Self Hosting A Minecraft Server On A Pi5

by Sam Hadow

In this blog post, I’ll describe how to self host a minecraft server on a raspberry Pi 5. This guide assumes you already have a minimal install of debian 13 on your Pi5.

Steps

1. Installing the required packages

sudo apt install default-jre openjdk-25-jre

2. Running the server

2.1) Creating a dedicated user:

sudo useradd -m minecraft

2.2) Enabling autologin for minecraft on TTY2

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty2.service.d

and in this folder I created this file:

#/etc/systemd/system/getty@tty2.service.d/autologin.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin minecraft --noclear %I $TERM

2.3) Enabling lingering for minecraft (which is needed to start user systemd services even without a shell session)

sudo loginctl enable-linger minecraft

2.4) Downloading the minecraft server:

Download the latest version of fabric minecraft server from here
For example:

sudo curl -o /home/minecraft/server.jar https://meta.fabricmc.net/v2/versions/loader/26.2/0.19.3/1.1.2/server/jar

2.5) Creating the systemd service

First creating the folder:

sudo mkdir -p /home/minecraft/.config/systemd/user

And then a service unit file:

#/home/minecraft/.config/systemd/user/minecraft.service
[Unit]
Description=Minecraft Server
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/minecraft
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -Xmx4G -jar /home/minecraft/server.jar nogui

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

After this make sure the ownership is correct:

sudo chown -R minecraft:minecraft /home/minecraft

And then to start the service:

sudo systemctl --user --machine=minecraft@.host daemon-reload
sudo systemctl --user --machine=minecraft@.host start minecraft

after the first start you’ll need to accept the EULA:

#/home/minecraft/eula.txt
eula=TRUE

sudo systemctl --user --machine=minecraft@.host restart minecraft

3. Checking logs

To check the minecraft server related logs, we can use the following command:

sudo journalctl _UID=$(id -u minecraft)

4. Additional remarks

4.1) Server properties

You can change the server properties in /home/minecraft/server.properties.
I recommend enabling the whitelist if your server is exposed on the internet.

4.2) Executing commands

In /home/minecraft/server.properties enable RCON:

enable-rcon=true
rcon.port=25575
rcon.password=CHANGE_ME

Ideally you now want strict permissions on this file since it contains your RCON password in cleartext:

sudo chmod 600 /home/minecraft/server.properties

Then you can administer your server with a RCON client like mcrcon:

mcrcon -H 127.0.0.1 -P 25575 -p 'YOUR_RCON_PASSWORD'

4.3) Mods

Put your mods in /home/minecraft/mods
I recommend installing these mods:

• fabric api
• carpet : For technical minecraft players
• lithium : For optimizations