Minecraft In-Game Server Connection

Figured it out. The data is in the level.dat file. Assuming you're using Python, here's a code snippet that should get the current time (run "sudo pip install nbt" first):

import nbt
def get_time():
    n = nbt.NBTFile('%s/%s/level.dat' % (minecraft_dir, session_name))
    if n == None:
        return None
    else:
        return n[0]["Time"].value % 24000

For bonus points, you can change the modulo to a division sign and get how many days it has been since you started.

This is possible but you will need a small program listening on the game server's socket and if it receive any data it will then start the server. But the actual game server will need time to start, so the first login attempt on the client will fail as it will time out. When the server has start they will be able to login successfully. I don't know any existing program for that purpose but it wouldn't be that hard to develop.