Installation on Windows

NOTE: MCL is currently in BETA stage!

Windows support is WIP!

The biggest bugs are gone but I don't use MCL on Windows. If you find a bug, encounter a problem or something else, please create an issue.

MCL requires to be started from an elevated command prompt. This is because MCL uses symbolic links which are very common on *nix systems and Windows/NTFS supports them since Vista but for some reasons you can only use them via mklink CLI utility and only with elevated permissions *shrug*.

To open an elevated command prompt press your windows key, type in cmd and rightclick the entry in the results. In the context menu choose "run as administrator". Alternatively to rightclicking you can press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

Easy way: Bundled setup

The installer contains all dependencies needed to run MCL plus a few scripts to set everything up. For you it's just an one-click-installer.

  1. Download the bundled MCL installer and run it.

  2. Edit the configuration file at C:\minecraft\mcl\config\default.yml or use the bootstrapping feature of the setup script.

  3. Open an elevated command prompt and use mcld start to start MCL in the background or mcld run to run it in the foreground.

  4. Type !uadmin into chat to give yourself root permissions. This only works if your nickname or UUID is listed in the config file.

Encountered problems? => Troubleshooting

The bundled installer will, in detail

  • install GnuTar (archiving utility)
  • install Git (code versioning to get and update MCL)
  • install Ruby 2.0 incl. devkit (Ruby programming language)
  • install bundler Ruby gem to manage project dependencies
  • install MCL
    • pull git repository
    • install bundle
    • copy default config
    • optionally bootstraps a new minecraft server
  • add Tar, Git, Ruby and MCL to your %path%.

There is no uninstaller! To remove MCL just delete the folder (typically C:/minecraft/mcl). GnuTar, Ruby and git have their own individual uninstaller.

Hard way: Manual installation

1. Installing dependencies

  1. Download RubyInstaller AND the development kit and install both (make sure to check "add ruby to PATH").

  2. Download Git and install it (make sure to choose "Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt")

  3. Download GnuTar and install it. You will have to manually add tar to your path variable!

  4. Open up a elevated CMD window (press win, enter "cmd", right click the entry and choose "run as administrator")

  5. Type in: gem install bundler

2. Installing MCL

  1. Download or clone the whole thing to a convenient location:

    cd c:\minecraft
git clone https://github.com/2called-chaos/mcl.git

  2. Optional but recommended: Add the bin directory to your PATH variable:

    setx path "%path%;c:\minecraft\mcl\bin"

    Close and reopen the elevated command prompt for this change to take effect.

  3. Install the bundle

    cd c:/minecraft/mcl && bundle install --without mysql

    NOTE: If you want to use MySQL (not recommended) replace mysql with sqlite.

  4. Copy and edit the example configuration to fit your needs and server settings (don't indent with tabs!).

    cp config\default.example.yml config\default.yml
start config\default.yml

  5. Done! Run mcld run (to test) or mcld start to start the MCL daemon in the background. Encountered problems? => Troubleshooting

  6. Type !uadmin into chat to give yourself root permissions. This only works if your nickname or UUID is listed in the config directory.

Hint: Bootstrap

If you want to start with a new server, MCL can bootstrap it for you. Create a file called bootstrap (no ending) inside your server folder containing the minecraft version you want to use. MCL will then download the minecraft server for you automatically. Example:

mkdir C:\minecraft\my_minecraft_server
echo 1.8 > C:\minecraft\my_minecraft_server\bootstrap
mcld start

You can add additional lines to the bootstrap file which will be interpreted as server properties and added to the server.properties file.

MCL is a project by Sven Pachnit (contact)