual PC, but that killed my virtual machine as it won't start now.

On top of that, I still don't know if the server's I've been trying to run have been classic or alpha, there doesn't appear to be anywhere which states which one you're downloading. I have paid for the game so want to play alpha, because I like having to work to get the materials to build, rather than just "cheating", although spawning several hundred blocks of TNT and making a huge crater in my map was immense fun!

So, has anyone here successfully setup a Minecraft server? If so, how did you do it?

BTW, I don't want it to be public, just wanted somewhere for me and a few mates to have a laugh building together.

[Flash477]

Sorry, no help on the setup side, but for such a simple game around 100MB per person seems a lot to me.

[Allen]

I did say "under 100MB", it's actually about 32-64MB according to this guy.

A stable Minecraft server requires around 32-64MB of RAM per active player. A 16 player server can use up to 1GB of RAM all to itself. Never mind the overhead of java, the operating system and associated services. You need around 2GB dedicated RAM to run smoothly.

It is a simple game, graphics and gameplay wise, but bear in mind that it's written by one guy alone so probably not as well written as larger server based games. Plus the maps can be HUUUUUUUUGE!