Is there a way to get the latest server jar through a URL that doesn't change?

Question

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?

Mojang is shifting their infrastructure to allow multiple versions to be easily accessible in the new launcher, so it looks like their URL scheme is changing to support that while leaving the pre-1.6 URLs intact. You might have to parse an update-tracking URL now to find the latest stable release URL. (All just educated guessing until I can get back to my install and look at what the new launcher is doing to pull client updates and see if that translates to server jar URLs.) — SevenSidedDie, Jul 08 '13 at 18:30
Thanks for the info! I've been doing some poking around on my own, but nothing to show for it yet. I'll let you know if I find anything out. — Seriouslysean, Jul 08 '13 at 22:22

Richard Benson · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-30T14:43:56.037

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

GET https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json
GET versions[0].url
GET downloads.server.url

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.

This is exactly the sort of thing I expected to exist. Good job! — SevenSidedDie, Jul 10 '13 at 18:58
AccessDeniedAccess DeniedBDFFB0CBC19A9EFDhTsBwKk0fJ+SFOQ6nqEVBqIMhOSQxttXnxfOOXnWtAPnbT9pgpgDWNHTVQeSt+3xIqG6MeWbl0g= https://s3.amazonaws.com/Minecraft.Download/versions/1.13.1/minecraft_server.1.13.1.jar — Aaron Franke, Aug 29 '18 at 17:04
@AaronFranke looks like it's recently changed and is somewhat more involved. I'll try and amend the answer. — Richard Benson, Aug 30 '18 at 14:34
Here is a Python gist which implements this https://gist.github.com/kalenpw/49097da879bf21f736868105a5c8c23b — kalenpw, Aug 12 '22 at 04:32

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 25 '16 at 01:33

3

You can use jsawk to pull the latest jar version number from the Minecraft version JSON:

#!/bin/bash
VER=`curl -s https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json | jsawk -n 'out(this.latest.release)'`
wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/Minecraft.Download/versions/$VER/minecraft_server.$VER.jar

Requires:

edited Feb 25 '16 at 01:33

Grammargeek

109
2

answered Jul 11 '13 at 03:37

Jason Cox

31
1

1

What's SpiderMonkey required for? – SevenSidedDie Jul 11 '13 at 03:42
1

jsawk uses SpiderMonkey (js interpreter) - here's more info: https://github.com/micha/jsawk – Jason Cox Jul 11 '13 at 03:52
jsawk looks cool, where can i get this for windows ? – Radon8472 Apr 07 '17 at 08:51

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 04 '13 at 23:18

I'll even throw my hat into the ring! Very similar to up above, with a few extras.

#!/bin/bash

tmpfile=/tmp/minecrafttempfile.tmp
downloadurl="https://minecraft.net/download"
serverurl=""
loc=$([[ -n $1 ]] && echo $1 || echo "/tmp/minecraft_server.jar")

if [[ -a $loc ]]; then
        echo "$loc exists -- moving to ${loc}.old"
        mv $loc ${loc}.old
fi

echo "Grabbing minecraft download page..."

curl $downloadurl > $tmpfile

echo "Getting download URL for minecraft server..."

serverurl=`egrep -io 'https.*versions\/(.*)\/minecraft_server.\1.jar' $tmpfile`

echo "URL = "$serverurl

echo "Downloading server jar..."

wget -q -O $loc $serverurl

https://github.com/cptskyhawk/LinuxMinecraftTools

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 25 '20 at 19:11

2

Here is a simple, lightweight way to get it in two lines of python:

from requests import get
open("minecraft_server.jar", "wb").write(get(get(get("https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json").json()["versions"][0]["url"]).json()["downloads"]["server"]["url"]).content)

Gets the newest version from mojang manifest
Gets the version data from that request
Gets the server download url from that request
Writes to file called "minecraft_server.jar"

answered Oct 25 '20 at 19:11

Foster

21
1

requests is preinstalled with Python 3 so there are no packages you have to download. Just paste into a python file (___.py) and run it. – Foster Oct 25 '20 at 19:14

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 09 '13 at 22:58

I have a server setup which updates every night with a webget.exe command earlier on. The change got me to make a program that scrapes the download page after a *server.exe and downloads it as minecraft_server.exe.

I have modified it to take in a param "jar" so it gets *server.jar instead and downloads it as minecraft_server.jar.

