IT Admin: Create Dedicated Servers

The Minecraft Education Dedicated Servers Admin Portal allows you to create and manage your dedicated servers. 

Note: Cross Tenant Play is now available! You can learn how to allow other users from other tenants to join your server here: Enabling Cross-Tenant Play

Important Links: 

• Dedicated Server Admin Portal
  • Enabling Dedicated Servers  
  • Creating Dedicated Servers
• Installing on Windows or Ubuntu
• Editing your server
• Partner Permissions (coming soon)

Dedicated Server Admin Portal

In the Dedicated Admin Portal you can: 

• Register, configure, and download new servers with just a few clicks
• View and manage all available Dedicated Servers associated with your tenant
• Access key server details without coding or complicated technical steps
• Manage tenant-level settings

You can access the Dedicated Server Admin Portal at aka.ms/dedicatedservers. 

Note that we also support the scripting methods of administering servers as they can be useful for large scale server management (see Dedicated Server Alternate Configuration)

Enabling Dedicated Servers

To begin, sign in to the Dedicated Server Admin Portal and use the settings button to access and edit your tenant settings for servers as desired.
Note: A Global Administrator will need to enable these settings initially. Teachers can create and manage servers if you enable the "Allow Teachers to Manage Servers" option. 

Create a Server

1. Before you begin, you'll want to ensure your intended server meets our Dedicated Server System Requirements
2. Navigate to the Dedicated Server Admin Portal and sign in (only Global Admins can initially sign in to the Admin Portal unless you enabled Allow Teachers to Manage Servers under tenant settings). 
3. Navigate to the Settings page, and set the Allow Servers toggle to the on position
4. From either the Home page or the Server List page, click the Add a Server button
5. Provide the required settings:
   • Enter the IP address where you will run your server
     • The exact steps will be different depending on what type of interface your server is using. Windows is primarily managed over GUI (Graphical User Interface) with the start menu, and taskbar, and Ubuntu is primarily managed via CLI (Command Line Interface) with only a terminal. 
       • Note: IPv6 is not supported at this time. 
   • If you're intending to connect from both internal and external networks, you will need to use your Public IP Address assigned to you by your ISP. 
     • To get your Public IP via CLI (Command Line): use curl ip.me in your terminal. 
     • To get your Public IP via GUI (Graphical Interface): use a web browser and go to https://ip.me 
   • If you're only connecting via local network, you'll want to use your local IP.
     • To obtain this via CLI (Command Line): 
       • Windows - Use the command ipconfig and find the IPv4 address under you're preferred network interface. 
       • Ubuntu - Use the command ip address or ip a and use the "inet" address under your preferred interface. 
     • To obtain via GUI (Graphical Interface):
       • Windows - Go to Windows Settings > Network & Internet > Select your preferred Interface > Then under Connection Properties find "IPv4 Address"
       • Ubuntu - Go to Settings > Network > Select the settings wheel next to your preferred interface > Find IPv4 address. 
   • Enter the port that will be used for your server
     • If you're only connecting locally, you will only need to forward this port through your devices firewall (such as Windows Firewall, or UFW on Ubuntu). The exact steps for this will depend on your network configuration and any proxies/filters you use. 
     • If you're connecting via external network, you will also need to forward this port in your router/firewall. The steps for this will depend on the manufacturer of your network device(s). 
       • Ensure that all servers are running from on host device are using different ports. If two servers try to run on the same machine with the same port, joiners will receive an "Invalid Tenant ID" error. 

• Use the Allow chat toggle to enable or disable chat on the server
• You may also elect to log all messages sent by users by toggling Chat Logging. 
  • This will save all messages sent by users to /chat_logs/ChatLog_<Date>.txt
  • If you wish to change this setting later, it must be manually updated by changing the chat-logging-enabled in server.properties. The server will need to be rebooted for this to take effect.

1. Provide the world generation settings (Optional)
   • Enter a world seed 
   • Select the game mode
2. Select which server version you would like to download
   • Configuration file only - this can be used if you are creating or managing your server through scripting
   • Configured Windows server - the downloaded zip file will contain all the files you need to run a Windows server
   • Configured Linux server - the downloaded zip file will contain all the files you need to run a Linux server. 

3. Click the Download button and the zip file will be downloaded to your local machine

   

4. When you see the Download Complete confirmation your server files are ready for installation
5. Click the Continue button, and enter your Server information
   • Server Name - the name that appears on the server list in the Minecraft Education client
   • Server Passcode - if you enter a passcode, all players that join the server will be required to enter this passcode
     • Important Note: Passcodes are not passwords, since they are not unique to each user. They are instead unique to each server (or at least should be!). They are viewable to admins and shared by users. For example, a classroom could use a passcode to ensure only that class can get into the server, so long as the passcode is only known to the people in the class.
   • Enabled - determines if players can join the server.  If this is turned off while players are on the server, the server will close and all players will lose access
   • Broadcast - when this is set to the on position, the server will appear in the server list in the Minecraft Education client
     • If this is off, users will need to enter the Server ID under "Add Server" in the client. It will not be in their default list. 
   • Enable the Sharing Enabled toggle if you intend to configure Cross Tenant Play later. You can learn how to set this up here: Enabling Cross-Tenant Play
     
6. Click Save to save these server settings
   1. Click Close to close the window 
   2. Click Remove to remove the server permanently from your tenant
7. Follow the steps below to install and host your server. 

Installing on Windows or Ubuntu

Installing your server on your host is fairly simple regardless of which Operating System you choose. The exact steps will vary as Windows is primarily managed over GUI (Graphical User Interface) and Ubuntu is primarily managed via CLI (Command Line Interface), however the overall steps are the same: 

1. After downloading the package for your OS, extract the folder to a location you can find later. 
   • On Windows you can do this through File Explorer or the extract command, and Ubuntu you can do this via a command such as gzip or extract or through the file explorer in GUI. 
2. Then in the new folder, run bedrock_server.exe on Windows or bedrock_server_edu on Ubuntu
   • On Ubuntu you may need to mark the file Executable using the chmod +x [file name] command or through your file browser
3. On the first run, you'll need to authenticate the server using either your Global Administrator account, or a faculty account

   1. Use the steps in your terminal to authenticate. On CLI Interfaces, use a browser on another device.

      

   2. A brief moment after completing the browser sign in, the server should complete the sign in process and present you with the server ID and tenant ID you signed in to, as well as the IP and port clients will use to try to connect to the server as configured in the “server.properties” file.
      1. If your server closes and is run again, it will attempt to refresh your sign in silently using the information in the “edu_server_session.json” file, but if refreshing silently fails, it may prompt you to sign in again with the same steps you just went through.
   3. At this point, the server is registered and hosted. 

Additional Resources

Learn more about Dedicated Servers