Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sappho]

My mom and I are looking to switch from laggy long-distance LAN play to getting a server we can hop on whenever one of us has time. But it's very confusing. I've never bought/run a server before. Neither of us can host it ourselves. My internet isn't fast enough and my mom refuses to leave electronics running all day.

I've found a huge slew of different hosting services. The ones with good reviews tend to be expensive, as expected. But there's only 2 of us. We don't need it to be great. It needs 4 GB of RAM because we're using a pretty heavy-duty modpack. Location should be in Europe since my internet is fairly slow. She's in the US but has a great connection so I'm thinking she should be okay.

So... Where should we go? We can't afford $40 a month for a highly-rated host. We could do $10-$15 a month, but all the ones with 4 GB of RAM at that price have awful reviews. Is there anywhere we can go to get a very small private host at a good price?

Thanks!

[Bumber]

I think you can try Amazon cloud for a year free.

[Sappho]

I think you can try Amazon cloud for a year free.

We don't need somewhere to store the files - we need a server. :/

[Bumber]

I think you can try Amazon cloud for a year free.

We don't need somewhere to store the files - we need a server. :/

https://aws.amazon.com/free/
Which includes:
https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
Which sounds like it could be used to host a server:

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) forms a central part of Amazon.com's cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), by allowing users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications.

And the pricing:

t2.medium
Virtual Cores: 2
Memory (RAM?): 4
OS: Windows

$0.065 per Hour

Left always on, it's over $40 a month (~720 hours per month) once your 1 year trial runs out, so it's not a long term solution if you plan on 100% uptime. However, you could have it run only when someone wants to play, which would make it more manageable. Averaging 4 hours a day = ~$8/month, breaks even with Minecraft Realms.

[wierd]

.....

Minecraft's server does not look all that demanding to me. I have successfully run PvPGN daemons on routers before, and it works great for simulated battle.net for older blizzard titles. (Eg, for doing ladder play, having lobbies, etc at LAN parties.)

The dependency on java for the server is worrying, (blech), but I dont see a compelling reason why the server daemon could not be cooked into a NAS appliance, which has a highspeed local connection to a spinning disk for swap, typically has a nice amount of RAM, and a fairly fast (for embedded) CPU.  Would likely profit from running zram to avoid using spinny disk swap except in emergencies. 

It would pay for itself after 2 months, compared to paying amazon for hosting. AND it would be local LAN, so latency would be minimal.

[Tiruin]

I'm wondering--as I have lacking advice but memory of others who may have better ones--if this thread can be moved to the Other Games section instead; seemingly the LA thread isn't that much visited by those in that category of server knowledge :O

And I do recall others on B12 knowing and hosting their own servers and stuff--did you try asking in the Minecraft thread?

(Also hii Sappho!)

[Aklyon]

Aside from the aws or NAS ideas already mentioned, I'll throw in my 2c on setting up mc servers:

If you have two computers and port forwarding access on your router, you can set up a server using the minecraft_server.exe for vanilla (if you want a gui) or the .jar if you don't need one or are using mods. Then go here to grab what your IP address is, and use the other comp for playing minecraft on.

And then you point out how to connect to that ip in minecraft's multiplayer menu to your mom.

If you only have one computer and it has enough power to run both (unlikely if you've got too many mods involved), you can run the server on the same computer you're playing minecraft on.

(Also hi, sappho!)

[Bumber]

It's my impression from the OP that she's already managed hosting on her own computer, and that there's an unacceptable latency via geographical distance (Europe <--> USA).

[Aklyon]

It's my impression from the OP that she's already managed hosting on her own computer, and the issue is latency via distance.

I was getting the impression they were using some sort of (unsurprisingly laggy) hamachi LAN-over-internet setup to avoid using the server software before, since Minecraft does have an 'open to LAN' button.

[Bumber]

It's my impression from the OP that she's already managed hosting on her own computer, and the issue is latency via distance.

