Minecraft - Linux - A lot of questions.

[waybaker]

I currently have a Minecraft server hosted at NFO and it is the 50 user package with 2 GB of memory.

I am interested in upgrading to a virtual dedicated server, as I need access to Mysql for some of the plugins that my group wants to run.

I know that Linux is the preferred server type for Minecraft due to its better handling and higher performance. However, I have 0 experience with Linux.

Here are my questions:

Can Mysql be installed on the VDS, and if so, which versions are supported and what is the best way to install it?

NFO currently provides the hourly backup for our current server, but as I understand, backups will be my responsibility on a VDS. Any suggestions on how best to handle this?

With the current bundle, we have the 50 slots on 2GB of ram. Is the 2GB VDS comparable, or do I need to up to the 3?

Should I anticipate needing to pre-purchase additional bandwidth, or would I be fine with the monthly allotment?

We have a Ventrillo server with NFO, will this need to be installed or is this still a seperate server?

Am I barking up the wrong tree to begin with? Is there a better way to go about doing this?

Thanks in advance for all your help. I want to collect as much info and be as prepared as possible to hopefully avoid making any mistakes.

[kraze]

Before we go any further, what kind of access to your databases are you needing? If you are using a database located on an NFO webhosting you could just use PHPmyadmin and access pretty much everything on the database.

[waybaker]

The plugins will need direct access to the sql database.

I tried using the one on the webhosting and it caused so much lag that I had to kill it.

[kraze]

Having direct access shouldn't be an issue but if your server is in like New York and you are using a database in Seattle which is where our webhosting is, then yes that could be a problem.

Only way to fix that problem is to upgrade to a unmanaged VDS or use a MYsql lite plugin.

Can Mysql be installed on the VDS, and if so, which versions are supported and what is the best way to install it?

You should be able to use the latest version and yes it can be installed on an unmanaged VDS. As for the best way I am not sure. There are surely some guides floating around. I would do a quick Google search to see.

NFO currently provides the hourly backup for our current server, but as I understand, backups will be my responsibility on a VDS. Any suggestions on how best to handle this?

There are multiple plugins for Bukkit which will take server backups whenever you choose. Some might cause lag, others might not. Depending how active you are it might even be better to just logon ever hour or so..etc and create a backup.

With the current bundle, we have the 50 slots on 2GB of ram. Is the 2GB VDS comparable, or do I need to up to the 3?

It's hard to compare a MC server to a VDS server as all MC servers are run off of specially picked machines with a lot of ram and SSD. There is also some overhead from the virtual environment for a VDS which can loose a little bit of performance. Personally I would test it out and see how it goes.

Should I anticipate needing to pre-purchase additional bandwidth, or would I be fine with the monthly allotment?

You should be fine with the allotted bandwidth for each plan.

We have a Ventrillo server with NFO, will this need to be installed or is this still a seperate server?

Voice servers are not able to be hosted on managed machine and you need to a license to run anything over 8 slots for Ventrilo. You can keep your existing Ventrilo through by doing a change order.

Am I barking up the wrong tree to begin with? Is there a better way to go about doing this?

In all honest I would try to experiment around with some other plugins that do the same thing and see if you can get it working correctly. As the performance we offer on our MC machine is very high and sometimes hard to match. Upgrading to a VDS, especially an unmanaged one is a big step and has caused problems for some people, while others have experienced no issues at all. It all depends on what you are needing. Like I said, think about it for couple of days, talk it over with your community and get some ideas before you proceed.

[.=QUACK=.Major.Pain]

If interested, you can use MyMcAdmin on linux, and it has cron setups for world backups as often as you want, but for linux, I have no clue how this app works with it.

We use it on a Windows VDS server. Something I am comfortable with.

[Edge100x]

We have a tutorial on configuring a Minecraft server on Ubuntu Linux here: http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewto ... =67&t=5049.

I'd strongly recommend using an SSD if you go with an unmanaged VDS, as that will give you the highest performance and help compensate for not having a solid disk cache. You should also plan on giving the OS at least a couple of hundred megabytes of RAM -- with a 2 GB VDS, that would mean giving Java 1700-1800 MB at most.

As for backups, I agree that using a Bukkit plugin would likely be the easiest way to go.