mc - Minecraft Server Utility

A simple two-character command to quickly start Paper Minecraft servers for development and testing. Just solves the minor inconvenience of getting out of your flow/terminal to test something quickly.

What it does

• Downloads and starts Paper Minecraft servers
• Handles EULA acceptance automatically (by using this tool, you accept Minecraft's EULA)
• Manages multiple server versions in the same directory
• Verifies every download against the checksum PaperMC publishes
• Transparent stdio proxying with robust Ctrl+C handling (graceful stop then escalate)

Installation

Linux (x64):

curl -sfL https://github.com/Mindgamesnl/mc/releases/latest/download/mc-linux-amd64 -o mc && chmod +x mc && sudo mv mc /usr/local/bin/

Linux (ARM64):

curl -sfL https://github.com/Mindgamesnl/mc/releases/latest/download/mc-linux-arm64 -o mc && chmod +x mc && sudo mv mc /usr/local/bin/

macOS (Apple Silicon):

curl -sfL https://github.com/Mindgamesnl/mc/releases/latest/download/mc-darwin-arm64 -o mc && chmod +x mc && sudo mv mc /usr/local/bin/

macOS (Intel):

curl -sfL https://github.com/Mindgamesnl/mc/releases/latest/download/mc-darwin-amd64 -o mc && chmod +x mc && sudo mv mc /usr/local/bin/

Windows PowerShell:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/Mindgamesnl/mc/releases/latest/download/mc-windows-amd64.exe" -OutFile "mc.exe"

Manual: Download from releases, make executable, and add to PATH.

Usage

# Start a specific version (downloads if needed)
mc 26.2

# Run with existing setup (picks version interactively if multiple exist)
mc

# List every version PaperMC currently publishes
mc versions

# Check if Java is working
mc test

# Run in a temporary work directory, cleaned up on exit
mc --temp 26.2

# Force offline mode (sets online-mode=false in server.properties before start)
mc --offline 26.2

Versions

Minecraft moved to a year.release[.patch] scheme in 2026, so both of these work, alongside anything else PaperMC still publishes:

Scheme	Examples
Current	26.2, 26.2.1, 26.1.2
Legacy	1.21.4, 1.20, 1.8.8
Pre-releases	26.2-rc-2, 1.21.11-rc3, 1.21.9-pre4

mc versions lists what is available right now. When several versions are already downloaded in a directory, plain mc shows a picker; they are ordered newest first, with a pre-release sorting just below the release it leads up to.

Flags

• -t, --temp: Run in a temporary directory, cleaned up on exit.
• -o, --offline, --offlinemode: Set online-mode=false in server.properties.
• -v, --version: Print the mc version and exit.
• -h, --help: Show usage.

Subcommands: mc versions, mc test, mc help.

How it works

1. Creates mc.yml config file with defaults (2GB RAM, port 25565)
2. Asks the PaperMC Fill API for the latest build of your version
3. Downloads the server jar, verifies its SHA-256, and only then puts it in place
4. Creates eula.txt (accepting Minecraft's EULA)
5. Presets server.properties based on flags (e.g. online-mode=false, server-port)
6. Starts the server and proxies stdio; Ctrl+C sends stop, then escalates if needed

Shutdown is staged: the first Ctrl+C (or SIGTERM) sends the stop console command, 10 seconds later the process group is terminated, and 5 seconds after that it is killed. A third interrupt kills it immediately.

Configuration

Edit mc.yml to change settings:

version: "26.2"
memory: "2G"      # RAM allocation
port: 25565       # Server port

Running mc <version> updates only the version field, so hand-tuned memory and port settings are preserved.

Building

git clone https://github.com/Mindgamesnl/mc.git
cd mc
make build      # or: go build -o mc
make test       # tests with the race detector
make lint       # gofmt + go vet

Requires Go 1.25 or newer.

Honourable mention

To Dr. Duco LeKuuk for complaining about how annoying it is to create temp servers, despite literally having the tool installed