How to Make a Minecraft Skyblock Server

Map or plugin: which suits you

A Skyblock map is a ready-made world with a single island. You upload it like any other world and it even works on the official server, but everyone shares the same island: it's fine for two or three friends playing together.

A Skyblock plugin creates a new island for every player who asks for one, separate from each other, with their own permissions (who can build on your island), teams, levels and challenges. It's what you need if more people are going to join or if everyone wants their own. The most used among the free ones, and open source, is BentoBox with its BSkyBlock game mode.

With a map (the quick way)

1. Download the map

   Pick one from a well-known map site and check which Minecraft version it was made for: if it's older than the server's, it gets upgraded when it opens; if it's newer, it won't load.

2. Get it onto the server

   On NapNodes, in “Mods & plugins”, the “Bring my server” tab: paste the download link of the map's .zip (or the Dropbox or Google Drive link if you uploaded it yourself) and the server downloads it and sets it as the world; the previous one is moved aside, not deleted. The detailed steps are in the guide to moving your world to a server.

3. Start it and play

   When you join you'll spawn on the map's island. If it comes with rules (don't leave the island, challenges on a sign), it's up to you to follow them: the map doesn't enforce them.

With BentoBox and BSkyBlock (an island each)

BentoBox is the base and BSkyBlock is the Skyblock mode that sits on top of it; the same base has other modes, such as AOneBlock (the famous “one block”), AcidIsland or CaveBlock. They work on Paper (not on the official server or on Fabric or Forge), and each BentoBox release says on its page which Minecraft versions it supports: check first, because it sometimes takes a few weeks to support the latest one.

The most confusing part: BentoBox goes in the plugins folder, but BSkyBlock and the other extensions (addons) go in plugins/BentoBox/addons. If you put BSkyBlock in plugins, it won't load.

1. Install BentoBox

   On NapNodes servers come with Paper. In the panel, “Mods & plugins”: search for BentoBox, press “Install” and restart. If it doesn't appear for your version, download the .jar from its official page and upload it to the plugins folder from “Files”. When it starts, it creates the plugins/BentoBox folder.

2. Add BSkyBlock

   Download the BSkyBlock .jar from the official BentoBox website (or its Hangar page) and upload it to plugins/BentoBox/addons from “Files”. If you want more, Level (each island's level and a leaderboard) and Challenges (challenges to unlock as you go) go in the same folder.

3. Restart

   When it starts, BSkyBlock creates its own worlds (the Skyblock one plus its Nether and End). Check the console: if BentoBox isn't for your Minecraft version or something is missing, it says so there.

4. Create your island

   Join and type /island. The first time it lets you choose the island type and takes you there; after that, it takes you back to your island.

The commands you'll use

Players use /island (or /is): /island go to go back to their island, /island team invite Name to play as a team on the same island, /island settings to decide what visitors can do and /island reset to start from scratch (with a limited number of resets). With Challenges, /island challenges opens the challenges.

The admin uses /bsbadmin: for example, /bsbadmin tp Name to go to someone's island. Since they change between versions, /island help and /bsbadmin help always show the ones for yours.

Settings worth checking

BSkyBlock's configuration is in plugins/BentoBox/addons/BSkyBlock/config.yml: among other things, that's where you choose the distance between islands, the protected size of each one, how many players fit in a team and how many times you can reset. Edit it from “Files” and restart.

Decide where first-time players spawn: a small spawn in the normal world with a sign saying “type /island” works well and stops anyone falling into the void the moment they join.

Before installing or updating, make a backup from “Backups”: if something goes wrong, it's restored in a minute.

How much RAM a Skyblock server needs

Not much, because almost the whole map is void and there's no terrain to generate. For a group of friends with BentoBox, BSkyBlock and a couple of extensions, 3 GB is plenty. What pushes it up over time are the automatic farms players build (mob farms above all) and having lots of islands loaded at once; for a community of 15 or 20 people, 4 GB is a reasonable starting point. The RAM calculator fine-tunes it by players and plugins.

On NapNodes you can try it with the free Minecraft server, which is a normal Paper server with “Mods & plugins”, and if you get hooked, move to a plan with the same world so it's always on and has backups.

Frequently asked questions