So do you have a Chromebook sitting around that you have absolutely no idea what to do with? Well, if you or your buddies are minecraft junkies, then why not consider turning your Chromebook into a Minecraft server. It runs slightly faster than using your Android phone as a minecraft server, and offers a playable speed(though it can lag occasionally).
Now before you do this, you need to make sure that you have Ubuntu Installed on your Chromebook. If you don’t have Ubuntu installed check out my tutorial on how to install it. In theory, this should also work on ARM powered Chromebooks but YMMV. Also remember that you can’t connect to desktop servers from Minecraft Pocket Edition. So here’s how to run Minecraft server on Chromebook.
What You Will Need:
- Chromebook with Linux Installed
- Minecraft Server Jar
Step 1: Opening Ports
Unfortunately (or fortunately) Chrome OS has a very tight lock-down with ports. So we have to manually open up a port for Minecraft. In Chrome OS, open up terminal by typing in **CRTL + ALT + Delete. **Inside of the terminal type in **shell. **Then copy and paste the following:
sudo /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 25565 -j ACCEPT
Then hit enter. Keep in mind that you don’t have to use 25565 as the port. I am just using that because it is the default port in Minecraft. After you hit enter, no confirmation or message will display, so you are good to go.
Launch Ubuntu by typing in **sudo startxfce4 **(or whatever desktop environment that you are using).
Step 2: Java
The next step is to install OpenJDK. If you don’t have the software-center installed, go to terminal and type in:
sudo apt-get install software-center
Otherwise, launch the software center, search for OpenJDK and install the latest run time available (Currently, openJDK 7).
Step 3: Minecraft Server
Finally, download the Minecraft Server jar. Using terminal, navigate to your downloads folder.
cd Downloads
Then type in the following:
java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.1.8.7.jar nogui
Keep in mind that you can change the ram requirements to whatever you desire. Also, change Minecraft_server.1.8.7. to match the name of the jar file that you are using.
When you hit enter, it will take a few seconds and tell you to accept the Eula. Go back to your downloads folder, open the newly generated Eula.txt file and change false to **true **and save the file. The run the previous java command again. If all goes well, it should start the server.
From this point, you log onto Minecraft on your desktop and manually add the server (auto-scanning doesn’t work sometimes).
If you need help finding the IP address of your Chromebook, inside of terminal type in sudo ifconfig and look for the address listed next to Wlan0.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.