docker-minecraft-bedrock-server

Quickstart

The following starts a Bedrock Dedicated Server running a default version and exposing the default UDP port:

docker run -d -it -e EULA=TRUE -p 19132:19132/udp -v mc-bedrock-data:/data itzg/minecraft-bedrock-server

NOTE: if you plan on running a server for a longer amount of time it is highly recommended using a management layer such as Docker Compose or Kubernetes to allow for incremental reconfiguration and image upgrades.

Upgrading to the latest Bedrock server version

With the VERSION variable set to "LATEST", which is the default, then the Bedrock server can be upgraded by restarting the container. At every startup, the container checks for the latest version and upgrades, if needed.

The latest preview version can be requested by setting VERSION to "PREVIEW".

Looking for a Java Edition Server

For Minecraft Java Edition you'll need to use this image instead:

itzg/minecraft-server

Environment Variables

Container Specific

EULA (no default) : must be set to TRUE to accept the Minecraft End User License Agreement
VERSION (default is LATEST) : can be set to a specific server version or the following special values can be used:
- LATEST : determines the latest (non-preview) version and can be used to auto-upgrade on container start
- PREVIEW : determines the latest preview version and will auto-upgrade
- otherwise any specific server version can be provided. If it is a preview version, also set PREVIEW to "true"
UID (default derived from /data owner) : can be set to a specific user ID to run the bedrock server process
GID (default derived from /data owner) : can be set to a specific group ID to run the bedrock server process
TZ (no default): can be set to a specific timezone like America/New_York. This will set the timezone for the Docker container and therefore their logs. Addtionally, if you want to sync the time with the host, you can mount the /etc/localtime file from the host to the container like /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro.
PACKAGE_BACKUP_KEEP (2) : how many package backups to keep

Server Properties

The following environment variables will set the equivalent property in server.properties, where each is described here. Typically, each property is configured instead by the UPPER_SNAKE_CASE equivalent.

SERVER_NAME
GAMEMODE
FORCE_GAMEMODE
DIFFICULTY
ALLOW_CHEATS
MAX_PLAYERS
ONLINE_MODE
WHITE_LIST
ALLOW_LIST
SERVER_PORT
SERVER_PORT_V6
ENABLE_LAN_VISIBILITY
VIEW_DISTANCE
TICK_DISTANCE
PLAYER_IDLE_TIMEOUT
MAX_THREADS
LEVEL_NAME
LEVEL_SEED
LEVEL_TYPE
DEFAULT_PLAYER_PERMISSION_LEVEL
TEXTUREPACK_REQUIRED
CONTENT_LOG_FILE_ENABLED
CONTENT_LOG_LEVEL
CONTENT_LOG_CONSOLE_OUTPUT_ENABLED
COMPRESSION_THRESHOLD
COMPRESSION_ALGORITHM
SERVER_AUTHORITATIVE_MOVEMENT
PLAYER_POSITION_ACCEPTANCE_THRESHOLD
PLAYER_MOVEMENT_SCORE_THRESHOLD
PLAYER_MOVEMENT_ACTION_DIRECTION_THRESHOLD
PLAYER_MOVEMENT_DISTANCE_THRESHOLD
PLAYER_MOVEMENT_DURATION_THRESHOLD_IN_MS
CORRECT_PLAYER_MOVEMENT
SERVER_AUTHORITATIVE_BLOCK_BREAKING
SERVER_AUTHORITATIVE_BLOCK_BREAKING_PICK_RANGE_SCALAR
CHAT_RESTRICTION
DISABLE_PLAYER_INTERACTION
CLIENT_SIDE_CHUNK_GENERATION_ENABLED
BLOCK_NETWORK_IDS_ARE_HASHES
DISABLE_PERSONA
DISABLE_CUSTOM_SKINS
SERVER_BUILD_RADIUS_RATIO
ALLOW_OUTBOUND_SCRIPT_DEBUGGING
ALLOW_INBOUND_SCRIPT_DEBUGGING
FORCE_INBOUND_DEBUG_PORT
SCRIPT_DEBUGGER_AUTO_ATTACH
SCRIPT_DEBUGGER_AUTO_ATTACH_CONNECT_ADDRESS
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_ENABLE
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_ENABLE_EXCEPTION_HANDLING
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_ENABLE_SHUTDOWN
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_HANG_EXCEPTION
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_HANG_THRESHOLD
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_SPIKE_THRESHOLD
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_SLOW_THRESHOLD
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_MEMORY_WARNING
SCRIPT_WATCHDOG_MEMORY_LIMIT
OP_PERMISSION_LEVEL
EMIT_SERVER_TELEMETRY
MSA_GAMERTAGS_ONLY
ITEM_TRANSACTION_LOGGING_ENABLED

For example, to configure a flat, creative server instead of the default use:

docker run -d -it --name bds-flat-creative \
  -e EULA=TRUE -e LEVEL_TYPE=flat -e GAMEMODE=creative \
  -p 19132:19132/udp itzg/minecraft-bedrock-server

Exposed Ports

UDP 19132 : the Bedrock server port. NOTE that you must append /udp when exposing the port, such as -p 19132:19132/udp

Volumes

/data : the location where the downloaded server is expanded and ran. Also contains the configuration properties file server.properties

You can create a named volume and use it as:

docker volume create mc-volume
docker run -d -it --name mc-server -e EULA=TRUE -p 19132:19132/udp -v mc-volume:/data itzg/minecraft-bedrock-server

If you're using a named volume and want the bedrock process to run as a non-root user then you will need to pre-create the volume and chown it to the desired user.