The zipped exe is here: http://halsvik.net/downloads/GetLatestMinecraftServer.zip

If you download the program, run it without any params: GetLatestMinecraftServer.exe

If you want the jar server file instead use: GetLatestMinecraftServer.exe jar

Source code is this:

 static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        try
        {
            var ext = ".exe";
            if (args.Length > 0)
            {
                ext = "." + args[0];
            }

            var wc = new System.Net.WebClient();
            var url = "http://minecraft.net/download";
            var data = wc.DownloadData(url);
            var page = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data);
            var links = Misc.GetStringsBetween(page, "<a href=\"", "\""); //Custom method to get matches

            bool match = false;
            foreach (var item in links)
            {
                if (item.ToLower().Contains("server") && item.ToLower().Contains(ext))
                {
                    var filename = "minecraft_server" +ext;
                    var fn = Path.GetFullPath(filename);
                    while (File.Exists(filename + ".old")) File.Delete(filename + ".old");
                    if (File.Exists(fn)) File.Move(fn, fn + ".old");

                    try
                    {
                        var comp = false;
                        wc.DownloadProgressChanged += (o, e) =>
                        {
                            Console.Write("#"); //Indicate something is downloading
                        };
                        wc.DownloadFileCompleted += (o, e) =>
                        {
                            comp = true;
                        };
                        wc.DownloadFileAsync(new Uri(item), filename);

                        //Wait for download to complete
                        while (!comp)
                        {
                            Console.Write("."); //Indicate time is going
                            Thread.Sleep(1000);
                        }

                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Download of " + item + " failed. " +ex.Message);
                        return;
                    }
                    Console.WriteLine("Download OK");
                    match = true;
                    break;
                }
            }

            if (!match)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Could not find minecraft server on http://minecraft.net/download");
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Something failed. " + ex.ToString());

        }
    }

Unfortunately I'm running my server on a Linux box, but I've decided to approach it with a similar solution. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this up! — Seriouslysean, Jul 10 '13 at 02:25

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 25 '16 at 01:33

1

here's my horrible sed version.

less correct than Jason's version, above. but fewer dependencies.

#!/bin/bash

wget -qN  https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json
MCVER=`sed -n -e '/\"latest\"/,/}/ s/.*\"snapshot\": \"\([^\"]*\)\".*/\1/p' < version_manifest.json`

wget -N https://s3.amazonaws.com/Minecraft.Download/versions/$MCVER/minecraft_server.$MCVER.jar

edited Feb 25 '16 at 01:33

Grammargeek

109
2

answered Aug 20 '13 at 04:40

Spongman

111
1

This is the type of script I ended up writing! Thanks for taking the time to add this to my question, it's really useful. – Seriouslysean Aug 20 '13 at 12:02

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 25 '17 at 04:16

For those looking at this, I've also found a way using grep instead of sed to pull out the version using the following:

grep -oP "\"release\":\"\K\d{1,2}\.\d{1,2}\.\d{1,2}" version_manifest.json

The file is pulled from the examples above.

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

Personally I found the using the above grep command a tad bit cleaner.

jones77 · Answer 8 · 2020-01-18T20:16:32.747

The following bash script uses jq & curl to:

download the manifest versions file
extract the url of the latest manifest
download the latest manifest
extract the url of the server jar
download the server.jar to minecraft_server.$version.jar
symbolically link server.jar to minecraft_server.$version.jar

Use it in combination with a minecraft start script that uses the server.jar symbolic link.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
set -o errexit

declare -r version_manifest_url="\
https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json"
declare -r tmp="/tmp/version_manifest.json"

# Find download URL of latest release.
latest_version=$(curl -Ss -o "$tmp" "$version_manifest_url" \
    && jq .latest.release -r "$tmp")
latest_manifest_url=$(cat "$tmp" | jq -r ".versions[] \
    | select(contains({type: \"release\", id: \"$latest_version\"})) \
    | .url")

# Only download latest version if target filename does not exist.
declare -r manifest="/tmp/manifest.$latest_version.json"
curl -Ss -o "$manifest" "$latest_manifest_url"

declare -r jar_url=$(jq -r ".downloads.server.url" "$manifest")

echo "latest version: $latest_version"
echo "manifest url: $latest_manifest_url"
echo "download url: $jar_url"

declare -r jar="minecraft_server.$latest_version.jar"
curl -Ss -o "$jar" "$jar_url"

# Symbolically server.jar link to the latest version.
declare -r symlink="server.jar"
rm -f "$symlink"
ln -s "$jar" "$symlink"

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 03 '20 at 10:15

My 50ct to this old thread. My objective:

avoid dependancies
keep it simple

My 3 lines to download the latest snapshot:

#!/bin/bash
MC_VERSION_URLS=$(curl -s https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json | python -c 'import json,sys,base64;obj=json.load(sys.stdin); print obj["versions"][0]["url"]') 

MC_LATEST_SNAPSHOT=$(curl -s $MC_VERSION_URLS | python -c 'import json,sys,base64;obj=json.load(sys.stdin); print obj["downloads"]["server"]["url"]')                         

wget $MC_LATEST_SNAPSHOT

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 24 '19 at 18:39

This is my stab at it.

