How to start a Minecraft Server

One of the best parts about minecraft, besides the mods, is the multiplayer aspect. Nothing cooler than being able to share all of your creations with your friends online. To do this you first need to be able to set up a server. The server can be setup on anything from a VPS (virutal private server) to a old desktop computer that you happened to have laying around the house.

Different Types of Servers

Craftbukkit

Craftbukkit is my personal favourite  when it comes to the different types of servers, the mod server are of course fun but after a while they just get boring. Craftbukkit is basically a vanilla server (which means that there are no mods installed on the client) with lots of plugins that enhance the functionality of the server.

Vanilla

My personal opinion of a vanilla server is that if you are going to go vanilla with out mods you might as well make it easier to admin (and harder to grief) with craftbukkit. But anyway, you can download the standard minecraft server straight from minecraft.net. For the purposes of this article I would recommend downloading the jar file opposed to the windows .exe.

Mod Servers (tekkit)

There aren't that many mod servers of note, many are customized to the preferneces of the people who are hosting them. But the one that is most used (in my experience) is the tekkit server. Tekkit is a mod pack with many fun mods.

How to setup the Server

I would recommend installing a linux server distrobution to run the server on but thats your own choice.
Starting the server is easy; java -jar minecraft_server.jar will start the server. Once the server has finished creating all of the files you can then stop it by typing "stop" in the server command line. In the folder that the jar is located in there should now be some files that were created by the server. The one that you want is "server.properties" in that file you can configure the different options, like offline mode, firespreading, and mob spawns. 

How to start a server with a seed

In the directory with the minecraft server file you will want to create a "server.properties" file in that file put the line "seed=<yourseednumberhere>
" If you want to use a word as a seed what you would have to do is to put "" around the text. (I think I'm not really sure about that in all honesty)

Minecraft for Nothing

 Searching "how to get minecraft free" will turn up nothing but spam and scams to try and get you to fill out a survey. Sure maybe there is one or two out there that actually do what they say that they do but I doubt it. But there is one way that you can use that will get you what you need to play minecraft, both on "offline servers" and on Single Player mode.

Vanilla

That is Mineshafter. Mineshafter, is basically a proxy application for the minecraft.jar file that convinces it that you have logged into the minecraft servers successfully. It will download all of the files that you need. As they say on the mineshafter website, if you really do enjoy playing the game then you ought to support it and what better way to do that than to buy the game straight from Mojang.

Mods

But wait, what if you want to play one of the many different mods that are out there? Well some one fixed that problem too. Welcome to Mineshafter Squared the way it works is the same it allows you to login through their servers and not mojangs. With mineshaftersquared you can download the 2 of the most popular minecraft mod launchers, Spout and Technic

Again this will NOT allow you on to the majority of the servers that are out there, there are some servers, like BitLegend that run in the offline mode and allow you to login without a account but there are not many.