Linux Configuration#

Obtaining a server binary#

Info

If you are going to be running a Luanti server on a non-headless system, using the regular luanti binary with the --server argument works the same as luantiserver. If you are on a headless Linux system without a graphical environment, luantiserver is recommended as it is smaller and does not have extra dependencies that are unnecessary for a server.

Usually your Linux distribution of choice will have luantiserver in its official repositories. However this package may be several releases outdated, so obtaining a server binary through other means is to be recommended.

Pre-built third-party server binaries: The luantiserver repository by ROllerozxa contains up-to-date prebuilt x86_64 headless server binaries that should work on any relatively recent glibc-based Linux distro, built from an automated CI workflow that you can fork if you want to customize the build options.
Building from source: Build Luanti from source with -DBUILD_CLIENT=0 -DBUILD_SERVER=1. For more information see Compiling a headless Linux server.
Docker: Follow this guide.

Running the Server#

Warning

As of 5.8.0, Luanti no longer ships with a default game, meaning you will have to provide your own game to use with the server. You can browse the games on ContentDB and download one to put in the games/ folder for your server.

Open a terminal.
Navigate to wherever you’ve put your Luanti server files (referred to as /Luanti/ from now on), and run the server with /bin/luantiserver.
- If you want to specify a specific game ID, the game ID choices are located in /Luanti/games/. Add in --gameid yourGameId** to the end of the command.
- If you get the error “Multiple worlds are available.”, the world choices are located in /Luanti/worlds/. Add in --worldname yourWorldName** to the end of the command.
If your server crashes, then look in the debug.txt log file in /Luanti/
Make sure you make your server safe from damage.

For easier server management (and also automatically restarting the server when it crashes) you can create a file named run_server.sh or the like in the /Luanti/ folder with this:

#!/bin/bash

while true
do
    ./bin/luantiserver --gameid <game> --worldname world --terminal
    sleep 2
done

If you’re on a headless server you’d want to run the server in some kind of multiplexer like screen. Run screen -h 10000 -S luanti ./run_server.sh, Ctrl+A Ctrl+D to detach, and screen -r to reattach at a later date.

If you’re going to be running multiple servers you may want to separate their files between each other. One good way to do that would be to make a servers/ folder as a sibling to your bin/ folder, make a folder for each server, and use something like this for running the server:

#!/bin/bash

while true
do
    ../../bin/luantiserver --world "world" --config "server.conf" --logfile "server.log" --terminal
    sleep 2
done

It will store the server’s world, config and log contained within its own folder such that it won’t conflict with another server.

Firewall#

You most likely know if you have a firewall installed and configured (e.g. iptables or ufw). Be sure to allow the Luanti server to communicate over UDP on the specified port.

Next Steps#

Continue on to next steps.