Mac Hacks

Chapter 8. Other OSes

Your Mac can do a lot that might not be readily apparent. It can control all the Apple devices you own, emulate a Wii system, and host a Minecraft server. Using your Mac for all these nifty things will get you wondering what other cool and unthought-of uses your Mac might have.

Hack 37. Run a Minecraft Server on Your Mac

Learn how to run your own Minecraft server for a select group of kids (or adults) on your Mac.

Imagine this purely hypothetical situation: you’re a den leader for the Cub Scouts, and you find yourself asking the kids what they’re interested in. As a good den leader, you listen intently, and when one of the scouts says that the coolest thing possible would be a scouts-only Minecraft server, you start to think to yourself, “Hey, now there’s something I could put in my book!” When every other scout agrees that that would be the coolest thing ever, and factoring in that the winter holidays are coming, you realize a Minecraft server wouldn’t only be fun for the scouts—it would be blessed relief for the parents, too. So you realize you need to get busy.

The first thing to contemplate when setting up a Minecraft server is what machine you’re going to run it on. I have a first-generation Intel MacBook Pro that I decided to donate to the cause. You don’t have to have a dedicated server—your main Mac can likely run a Minecraft server—but if you’ve got a spare computer laying around that’s used infrequently, why not put it to work?

Before you get started, ...