I was getting the impression they were using some sort of (unsurprisingly laggy) hamachi LAN-over-internet setup to avoid using the server software before, since Minecraft does have an 'open to LAN' button.

Location should be in Europe since my internet is fairly slow. She's in the US but has a great connection so I'm thinking she should be okay.

(Emphasis mine.)

[Sappho]

Hm... Well, I have no idea how servers work and most of what you guys are writing is unfortunately meaningless to me. But I'm gonna keep trying! I have one computer. It's pretty good, but I don't know if it's good enough to be a server while I'm playing on it. But then, I have no idea how that works.

To clarify, at the moment we are using a Hamachi-type LAN-over-internet thing. We're using Evolve. The problems are:
1. It's laggy at times.
2. Because of the time difference, we can only play together once a week, and only one of us (the host, who owns the single-player world) can play at other times. There's no server up and running that we can jump on whenever we have time.

That's why we're looking for a server - mainly so that either of us can play whenever we feel like it. We want it to be private so we can have just the two of us, plus maybe a few others that we invite. But when we started looking at hiring a server, we were pretty discouraged by how expensive it is. For 4 GB of RAM (recommended for Hermitpack) it seems to be about $40 a month, which is way too expensive for us. There are some cheap ones for around $12 a month but they don't have good reviews. So what I was looking to find out is, is there any way to set up or hire a cheap server that won't go down on us all the time? Or is it expensive or nothing?

I doubt there's any way for us to run the server ourselves. We both have gaming computers (we actually have the same one, bought a year apart in different countries). It's an Acer Aspire Predator (basic specs if you click the link). I have reasonably fast internet now, compared to what I had before - it's satellite, slightly dependent on the weather but usually I get 200 kbps upload and 1 mbps download speed. Mom has cable, but she's in the US.

This past weekend I tried hosting the game rather than her, and it actually went really well. She had less lag than I usually do when she hosts. But that still doesn't solve the problem of not being able to play during the week (although if I'm the one hosting now, *I'll* be able to play during the week, which is more likely to happen than her wanting to play anyway). I'd still prefer to have a server, though, if there's an affordable way to do that.

[wierd]

It sounds like your issues are likely related to your upload speed, vs her upload speed.

when hosting a server, the speed at which data can leave your network is very important, because that sets how quickly can get data from your network.  If your upload speed and jitter are better than hers, then you should be hosting.


That said--


I am looking into the steps needed to coax a western digital MyCloud NAS (a NAS I personally already have) into hosting a minecraft server daemon.

I havent gotten far into the battle. Had to deal with a preliminary skirmish with getting new SSH keys generated. (the ones that ship baked in from the factory are obsolete DSS style keys, which openssh no longer supports due to heartbleed. However, it copies these from a persistent partition in /usr/local/config, so you can overwrite the keys there with freshly generated RSA 4096 bit ones, and bob's your uncle. I have shiny new RSA keys working.)

Right now I am using debootstrap with the --foreign option to pull a suitable wheezy chroot base for the CPU type in that system. (ARMHF for those interested. Here's the cpuinfo redout for that NAS.)

Spoiler: NAS innards (click to show/hide)

root@WDMyCloud local # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor   : 0
model name   : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
BogoMIPS   : 1594.16
Features   : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls
CPU implementer   : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant   : 0x4
CPU part   : 0xc09
CPU revision   : 1

processor   : 1
model name   : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
BogoMIPS   : 1594.16
Features   : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls
CPU implementer   : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant   : 0x4
CPU part   : 0xc09
CPU revision   : 1

Hardware   : Marvell Armada 375 (Device Tree)
Revision   : 0000
Serial      : 0000000000000000

As you can see, it is a dual core ARM7 with hard float. It has 512mb of RAM, but comes from the factory set up to use a LOT of swap.

