Minetest on the TFGrid

Introduction

We show how to deploy a Minetest server on the TFGrid, install Minetest on a local machine and access the Minetest server from the local machine.

Prerequisites

• A TFChain account
• TFT in your TFChain account
  • Buy TFT
  • Send TFT to TFChain

Deploy a Full VM

We start by deploying a full VM on the ThreeFold Dashboard.

• On the Threefold Dashboard, go to the full virtual machine deployment page
• Deploy a full VM (Ubuntu 22.04) with an IPv4 address and at least the minimum specs for a full VM
  • Network
    • Set IPv4 Address (required)
    • Set Wireguard (optional)
  • Minimum vcores: 1vcore
  • Minimum MB of RAM: 512MB
  • Minimum storage: 15GB
• After deployment, note the VM IPv4 address
• SSH into the VM

  ssh root@vm_ipv4_address
  

DNS Settings

You need to set an A record for the IPv4 address.

The following table explicitly shows how to set the A record for your domain. Note that we set minetest as a subdomain.

You will then be able to access your server on Minetest with the URL minetest.example.com:30033. More on the port below.

DNS Verification

You can use tools such as DNSChecker or dig on a terminal to check if the DNS propagadation is complete.

• Check that the subdomain resolves to the IPv4 address of the full VM

  minetest.example.com
  

Run a Minetest Server on the TFGrid

• Install the Minetest server

  apt update
  apt install minetest-server -y
  

• Set the Minetest server

  nano /etc/minetest/minetest.conf
  

• Update the following lines

  server_name = Server Name
  
  server_address = http://minetest.example.com
  
  server_announce = true
  
  port = 30033
  

• Run the Minetest server

  minetestserver --worldname world
  

Run Minetest Locally

• Update the local machine

  apt update
  

• Install Minetest

  apt install flatpak -y
  apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak -y
  flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
  

• Reboot the machine
• Install Minetest

  flatpak install flathub net.minetest.Minetest
  

• Run Minetest

  flatpak run net.minetest.Minetest
  

Access the Server from Minetest

• On Minetest, go to the server you previously set

• You can then access the Minetest world!

Public Server Notes

Once you set the Minetest server publicly, you can see it displayed on https://servers.minetest.net/.

• Example of publicly available server

References

For further information on Minetest, read the Minetest documentation.