Now that you have created your brand new LOTR modded server, you'll need to administrate it. The purpose of this page is to help you with the common tasks.
Basic server operations[]
Starting at machine boot, stopping at machine shutdown.
Starting/stopping manually.
Reloading the server configuration.
Monitoring the server availability[]
Verifying that the server is alive (not crashed) and well (not frozen). When possible, from the outside of the server.
Verifying that the server TPS is good.
Restarting automatically after an issue.
Backups and restores[]
Player's data, world files.
Using incremental backups.
Excluding out of bounds region files.
User management[]
Creation (in case of whitelisted servers)/deletion/change.
Rules and their enforcement[]
Muting, kicking out, banning (temp or permanent)...
Setting a ban appeal page.
Dealing with cheaters and griefers.
Software updates[]
LOTR mod, Forge, Bukkit-related software, other mods, plugins.
Map updates[]
Updates of the LOTR mod sometimes bring modifications in the Middle Earth map or in the terrain generation algorithms.
Glitches or corrupted chunks sometimes happen.
Check the Regenerating Chunks wiki page for procedures to deal with this cases.
Dealing with griefers[]
| Method | Description | How To Prevent |
|---|---|---|
| Destruction | Self-explanatory. Most griefers' goals are to destroy as much land, buildings and creations as they can in order to make the server as destroyed and unusable as possible.
Another approach is to pack every open space in a house with TNT or Orc bombs and light it. When it comes to destroying houses, this method may also be accompanied by thievery, where the griefer opens the player's chests to take as much of that player's most valuable stuff, and keep them for themselves or dispose of them with fire, cacti, or lava. |
Encourage players to use banners atop bronze, silver, and gold blocks, to protect what they've built.
Restricting the use of Orc bombs and termites can also help. Server rollback plugins are also available for Forge-modded servers. |
| Creation | Nearly as frequently as simple destruction of servers, griefers also often attempt to create nude or offensive pixel art. Also, cages around players that are AFK are built, often of materials unable to mine with tools obtained early on, like obsidian. Sometimes players even surround other players' structures with obsidian, bedrock (if in Creative mode), and sand or gravel (the latter two are annoying due to their falling properties). | A variety of plugins are available to help with this. Sand and gravel can be removed quite quickly using the torch trick (breaking the lowest block and placing a torch under it).
Encouraging players to banner-protect important areas is also helpful. |
| Chat Spamming | Chat spam is simply typing large amounts of messages in chat and sending them, often randomly. The result of this can be server lag, which thus makes chat spam more of an annoyance rather than vandalism. | Stopping chat spam is relatively easy with spam protection plugins, of which there are a variety available. |
| Spawn Killing | On servers with PvP enabled, some players will take advantage of this to kill legitimate players as they spawn (because the spawn point/area is predictable). | The most effective way at preventing this is to disable PvP in the spawn area. |
| Tree Creation | For a long time, block logging plugins did not have the ability to roll back the growth of trees. Because of this, many griefers will place saplings and use bonemeal (if available) to grow full trees in the locations where houses once stood, preventing rollbacks from easily undoing their damage. They could also place lots of TNT on the tree and firebomb it (if it has enough leaves) to create devastating explosions. | Forge server plugins are available that can easily remove trees. |
| Fire Destruction | Many builders use a lot of flammable materials, and if the server has fire spread enabled, a griefer armed with a flint and steel, sulfur matches, or even more destructively, orc firebombs can destroy a lot, very quickly, including setting themselves on fire. | Disable fire spread with world protection plugins, and restrict the use of Orc firebombs. |
| Social Engineering | Social Engineering is any technique used as an attempt to gain the trust of people by acting as a normal player or creating a situation where the legitimate players need to trust them. A common trick that griefers use is pretending to be from popular Minecraft websites, or popular Minecraft teams/clans and asking for OP status in order to "review" the server. This is not a typical form of destruction griefing, however this is a strategy employed by many griefers to gain trust and cause rage, or it may be done to get OP status, and cause great destruction. | Be very careful who gets administrator tools, make sure that you know them well enough to trust them with power. |
| Trolling | Trolls like to annoy people, rather than grief. There are several ways to troll, such as killing a person and then watching while you throw their strongest sword into lava, spamming, and promising to give them stuff, giving them the stuff, then killing them the moment they go out of a safe zone. | Most of these cannot be blocked, though they are usually easy to notice. A troll always wants you to see what he or she has done so he or she could annoy you more. A good temp ban will solve things. But a lot of Trollers will stop after a firm warning, for example "stop trolling or I will ban you" normally is as effective as a ban. Most times, you only need to ban the person for a day. |
| Combat Logging | Combat logging is mostly a problem on PvP servers. Combat logging is when you're in combat with someone and they log off while you're fighting them. It does not inflict harm, but like trolling, just annoys people and causes frustration. Sometimes PvP logging is the sign of a desperate player trying to stay alive or a connection error, though. | Some plugins can "tag" people when they get hit whilst in combat, which will create a penalty if they log out. |
| Illusion Grief | A socialized form of griefing where multiple people grief and then blame it on one of their alternative accounts so they can escape a ban most of the times. This screen of deception can get alternate accounts or even innocent people who tricked in banned while letting the real griefers continue their rampage. This form of griefing is becoming more popular with the rise of 'cracked' servers and the ability to create many alternate accounts. | To prevent this, watch very closely if the stories of the suspected griefer and the blamer match. If they do, it's most likely you're dealing with an illusion grief attempt. Some Bukkit logging/rollback plugins (such as Core Protect inspector) can tell you who actually did it, and you will be able to treat them as you please. |
| Name changing | Some griefers use a different account if they are banned to join the server again. This can be a nuisance because they get to return to the server and troll again, and makes bans ineffectual. | Make sure online-mode is set to true in server.properties, so users can only connect using a purchased Minecraft account name. If they are using the same IP address, then it is easy to ban them with the ban-ip command.
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| Join bots | Join bots are used to join tens or hundreds of accounts ("bots") to a server at once, usually to lag or spam the server. There are multiple methods they can use, such as connecting and disconnecting rapidly, chat spamming, drop spamming (In Creative mode), and slot filling. They are often hard to ban due to the fact that they use many accounts and proxies. Proxies make every connection that the spammer makes to the server appear to come from a different PC, thus preventing IP bans. | Most Join bots can be combated with a good antispam plugin but can cause console floods still (Join flood). |
| Hacked trolling | This type of griefing is one of the hardest types to do and is the rarest. What happens basically is someone hacks the server and bans the owners, co-owners, op's, and anyone who can edit (so the people who can ban others can't get back on) then de-op everyone else and the hacker makes himself the "new owner". Then the hacker will troll normal players who join, or he will destroy the rest of the server. | The only way to stop this is restore from a backup and then ban the hacker's IP address with the ban-ip command.
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There are other forms of griefing, however they are simply variations on the ones listed above. Essentially, if moderators are attentive and the server is equipped with the necessary plugins, a server can be very secure from griefing and disguising.