Spoiler: NAS memory and swap stuff (click to show/hide)

root@WDMyCloud local # cat /proc/swaps
Filename            Type      Size   Used   Priority
/dev/md0                                partition   2097056   0-1

root@WDMyCloud local # free
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:        514528       358400       156128            0        24576
-/+ buffers:             333824       180704
Swap:      2097056            0      2097056

It looks like a suitable target for minecraft's server daemon, at least according to the wiki.

http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_server#Linux_instructions

In your case, it would only be hosting for 2 people, so it shouldn't get too much load.

Caveat here, my server *will* run like dogpoop, because my upload speed from my ISP is abysmal (Contemplating seeing how well it performs by allowing bay12 minecraft players to attach once it is set up.  I don't play it myself.) However, if your upload speed is good, it should run fine on a NAS like this when properly set up. 


I am toying with the idea of starting a free "by mail" service to configure devices like this for specialty server use for people that want inexpensive game servers and don't want recurring costs, and dont mind the risks of running their own.   

NAS boxes are ideal, because they have fairly powerful processors in them (about on par with a raspberry pi), and have permanent storage (being NAS boxes).  They look good on a shelf, and run on a tiny trickle of juice. Most have gigabit ethernet connectivity, and thus if you have a fat internet pipe, wont be restricted by their interface speed. They look right at home next to your cable modem or router. AND they can still do their intended job of hosting local network shares on your network. Useful for things like home movie archives and the like, as they tend to have media center server daemons baked right in.  For very low-requirement game servers (Like decades old blizzard games, like diablo, diablo II, and pals) one can even use old routers as the game host!

I will report back on the results of my experiment later.

[Aklyon]

Sounds like an interesting idea to use the NAS, but probably over both their heads to setup on their own.

[wierd]

That's why I am suggesting the "by mail config" service idea.

EG, they buy a NAS, mail it to me, I do the magic, and mail it back to them. They just power it on, and connect to it.
Might be a little headache with enabling port forwarding on their router to let traffic through.

Do you think there would be any takers for such a service here at bay12?

[Sappho]

It sounds like your issues are likely related to your upload speed, vs her upload speed.

when hosting a server, the speed at which data can leave your network is very important, because that sets how quickly can get data from your network.  If your upload speed and jitter are better than hers, then you should be hosting.

That said--

--(lots of stuff I don't understand)--

My mom's upload speed is much faster than mine. She has a cable internet connection, so she gets *much* faster speeds than I do. I top out around 200 kbps. Apparently that's enough, after all, but it's nowhere near as fast as hers, so it's strange that it's laggier when she hosts than when I do. We have identical computers, so the connection is the only difference.

As for the other stuff, I have absolutely no idea what any of that means. I don't know what an NAS is, and I only get more lost from there. I don't know much about hardware or networking at all.  When we play right now, it's like this: We both log into Evolve and connect to a party which gives us a make-believe LAN to use. One of us (currently me) starts up their single-player world and clicks "Open to LAN". The other person connects. Ta-da! We're playing together. It's very simple. But we can't play during the week because there's no server.

I have no clue how servers work, what they're made out of, or what kinds of magical spells you have to cast to make them do what you want. My only question is, is there a way for us to get a cheap server that will not go down often, and which will actually work for our pack (Hermitpack, which requires 4 GB RAM and that's all I know)? Ideally I'd just like to hire one, but the cheap ones all have bad reviews - are there any cheap ones that don't suck? Is it possible to turn my computer into a server and leave it running during times I know mom might play, or will that make the game run badly when we're both playing? (Although I'd rather not leave my computer running all the time - electric bills and whatnot.) And why, oh why, is creating a server so frigging complicated? It's like you have to learn an entirely new language just to switch from "we're both playing on my world" to "this world is accessible whenever".

I kind of feel like I'm asking "Is there a place I can order a cheap but decent pizza nearby?" and getting an answer about how to choose the best type of milk for home-making mozzarella cheese, the specifications of the cheese-making equipment which is available in different countries, and thoughts on whether mozzarella is really the best type of cheese for pizza after all. I'm not trying to make cheese, I'm trying to order a pizza - I'm not trying to learn how to set up a server, I'm just trying to find out if there's an easy way to get a server for us.