Server

Minetest servers allow players to play online with other people. They can be run from a dedicated server, a Virtual Private Server or a home computer.

This is not a list of servers, please see the Minetest Server List or Minetest Forum servers section instead.

Playing on a server

Finding a server

In order to play on a server at all, you need to know the address and a port number of a server first.
There are many ways to find those addresses.

Public server list

Public server lists are basicly just lists of server addresses. You can obtain a list of available servers by multiple ways.

Inside the game

The easiest way to obtain a server list is inside the game. You find it in the main menu under “Multiplayer”.

In the web

This webpage contains a server list.

Forums

In the Minetest forums, there is a subforum called “Servers”.
The entire point of this subforum is to announce servers and their addresses. Also discussion of these servers.

Friends

If you know a friend who hosts a Minetest server, ask them for the address and port number.

Connecting to a server

If you have obtained address and the port number of a server, you just have to enter those values into the respective fields under “Multiplayer” in the main menu and click on “connect”, or press Enter. In case you used the in-game server list, Minetest automatically enters those values for you.

You also need to choose a player name. Player names need to be unique on a per-sever basis. You can choose a password but this can be empty on some servers.

Account registration

The account registration in Minetest is never explicitly mentioned as such and happens in the background. In a player account all information about your player character, such as health, items, name, etc. are stored on the server. A player account is only valid for one server, so you can have different player names on different servers.

IMPORTANT: An account is registered as soon as you connect to the server successfully for the first time. There will be no notification.

The first step is to pick a player name (which is valid for one server only):

• Allowed characters are a-z, A-Z, 0-9, the hyphen (“-”) and the underscore (“_”)
• The name must not be “singleplayer”

Then you can pick a password for the player name on this server. This password can be empty, but some servers don't allow an empty password, so be prepared to think of one. Be aware that with an empty password, anyone could connect with this player name to the server.

IMPORTANT: Remember and triple-check the password before you connect on a server for the first time. Minetest will not ask you to enter the password again. If you messed it up in the first time and don't realize it, you will logically fail in later logins because you probably won't remember how you mis-typed your password. Countless player names have been burned because of this.

Warning: There is also no automatic mechanism to recover a lost password. If you lost your password, it's tough luck for you. You could try to contact one of the server operators, but there is no guarantee they'll help you.

If you picked both name and password, hit “Connect”.

Logging in

To log in to the server again, just use the same credentials on this server as before.

In the server

The gameplay in a multiplayer server is basicly the same as in a singleplayer game.
The same rules apply. See Getting Started for gameplay-related concepts.
However, in multiplayer servers, some concepts not very important in singleplayer are important in multiplayer:

• Privileges: learn what you can and can’t do on a server
• Chat: learn how to communicate with other players
• Server commands: learn how to use server commands.
  Server commands are not just useful for server operators but for players as well;
  for example, you can pulverize an item, teleport, find out about your privileges and more.
• The mods installed on the server, and the settings may affect gameplay.
  • Take note of mobs, PvP (fighting “player-vs-player”), and server rules
  • Find out with commands like “/mods”, “/privs”, “/status”.

Managing a server

Server Setup

• Setting up a server in such a way so that others may connect to it via the Internet takes some time, and a little technical know-how.
• Netbooks and Notebooks generally don't make for good server machines due to the fact that they typically have lower-end hardware.
• Do not attempt to host a sizeable (over a few people) server on a wireless network, use a wired network instead.

For more information see setting up a server page, or a discussion in the forum for an explanation on setting up your own server.

Server Configuration

For a detailed explanation of the server configuration file, see the minetest.conf page.

You may also want to consider to use a different database backend for your world.

Server Commands

See the Server commands page for a list of useful commands.

Also see Itemstrings for the itemstrings for use with the /give and /giveme commands.

Privilege System

See the privileges page for detailed information on the privilege system.

See also

Server mods