Assistance request - Looking to rent a minecraft server

[Ulric]

Hello all.

I am looking for some assistance and advice.

I am looking to rent a Minecraft server for my 9yo and a few of his friends. As I am new to this I am looking for some feedback as to what is a reasonable solution.

I have found a couple of service providers that provide hosted Minecraft servers, but they are in the USA. Is there likely to be any issue with running a server from the USA if its being used in Australia?

The two options I am looking at are for one with 756Mb of Memory the other has 1GB of memory, both are around the US$10 per month. Is this enough for 10-15 players?

Both have remote management and have Bukkit running on them. One has 5GB of space available, the other hasn't specified the amount available. What would be a reasonable amount of storage for a 10-15 player server?

Is it worthwhile setting up a MYSQL database and using that for backups etc?

Does anyone know of Australian servers that are reasonable in cost?

What else should I be looking for in a hosted solution?

Cheers, Ulric.

[Deweyoxberg]

I'm not sure how it works with game servers, but for hosting (websites) there is generally no issue with having a server in a different country than the one it is being accessed from. After all, the entire Internet is built that way

There may be some considerations for software, such as embargoes and the like though I highly doubt that has any effect between Australia and the USA; if it were between Iran and the USA however, possibly a different story

Minecraft.net has extensive documentation on the server client and the system requirements; highly recommend checking that out for starters so you know what you're getting in to.

[Obsi]

you'll pay about double for an Australian host, so I personally would try a US one...

[Irimar]

The host I use has US and EU servers. If you decide to look outside Australia for hosting, I could point you to it. Admin is through a web control panel, and you have ftp access to add plugins and move files around.

[Ulric]

Picked up one from the US of A for $10/month and it seems to be working ok.

Now to get everything tuned.

Thanks all for the input.

[HenriDeacon]

Nice one. If you have any questions about settings or mods, just reply in this thread and i'm sure we can help

[Ulric]

HD, thanks for the offer.

I have been looking for a mod or plugin to set up the following

One would be a permission system that is easy to set up and manage to give general access, some admin permissions and admin permissions (not full op).

Also welcome any other suggestions as to what would be useful.

Running a current release Bukkit server and can get a SQL database if this is required for any of the mods/plugins.

Currently I am having trouble setting the spawn point away from the default.

[Sorontar]

There are only a few options for Bukkit and they all tend to be a little complicated. Most people use bPermissions or PermissionsEx (aka PEX) but a more rudimentary version is PermissionsBukkit. The problem is always whether you can just describe sets of commands as warp.* or whether you have to spell them out individually. e.g. warp.to.global, warp.to.own. The other issue is whether you want to make things easier for yourself by setting the permissions under a group name, and then assigning players to groups. Some of these permissions plugins also allow permissions to be written in files, stored in a DB and/or changed through in-game or in-serverconsole commands.

If you do it by groups, I would define at least three groups - Default, Special, Admin. That way, the default player can have any commands that you don't mind anyone using. The Admin can have access to all commands and all plugins. The Special can have the same as the Default, plus a few more special abilities. These permissions can refer to both the normal in-game commands and those of any plugins.

Some permissions also help define the look of the names in the chat window, by defining the prefix and suffix to the name. This allows group titles and colour changes.

Hope this helps. If you want any help with the one we use on the TOG servers, send me a PM and I can go into more detail.

And yes, we had trouble resetting the spawnpoint for a while. Not all mods are fully up-to-date. If you want to change the size of the spawn protection area that non-ops can't change, look in the bukkit.yml file at the setting for spawn-radius.

Sorontar

[HenriDeacon]

When i had a hosted server they provided a web page where i could change map settings and also set access levels by group, like guest, member, mod, admin. I could tick each command that each group had access to.

Check if your host provides a similar web interface.

[Ulric]

Unfortunately not.

Do you know/remember what web admin panel they were using, while I am very happy with the service that this provider has shown so far, I am not yet wedded to them. If there are others that make this an easier task then I may look to change.