#!/bin/bash

#Clean up old files

rm /minecraft/temp/*

# Get the version_manifest file from Mojang

wget -P /minecraft/temp https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json

#Parse the version and version.json files into variables

URL=$(jq -r '.versions[0].url' /minecraft/temp/version_manifest.json)
VER=$(jq -r '.versions[0].id' /minecraft/temp/version_manifest.json)

#Get the version specific json file to parse

wget -P /minecraft/temp "$URL"

#Add .json on the end of the version to use to parse the json file

VER2="$VER.json"

#Parse the version.json file to get server download url

SERVERURL=$(jq -r '.downloads.server.url' /minecraft/temp/$VER2)

#Download the server.jar file

wget -P /minecraft/temp $SERVERURL

#Backup the old minecraft_server.jar file

mv /minecraft/minecraft_server.jar /minecraft/minecraft_server.jar.old

#Move the downloaded server file to the minecraft_server.jar file in minecraft directory

mv /minecraft/temp/server.jar /minecraft/minecraft_server.jar

echo "Minecraft Upgraded to version $VER"

score 0 · Answer 11 · edited Mar 27 '20 at 18:34

0

This works for bedrock, modify for Java Ed:

url=$(curl https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/server/bedrock/ | grep "linux/bedrock-server-" | egrep -o 'https?://[^" ]+')

echo $url

It will output the url to the latest version.

edited Mar 27 '20 at 18:34

arghtype

13,915
15
64
107

answered Mar 27 '20 at 17:23

Michael Reilly

1

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 24 '22 at 14:45

Based off of the link in Richard Benson's answer, I wrote a bash oneliner that will parse the json and download the latest server.jar file.

Requires: jq & curl

echo 'curl -o server.jar $(jq -r ".downloads.server.url" <<< $(curl -s $(curl -s https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json | jq -r ".versions[1].url")))' | bash

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 23 '22 at 04:03

It's definitely ugly, but the following is vanilla node code, all standard library.

const http = require("https");
const version_manifest_url =
  "https://launchermeta.mojang.com/mc/game/version_manifest.json";
http
  .get(version_manifest_url, (outer_response) => {
    let outer_body = "";
    outer_response.on("data", (chunk) => {
      outer_body += chunk;
    });
    outer_response.on("end", () => {
      try {
        let json = JSON.parse(outer_body);
        const target_version_manifest_url = json.versions[0].url;
        http
          .get(target_version_manifest_url, (inner_response) => {
            let inner_body = "";
            inner_response.on("data", (chunk) => {
              inner_body += chunk;
            });
        inner_response.on(&quot;end&quot;, () =&gt; {
          try {
            let json = JSON.parse(inner_body);
            console.log(json.downloads.server.url);
          } catch (error) {
            console.error(error.message);
          }
        });
      })
      .on(&quot;error&quot;, (error) =&gt; {
        console.error(error.message);
      });
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(error.message);
  }
});

})
  .on("error", (error) => {
    console.error(error.message);
  });

score -1 · Answer 14 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 08:59

Took the brilliant answer from Richard Benson and ran wild. https://github.com/sc-perth/BashScripts/blob/master/minecraft_updater.sh Tested working on my DigitalOcean Ubuntu 16.04 instance. Thanks Richard!

Script will, by default, check to see if you are running the latest version, and let you know. It will also download it if you specify the -d|--download argument. It will also install the update, if you modify the script to fit your environment & enable this feature. It will also do the same thing for any version you specify, after validating the version. Does not work for snapshots, only for releases.

DEPENDENCIES:

jq, wget These might need installed, the rest you probably have.

bash, (e)grep, basename, dirname, chown, chmod, tar w/ gzip, find, printf

Is there a way to get the latest server jar through a URL that doesn't change?

14 Answers14

Full Instructions

Summary

Outdated instructions - for posterity only