Docker Minecraft: Containerized Minecraft Server

Docker Minecraft runs a Minecraft Java Edition server inside a Docker container. Configuration happens entirely via environment variables, the world is stored persistently in a Docker volume, and the server starts reproducibly with a single Docker Compose command.

Tech Stack

Docker Docker Compose Minecraft Java Edition

Project Structure

Docker-Minecraft/
├── ⚙️ Dockerfile
├── ⚙️ compose.yml
├── ⚙️ entrypoint.sh
├── 📄 server.jar
├── 📄 eula.txt
└── ℹ️ README.md

Quickstart

# Clone repository
git clone git@github.com:EnsslinAdrian/Docker-Minecraft.git minecraft_docker
cd minecraft_docker

# Create .env file and fill in the variables
cp .env.template .env

# Start server
docker compose up -d

Connect via Minecraft Java Edition: <YOUR_IP>:8888

Configuration

The entrypoint.sh generates server.properties automatically at container startup from the environment variables defined in compose.yml.

Variable	Default	Description
SERVER_MOTD	Docker Minecraft Server!	Message shown in the server list
SERVER_DIFFICULTY	easy	Difficulty level
SERVER_GAMEMODE	survival	Default game mode
SERVER_MAX_PLAYERS	20	Maximum number of players
SERVER_PVP	on	Enables or disables PvP

Example from compose.yml:

environment:
  - SERVER_MOTD=${SERVER_MOTD}
  - SERVER_DIFFICULTY=${SERVER_DIFFICULTY}
  - SERVER_GAMEMODE=${SERVER_GAMEMODE}
  - SERVER_MAX_PLAYERS=${SERVER_MAX_PLAYERS}
  - SERVER_PVP=${SERVER_PVP}

Persistent Data

The world directory is mounted into the container via a named volume:

volumes:
  - world_db:/app/

This ensures:

• The world survives container restarts and image rebuilds
• Server configuration is always preserved
• No game data is lost when updating the image

The .dockerignore excludes world/ so the build context stays clean.

Usage

# Start server
docker compose up -d

# Stop server
docker compose down

# Follow logs live
docker logs -f mc-server

# Completely reset the world
rm -r world/
docker compose up --build

What I Learned

• Docker Compose for non-web workloads — Containerizing a game server instead of a typical web app
• entrypoint.sh as config generator — Dynamically writing server.properties from environment variables at startup
• Named volumes — Persisting world data independently from the container lifecycle
• .dockerignore — Keeping large game data out of the build context

Links

• GitHub Repository