[How to] Set up Minetestserver on raspberry Pi [RPI]

[jbb]

This is a guide on setting up a minetest server on a raspberry pi, using the raspbian / debian OS. I don't know if somebody already made such a guide, but I wanted to share my experiences.

I tested this steps on a rasberry pi 3 with Minibian / Raspbian / debian jessie (8).

• First thing: find an image for your raspberry Pi. I used Minibian for that. Minibian is a really minimal version of Debian / raspbian, ideal for servers. You can download minibian here: https://minibianpi.wordpress.com/download/
• Write the image to an Sdcard. You can use win32 Disk imager in windows or

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  dd if=<image.img> of=</dev/yoursdcard> bs=1M

  in linux.
  You can get the name of your Sdcard in

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  fdisk -l

  Here is external help on dd: https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/dd/
• Now boot up your Pi after you inserted your sdcard. SSH is already preinstalled in the image, so you could continue with this steps from an other pc using PUTTY or ssh. Username / Password is root / raspberry. Now there is an optional step: You can add this lines to the /etc/apt/sources.list file to get the latest packages from debian:

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  sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

  Add this lines and press CTL + O to save:

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  deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian jessie main non-free contrib
  

  Then run

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  sudo apt update

  .
• Everything should be up to date, so let's do an upgrade

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  sudo apt full-upgrade

• Now if you try installing minetest, you will get a really outdated version. The preferred way is following the instructions from here: https://wiki.debian.org/Backports
  So add this

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  deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main contrib non-free

  to your souces.list, use apt update and install minetest from backports:

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  apt -t jessie-backports install minetest

  .
  Spoiler

  The other way is compiling minetest yourself, if you already used the other method skip this:
  Add this to your souces.list

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  sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mt.list

  and
  paste this line into the file and save (CTL + O):

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  deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/minetestdevs/stable/ubuntu vivid main

  (for all expired users: there is only the source needed because the repo don't contains minetest for armhf.)
  Then run

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  sudo apt update

  and

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  sudo apt install apt-src

  , after that finished run

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  sudo apt-src update

  Spoiler

  Buid Minetest for your raspberry pi:
  First, go into root mode:

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  sudo -i

  and then install the minetest source:

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  apt-src install minetest

  Then build minetest from source:

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  apt-src build minetest

  This can really take a long time, the raspi's processor isn't so fast.
  When it finished tipp

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  dpkg --install minetest_

  and press the autocomplete key. Choose the file ending with ".deb".
  The folder will look similar to this: (to get this list use the "ls" command" (do not swap the l and s otherwise it's not list but steam locomotive)[/size)
  _______________________________________________________________________________________
  root@minibian# ls
  minetest-0.4.14 minetest_0.4.14-ppa3~ubuntu15.04.1.dsc
  minetest_0.4.14-ppa3~ubuntu15.04.1_armhf.changes minetest_0.4.14-ppa3~ubuntu15.04.1.tar.xz
  minetest_0.4.14-ppa3~ubuntu15.04.1_armhf.deb
  _______________________________________________________________________________________
  In this example the wanted file is "minetest_0.4.14-ppa3~ubuntu15.04.1_armhf.deb"
  
  If you need further help with this, look here:
  https://wiki.debian.org/apt-src
  
  
  When install finished, you should be able to copy your minetest map to your server using filezilla.
  
  TIP: it's a good idea to create a seperate user for minetest, for security reasons. You can add one by "adduser minetest", and login as minetest next time.
• Now you can start the server as described on the minetest wiki:

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  nohup minetest --server --worldname <your world>

When I first tried running the minetesserver on a raspberry pi 3, I was really surprised of it's power. I tested with up to 10 players and the server still runs great.

Please say if I forgot something, or if something don't works anymore.
I hope I could help you

[captpete]

I have a question: where are the data directories (textures, mods, worlds, etc.) for MineTest in Pi?

Also you left out getting minetest-server in your apt-get which sets up the minetest.conf file in /etc/minetest, a minetestserver file in /usr/lib/minetest and a /var/games/minetest-server/.minetest/worlds/[your world] (where all the world directories should be placed under I think) .

correction: /usr/share/games/minetest/ seems to be created once minetestserver is run (minetestserver --info) and THAT contains the MineTest directory structure.

[jbb]

I normally create a new user for the minetest server, and run it manually using minetest --server --worldname ....
Then all worlds, mods etc. are stored in /home/minetestuser/.minetest/. You can also use minetestserver, if you need automatic start on boot. The normal raspbian image uses the default user "pi", so everything would be stored in /home/pi, on the sdcard. The minibian image I used has only the root user created, and it's often a bad Idea of letting services which are accesable from the internet running on the root account, so I use the user "minetest" for it.