Setting up a Minecraft server with mods on a remote Linux box

Information on this is sparse, so here’s a few notes in case I need this again:

To use mods on a Minecraft server, a patched server with a mod loader is required. There are about 4 different ones, but CurseForge seems to be the most popular one.

Go to https://files.minecraftforge.net/ (redirects to https://files.minecraftforge.net/net/minecraftforge/forge/) and download the installer for the desired Minecraft version.

Copy that to the server and run

java -jar forge-1.21.10-60.1.0-installer.jar --installServer .

This creates the directory structure for a Minecraft server. Start it:

./run.sh

On the first run, it will refuse to run. Edit eula.txt and accept the license:

eula=true

If any mods are desired, copy the .jar files into the mods/ folder.

Start it again and configure the whitelist:

screen ./run
[19:36:07] [main/INFO] [cp.mo.mo.Launcher/MODLAUNCHER]: ModLauncher running: args [--launchTarget, forge_server]
[19:36:07] [main/INFO] [cp.mo.mo.Launcher/MODLAUNCHER]: JVM identified as Debian OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM 25.0.1+8-Debian-1deb13u1
[19:36:07] [main/INFO] [cp.mo.mo.Launcher/MODLAUNCHER]: ModLauncher 10.2.4 starting: java version 25.0.1 by Debian; OS Linux arch aarch64 version 6.12.48+deb13-arm64
...
> whitelist on
> whitelist add swordfish
> op swordfish
[19:37:55] [Server thread/INFO] [minecraft/MinecraftServer]: Made swordfish a server operator

• Notes