For example, if you want the bedrock server to run with user ID 1000 and group ID 1000, then create and chown the volume named "bedrock" using:

docker run --rm -v bedrock:/data alpine chown 1000:1000 /data

If using docker run then simply reference that volume "bedrock" in the -v argument. If using a compose file, declare the volume as an external using this type of declaration:

volumes:
  bedrock:
    external:
      name: bedrock

Connecting

When running the container on your LAN, you can find and connect to the dedicated server in the "LAN Games" part of the "Friends" tab, such as:

Permissions

The Bedrock Dedicated Server requires permissions be defined with XUIDs. There are various tools to look these up online and they are also printed to the log when a player joins. There are 3 levels of permissions and 3 options to configure each group:

OPS is used to define operators on the server.

-e OPS="1234567890,0987654321"

MEMBERS is used to define the members on the server.

-e MEMBERS="1234567890,0987654321"

VISITORS is used to define visitors on the server.

-e VISITORS="1234567890,0987654321"

Allowlist

There are two ways to handle a whitelist:

The first is to set the ALLOW_LIST environment variable to true and map in an allowlist.json file (previously known as "whitelist.json") that is custom-crafted to the container.

The other is to set the ALLOW_LIST_USERS environment variable to a comma-separated list of gamer tag usernames and their corresponding XUIDs. Each username should be followed by its XUID, separated by a colon. The server will use these details to match the player.

There are various tools to look XUIDs up online and they are also printed to the log when a player joins the server.

-e ALLOW_LIST_USERS="player1:1234567890,player2:0987654321"

Mods Addons

Also known as behavior or resource packs, in order to add mods into your server you can follow these steps, tested with OPS (One Player Sleep) and bedrocktweaks

Install the mcpack or mcaddon on the client side first, just to make it easier to copy the files to the server, for Windows 10 files should be located on C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_*\LocalState\games\com.mojang.
Copy over the folders of the mods from either behavior_packs or resource_packs into the server's volume.

If you want to install them without using a client you should be able to unzip the mods directly into the server's volume, .mcaddon should go into behavior_packs and .mcpack into resource_packs. Both .mcaddon and .mcpack are actually renamed .zip files.

Lastly create on the server's volume worlds/$level-name/world_behavior_packs.json, you'll need to add an entry for each mod like on the previous manifest.json, we only need the uuid now called pack_id and the version replacing dots with commas and double quotes with [ ].

You can also create a worlds/$level-name/world_resource_packs.json but I have seen that putting both resource and behavior packs inside the same json works just fine

[
	{
		"pack_id" : "5f51f7b7-85dc-44da-a3ef-a48d8414e4d5",
		"version" : [ 3, 0, 0 ]
	}
]

Restart the server and the mods should be enabled now! when connecting you will get a prompt asking if you want to "Download & Join" or just "Join", You need to Download & Join if you want to actually see the new resource pack added to the server. This prompt is exclusive to resource packs as these alter how minecraft looks while behavior packs alter how minecraft functions and don't need to be downloaded or installed on the client side.

If you want to force the resource pack on all clients, there's an option texturepack-required=false in server.properties that should be changed to true. Resource packs can be deleted by going into Settings > Storage > Cached Data, then selecting the pack and clicking on the trash can.

For more information FoxyNoTail did a video explaining the same on a server running on Windows.

More information

For more information about managing Bedrock Dedicated Servers in general, check out this Reddit post.

Executing server commands

This image comes bundled with a script called send-command that will send a Bedrock command and argument to the Bedrock server console. The output of the command only be visible in the container logs.

For example:

docker exec CONTAINER_NAME_OR_ID send-command gamerule dofiretick false

Alternatively, with stdin and tty enabled (such as using -it), attach to the container's console by its name or ID using:

docker attach CONTAINER_NAME_OR_ID

While attached, you can execute any server-side commands, such as op'ing your player to be admin:

gamerule dofiretick false

When finished, detach from the server console using Ctrl-p, Ctrl-q

Deploying with Docker Compose

The examples directory contains an example Docker compose file that declares:

a service running the bedrock server container and exposing UDP port 19132. In the example is named "bds", short for "Bedrock Dedicated Server", but you can name the service whatever you want
a volume attached to the service at the container path /data

services:
  bds:
    image: itzg/minecraft-bedrock-server
    environment:
      EULA: "TRUE"
    ports:
      - "19132:19132/udp"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
    stdin_open: true
    tty: true

Start the server and run in the background using:

docker compose up -d

You can follow the logs at any time using:

docker compose logs -f

Deploying with Kubernetes

The examples directory contains an example Kubernetes manifest file that declares:

a peristent volume claim (using default storage class)
a pod deployment that uses the declared PVC
a service of type LoadBalancer

The pod deployment includes some examples of configuring the server properties via environment variables:

env:
- name: EULA
  value: "TRUE"
- name: GAMEMODE
  value: survival
- name: DIFFICULTY
  value: normal

The file is deploy-able as-is on most clusters, but has been confirmed on Docker for Desktop and Google Kubernetes Engine:

kubectl apply -f examples/kubernetes.yml

You can follow the logs of the deployment using:

kubectl logs -f deployment/bds

Community Solutions

kaiede/minecraft-bedrock-backup image by @Kaiede
ghcr.io/edward3h/mc-webhook by @edward3h
Minecraft Bedrock Server Bridge by @macchie

Tutorials

@TheTinkerDad provides an excellent tutorial on how to host multiple instances on a single port (19132) so that it's discoverable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds0_ESzjbfs