Current state of PocketMine

Server-Software PocketMine
1

Hello again. I wanted to ask what the current state of PocketMine running on MineOS is.

After I got a standard Minecraft server working with custom maps/adventures, the nieces/nephews show up with a bunch of iPhones and iPads which is what they play Minecraft on. So I had had initially needed to setup a PocketMine server that they could all connect to, not the standard PC server.

So like a post below (like a year ago), I am running MineOS as a plugin on a FREENAS system. I see the options in MineOS for PocketMine 980 profile with a runnable 1.4.1 jar, but the server will not run. I read some other threads that a lot has been changed with the updates to php7 and things might be sitting broken.

So after failing to get MineOS running a PocketMine server, I read somewhere where a fellow ran his own instance of just PocketMine within its own jail. So I set out to do that.

I compiled/installed php7.0.7 with ZTS enabled and phar70 from source and downloaded the PocketMine-MP and start.sh and bash but when I try to run it, it gives an error of “unable to find pthreads extension. Please use the installer provided on the homepage.”

Now most replies in numerous threads concerning the same error indicate that “the installer did not install right, just reinstall” but the installer has not ran yet really. It simply doesn’t run.

So this is where I ask what the current state of PocketMine running on MineOS is. I read another post where it was recommended to run MineOS node if you’re wanting to run PE servers but was unsure if the MineOS plugin in FREENAS running within its on jail is the same thing as MineOS node or if they are different things entirely.

I went on to try Imagical server within MineOS as that was listed in a thread to still be working with a certain phar, but the link to the phar was dead. Most of these posts I have looked at regarding PocketMine is over a year old (I might be looking in the wrong place? >_<) so this is why I wanted to ask if it’s still possible to run PocketMine servers in MineOS.

This person seemed to have done exactly what I was trying to do but SVN would not cooperate with me, so there’s a part of me that believes it should be possible. (Hope it’s ok to post links, sorry if not) https://rickvanderzwet.nl/trac/personal/wiki/FreeBSDPocketMine

As always, thanks for any input, help or direction and thanks for the great tool that is MineOS.

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I’ll try to write you an answer later, but am out of town until Wednesday evening.

I will have to research and bit to get my facts straight so I prefer to answer you from home when I have my laptop and Internet available, and not via smartphone like this answers

OK?

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I can confirm the following things:

  1. Pocketmine-980 still downloads. It appears this build still functions, though there is a good likelihood that none of your tablet clients will, since this server will be much older than the version your tablet is.
  2. Pocketmine-1266 doesn’t download at all. I’ll be looking soon into finding a better URL for these downloads or I might remove it entirely.

The Pocketmine-PHP downloads are hit-or-miss, and it largely depends on what distro you’ve installed. I’m seeing now that recent PHP downloadable builds (through profiles) require a more recent GLIBC library than what MineOS Turnkey is offering (if you’re using Debian Wheezy).

There’s probably even more messiness in play on a FreeNAS system, which I don’t use enough to support well (FreeNAS specifically, not FreeBSD which I test often).

At any rate, broken URLs, highly coupled PHP binaries with the PHAR files…Pocketmine–especially for being presumably defunct in development–I’d say is likely entirely dead.

That said, if we as a community can find good alternative and current projects to tackle tablet/mobile servers, I’ll always do my best to implement them into the webui. Pocket mine’s days are numbered in the webui as-is.

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4

Ok. Back home :slight_smile:

The current state of servers for Minecraft Pocket edition (MCPE) is that there exists no official ones from Mojang. The biggest problem with this is that more or less every single update from Mojang breaks the MCPE server connectivity. A second problem is that in the race to keep up with mojang quite a lot of functionality is still lacking. This includes a lot of redstone mechanics, AI for Mobs, crafting, and types of blocks. MCPE servers are for all intents and purposes creative only, even though you can play in survival (only drowning, falling, hunger, and lava will kill you though). So if the kids wanting a MCPE server expects all functionaily when connecting, they will be dissapointed :confused:

There are several iterations of PHP-based servers made by people in their spare time. The entire MCPE scene seems to be locked in some kind of constant quarrel, and since everyone is doing this on their spare time for fun, people drop in and out of projects. I’ll try to list the different servers I know of, and where to get their latest release. Bear in mind that the availability of downloads is best decribed as unreliable.

