How To Setup a Server on Truenas Scale (Forge & Vanilla)

I assume if you’ve made it this far, you’ve struggled for far too long already so this will be a fully comprehensive guide to setting up a makeshift Minecraft server using MineOS on TrueNas Scale.

Alright, so I spent the last 3 days toiling away and trying to figure out what needed to be done to set up a Forge server and I am by no means an expert on anything I am about to say so if anyone more experienced knows about some security risk I am exposed to, or finds any issues with anything I’ve done to setup my server, please do so. Most of the documents I found were not helpful but I will link the helpful threads for guidance in this document.

TrueNas Scale: Electric Eel
I have an admin account setup so make sure that you know your admin account Username and Password

Tools for Forge:

I downloaded the mineOS version from the TrueNas Scale App Store - sort of thing, make sure to create a data system for it in your apps data folder and assign it when it is created, you then want to configure its installation by assigning it to be installed in that directory instead of the ixsystems folders so that we can modify its permissions later. Make sure that port 25565 is exposed as well so that it’s recognized on LAN. Make sure to write down the username and password you used to setup the webGUI. Start up the mineOS app, it should turn on. Once that is on go to the little docker container in which it’s being run and open the shell. Once inside run the command, (can copy and paste using ctrl+ins, and shift+ins) This will need to be done every time the app is reset.

apt update

then

for before 1.18.x:
apt install openjdk-8-jdk

for before 1.20.x:
apt install openjdk-17-jdk

for any newer server:
apt install openjdk-21-jdk

This is the Java version that is needed to run most servers but get the version that is needed for your server. You can usually just search it up.

run

java -version

to check what version you have installed

If you are changing versions of the server that is being run or have multiple Java installations refer to this thread on how to install it for scale and switch between versions.

install java for scale

Once the correct version of Java is installed and set, you should be able to start a vanilla and forge server with no issues. You should be able to create one with defaults, or change settings at your discretion. If you want your friends to join you remotely, you can port forward which is router-dependent, so please search that up for your router model.

If you wanted a Forge Modded Server I would first install the server file for the modpack, unzip it, run the install .bat file. Afterwards, create a forge server using the profile of the forge version needed in MineOS. Start the server and make sure it launches properly.

This is where you’re going to need to setup ssh on TrueNas Scale. I went ahead and opened up ssh using this article from TrueNAS

https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/scaletutorials/systemsettings/services/sshservicescale/

Once you have it all successfully opened you need to change the permissions for the data system that has the MineOS app installed you want to go into the ACL settings, change owner to apps and add a user to the ACL that has all permissions, you want to assign your root user (TrueNas login username) to that object, if it tells you that you need a mask add that too before you apply recursively and save. Once “apps” owns all of the files and the root user has access to everything, you should be able to connect to it using Filezilla.

Open up Filezilla and type in the IP of your TrueNas server, your TrueNas username and password, and port 22 and you should be able to connect to your server and see your user’s root file, back out to root and find the mnt folder and navigate to the folder that contains your installation of MineOS. Locate the “servers” folder and locate the name of your forge server. Copy and paste the contents of the unzipped server that you had earlier into the forge server that you just made. If you have an error saying you don’t have permissions, go back to your TrueNas server, give the root user full permissions, and apply recursively to the main pool (can be modified later).

Once you can copy and paste it into MineOS all you need to do is go to the WebUI and change the profile to the set forge profile, select the .jar file for forge, give it more RAM if you can, and start it. If there are issues with world generation, delete the world and try starting the server again. The server will take a while to boot depending on modpack and server resources.

That’s it, I’ll be adding pictures to this guide when I get home, hope you can get your Minecraft server up and good luck!