Minecraft Python Docker

This is a repository to instruct how to build a docker image with Minecraft Server which supports Python coding. You can utilize Docker to ease the setup of Minecraft Server for Python coding.

I coded in Python to create a rainbow in a world of Minecraft Java edition

Introduction

Minecraft is one of the most popular games amongst teenagers. They enjoy building their own worlds with blocks and start adventure there.

Interestingly there is a special build for Raspberry Pi called Minecraft Pi Edition. With this edition, you could code in Python to interact with your Minecraft world. Yet this edition requires you a Rasberry Pi.

Thanking RaspberryJuice plugin with Spigot Minecraft server, on the other hand, you can code in Python with your typical Minecraft Java edition.

You could follow this article to learn how to set them step by step in your computer. In addition, in order to make the whole setup portable, I will also suggest building a Docker image to contain them together.

Perquisite

Purchase Minecraft Java edition account
Install Minecraft and Docker in your computer.
Install Python 3
Install Java 8 or above if you want to run Minecraft Server without Docker
In this article, the commands are for Mac OS X. They are available for Linux as well. If you use Windows, you could just do the command's result with Windows mean.

Setup Procedure

Create your working folder minecraft_py and a sub-folder spigot for a Spigot server.

mkdir minecraft_py; cd minecraft_py; mkdir spigot; cd spigot

Download Minecraft Server

Visit the official Minecraft Server website
Check the URL of server.jar of your targeted version e.g. https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/1b557e7b033b583cd9f66746b7a9ab1ec1673ced/server.jar
Execute a command to download: curl [SERVER JAR URL] --output server.jar or download directly to save the file as server.jar to spigot sub-folder. e.g.

curl https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/1b557e7b033b583cd9f66746b7a9ab1ec1673ced/server.jar --output server.jar

Download SPIGOT Server

Visit Spigot MC download page
Check the URL of spigot JAR file of your targeted version e.g. https://cdn.getbukkit.org/spigot/spigot-1.16.5.jar
Execute a command to download: curl [SPIGOT JAR URL] --output spigot.jar or download directly to save the file as spigot.jar to spigot sub-folder. e.g.

curl https://cdn.getbukkit.org/spigot/spigot-1.16.5.jar --output spigot.jar

Create a text file eula.txt to agree to End User License Agreement. You can create it by a text editor to contain a line eula=true or run a command echo eula=true > eula.txt
Download properties files: log4j2.xml, server.properties and scripts startServer.sh, testLocalServer.sh from this repository to your spigot sub-folder. Ensure executable for the script files: chmod +x *.sh.

Download RaspberryJuice

Create plugins sub-folder

mkdir plugins; cd plugins

Visit RaspberryJuice download page
Check the URL of the latest version Raspberry Juice JAR file e.g. https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/raspberryjuice/files/2496319/download
Execute a command to download: curl [RASPBERRY JUICE JAR URL] --output raspberryjuice.jar or download directly to save the file as raspberryjuice.jar to plugins sub-folder. e.g.

curl https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/raspberryjuice/files/2496319/download --output raspberryjuice.jar

Download MCPI module and create Python coding sub-folder

Go back the root of your working folder

cd ../..

Create a local server folder data: mkdir data
Execute a command to download the source: git clone https://github.com/zhuowei/RaspberryJuice.git or directly download the whole folder from RaspberryJuice's repository
Create a sub-folder py for our Python coding: mkdir py
Copy MCPI module from RaspberryJuice to py folder. You could run a command:

cp -r RaspberryJuice/src/main/resources/mcpi/api/python/modded/mcpi py/

or directly copy the whole RaspberryJuice/src/main/resources/mcpi/api/python/modded/mcpi folder to py folder.

First test-run (Optional)

Start the Minecraft server: cd data; ../spitgot/testLocalServer.sh
Open Minecraft, select Multiplayers and join the localhost server

Open a new terminal, go to py folder, run the testing code: python3 rainbow.py. Then you can see the rainbow in the world as shown in the beginning of this article.
You could stop here if you are happy with localhost server instance and do not want to build a Docker image.

Build a Docker image

Download Dockerfile from this repository to the root of your working folder.
Build a Docker image docker build -t "[your account]/[your repository]" .: e.g.

docker build -t "tekichan/minecraft-py-server" .

Check your Docker images: docker images

Run the Docker image

Empty data folder if you use it with local server instance before.
Create a Docker volume spigot-data: docker volume create spigot-data
Inspect the Docker volume: docker inspect spigot-data
Run the Docker image: docker run --name minecraft-spigot -d -v spigot-data:/data -p 4711:4711 -p 25565:25565 -p 25575:25575 [your account]/[your repository]. e.g.

docker run --name minecraft-spigot -d -v spigot-data:/data -p 4711:4711 -p 25565:25565 -p 25575:25575 tekichan/minecraft-py-server

Test-run with the Docker image

Open Minecraft, select Multiplayers and join the localhost server
Open a new terminal, go to py folder, run the testing code: python3 rainbow.py. Then you can see the rainbow in the world as shown in the beginning of this article.

Clean-up (after you finish playing in Minecraft)

Stop the container: docker container stop minecraft-spigot
Remove the container: docker container rm minecraft-spigot
If you do not want to reserve the game setting, you could remove the volume as well: docker volume rm spigot-data and empty data folder.

References

Authors

Teki Chan tekichan@gmail.com

tekichan / minecraft-py-docker