Available MCPE-server profiles in MineOS
(both PHP and Pocketmine links):
Should be removed. They are to old to be of any use to anybody, and causes more confusion than help. This means that if anybody wants to run a MCPE server, they need to add and configure server files and dependencies (PHP) to the MineOS server instance manually (First create “non standard server”, add all files manually, configure manually, then try to start)

PHP-binaries:
Latest available PHPbinaries are here: https://bintray.com/pocketmine/PocketMine/Unix-PHP-Binaries/view#files

PocketMine:
This is what we can call the original server. The first ones out. It seems that after the founder and (more or less) lead developer got employed by mojang to work on MCPE updates has become increasingly spotty and hard to get. People seem to think that pocketmine is dying slowly, but it keeps updating at an slow and irregular pace.
Github: https://github.com/PocketMine/PocketMine-MP/commits/master, with last commit the 20th of May.
Download: http://pocketmine-mp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/requirements.html#download-links, but the newest download there is 3 months old.

Imagicalmine:
Imagicalmine started as a fork of pockemine, and has since developed into a seperate entity.
They are more active, but has recently also gone thorugh a crew-fight that shook them up and took them down for a while.
Github: https://github.com/ImagicalCorp/ImagicalMine/commits/master, with latest commit the 28th of May
Download: Finding where to get their latest phar is a harder task, since there seems to be no Jenkins page working. It might be possible to find something searching their forums. It is also possible to download from github and compile the server manually.

DragonetMC / Dragonproxy
This is quite an interesting server to follow. This is more of a bungeecord style server that aims to work as a bridge between an MCPE client and an MCPC (Minecraft PC) server. They are very early in development yet, and it is way to buggy to use in production (the last version I tested did not allow breaking or placing blocks at all). The goal is to give a MCPE client access to everything in a full MCPC server, including blocks, redstone and AI.
Github: https://github.com/DragonetMC/DragonProxy/commits/master, with latest commit 1st of June.
Download: https://circleci.com/gh/DragonetMC/DragonProxy/tree/master
(Github account needed, and it must be linked to CircleCI to allow downloading, downloads are placed under “Artifacts”)

Genisys:
(this is the one I am currently using)
I think they where forked from Imagicalmine. Imagicalmine and Genisys are competing and quarreling. It seems to have calmed down now though.
Github: https://github.com/iTXTech/Genisys/commits/master with the latest commit 31st of May.
Download: https://jenkins.mcper.cn/job/Genisys-master/

ClearSky:
I haven’t tried this one, so I cannot say to much about them.
Github: https://github.com/ClearSkyTeam/ClearSky/commits/master, latest commit: 1st of June.
Download: http://jenkins.clearskyteam.org/

Note to @hexparrot
My recommendation is to remove pocketmine availability from profiles for the time being, untill either Mojang presents a solution themselves (unlikely, they will most likely push for everyone to buy their “Realms” solution instead), or there comes a more stable MCPE-solution available. There is simply to much uncertainity in what MCPE server works, and if it is available for download.

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Thank you very much for your recommendation; I just wrote a commit to remove it.

Thanks for also writing up this little section of each of the alternative options; I’ll look into them to see if there’s any profiles I can glean from these links.

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I want to thank you (@iMelsom) and @hexparrot for the very informative replies in this thread. I do not doubt that there will be others, overtime, that also learn a lot from the posts here. Thanks again!

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Take a look at Nukkit.

Written in Java. Active development.

( https://github.com/Nukkit/Nukkit )

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8

Just came across this wiki page: ( http://wiki.vg/Pocket_Edition_Program_List ).
Thought it might be an interesting cross reference for the state of Pocket Edition servers out there.

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