For server runners on a budget.
This plugin monitors a single minecraft server connected to BungeeCord. If the server is inactive for 30 minutes, it sends a command to AWS to shut the server down. If the server is down, and a player tries to connect, it sends a command to AWS to spin the server back up.
Set up an EC2 instance with your minecraft server. Make sure offline-mode=false in server.properties and connection-throttle: -1 in bukkit.yml
Download and setup BungeeCord. Install this plugin, and set up the config with your AWS credentials, as well as the instance id you obtained from setting up the EC2 instance. An example is provided.
dormantserver.start - Permission to start the server whenever you want
A view of what the config is like is shown below:
server:
name: lobby
port: 25565
max_idle: 30 # Number of minutes of inactivity until the server is shut down
check_idle_delay: 5 # Number of minutes to wait to check whether the server is active or not
max_ping_timeout: 300 # Milliseconds to wait until determining whether the server is up for not
boot_delay_seconds: 0.5 # Number of seconds to wait, after a request is sent to AWS to start the server
aws:
login:
access_key_id: YOUR_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
aws_secret_access_key: YOUR_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
instance:
id: INSTANCE_ID_FOR_SERVER
wait_message: Spinning up server! This will take a few seconds. # For players who have permission to start the server
kick_message: Server is down. Ask an admin to bring it back up! # For players who don't have permission to start the server
You're a poor CS college student, trying to run a minecraft server with your friends. You don't want to host on your own machine, but you also don't want to spend a full $20/month for a server that might only be active 5-10 hours a day.
The plan: You'll host a BungeeCord server on the AWS free tier plan, as that doesn't require much RAM. This server will detect if someone wants to join the server, and spin it up on demand. After 30 minutes of inactivity, the server will shut itself down. This plan will save you 50-75% of costs.