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mc-operator

Quickstart

This guide gets you from zero to a running Minecraft server on Kubernetes in under five minutes. It assumes you have a working Kubernetes cluster and kubectl configured.

  1. Install the CRD

    Apply the MinecraftServer Custom Resource Definition to your cluster:

    Terminal window
    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/danihengeveld/mc-operator/main/manifests/crd/minecraftservers.yaml

  2. Install the operator with Helm

    Terminal window
    helm install mc-operator oci://ghcr.io/danihengeveld/charts/mc-operator \
      --version 1.0.0 \
      --namespace mc-operator-system \
      --create-namespace

    Wait for the operator to be ready:

    Terminal window
    kubectl rollout status deployment/mc-operator -n mc-operator-system

  3. Create a namespace for your servers

    Terminal window
    kubectl create namespace minecraft

  4. Deploy a Paper server

    Terminal window
    cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
    apiVersion: mc-operator.dhv.sh/v1alpha1
    kind: MinecraftServer
    metadata:
      name: my-server
      namespace: minecraft
    spec:
      acceptEula: true
      server:
        type: Paper
        version: "1.20.4"
      jvm:
        initialMemory: "1G"
        maxMemory: "2G"
      resources:
        cpuRequest: "500m"
        memoryRequest: "2Gi"
        memoryLimit: "2Gi"
      storage:
        size: "10Gi"
    EOF

  5. Watch the server provision

    Terminal window
    kubectl get minecraftservers -n minecraft -w

    You will see the phase progress through Pending → Provisioning → Running. The first startup takes a few minutes as the server jar is downloaded.

  6. Connect to your server

    For a ClusterIP service (the default), use kubectl port-forward to test connectivity:

    Terminal window
    kubectl port-forward svc/my-server 25565:25565 -n minecraft

    Open Minecraft, add a server at localhost:25565, and connect.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”