Minecraft – way to get the latest server jar through a URL that doesn’t change

linuxminecraft-java-editionminecraft-java-edition-server

I'm writing a bash script to manage a vanilla server install on my eeePC. Right now I've been using http://s3.amazonaws.com/MinecraftDownload/launcher/minecraft_server.jar to get the minecraft_server jar. It seems to only be getting the 1.5.2 server version instead of the 1.6.2 server version.

Any ideas as to how I can grab the latest stable version through a similar url?

Best Answer

Full Instructions

I recently decompiled the launcher for this very reason, to manage automatic updates for my server wrapper with their new naming convention.

I found the file they use to work out what the current version is and the URL to it:

https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json

This file includes the following (as of this answer):

"latest": {
    "snapshot": "1.9-pre3",
    "release": "1.8.9"
},
"versions": [
    {
        "id": "1.13.1",
        "type": "release",
        "url": "https://launchermeta.mojang.com/v1/packages/c0f1e6239a16681ffbfa68fc469038643304d5a9/1.13.1.json",
        "time": "2018-08-30T09:49:34+00:00",
        "releaseTime": "2018-08-22T14:03:42+00:00"
    },
    ...
]

That file also has a "versions" array. Loop through this to find the version you are looking for in the id field. It is also usually the first entry in this array, so you could address it versions[0]. Grab the url value and fetch that file which contains the following useful key:

"downloads": {
    "client": {
        "sha1": "8de235e5ec3a7fce168056ea395d21cbdec18d7c",
        "size": 16088559,
        "url": "https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/8de235e5ec3a7fce168056ea395d21cbdec18d7c/client.jar"
    },
    "server": {
        "sha1": "fe123682e9cb30031eae351764f653500b7396c9",
        "size": 33832589,
        "url": "https://launcher.mojang.com/v1/objects/fe123682e9cb30031eae351764f653500b7396c9/server.jar"
    }
},

Therefore, the URL you need is contained in downloads.server.url.

Summary

Outdated instructions - for posterity only

Which you can then use to extrapolate the latest version for release and snapshots using this scheme:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/Minecraft.Download/versions/" + Ver + "/minecraft_server." + Ver + ".jar

Using this method you don't need to download the jar/exe file every time, just the json file and then if it's changed, you can grab the appropriate jar.

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