Start to finish, this takes about 15–20 minutes of actual waiting (mostly Docker pulling images) and maybe 10 minutes of clicking. Do the steps in order the first time through.
You need an Ubuntu Server (22.04 or 24.04 LTS) with sudo access, and its IP address or hostname on your local network. Full details, including hardware guidance, are on the prerequisites page — worth a skim if this is your first time setting up a Linux server.
SSH into your Ubuntu Server and run:
By default this sets up all three dashboards — Installer, Mod Manager, and Server Manager — sharing one access token, so there's nothing else to install before you're looking at a working setup. (Answer "advanced" at the prompt instead if you'd rather add Mod Manager/Server Manager later yourself — see step 5 below.) At the end it prints a link with an access token baked in — something like:
Open that link in a browser on the same network.
Lost it later anyway? SSH back in and run this — it reprints the full, clickable links for all three dashboards using the server's current IP (which can change after a reboot) combined with the saved token (which doesn't):
One token unlocks all three dashboards. If you don't have terminal access either, every sign-in page accepts your regular Linux username/password as a fallback.
Inside the Installer dashboard, run each step in order — each one is re-runnable if it fails partway:
Once Crafty is up, open it (port 8443), click through the self-signed certificate warning (expected — it's your own server), and create your first Minecraft server from Crafty's own "Create a server" wizard.
Pick a version and server type (Vanilla, Paper, Fabric, Forge, etc.), give it a name, and hit Create. Crafty downloads the server jar and sets everything up. Start it once to generate the world and the config files (server.properties, whitelist.json, and so on) that Anvil Mod Manager and Anvil Server Manager will both read.
If you went with the default install, these are already running (ports 5151 and 6161) — same token as the Installer, nothing further to do. Open Mod Manager, and it opens straight to a "Connect Crafty Controller" screen with step-by-step instructions for generating an API token from your Crafty user profile (or click "Try Preview Mode" to explore with a demo server first, no token needed). Once connected, head to Server Setup and pick your server by name — its version/loader are auto-detected. Server Manager picks up the same Crafty connection automatically, so you only enter it once.
Went with advanced mode instead? Install either one any time from the Installer dashboard's own wizard — their code is already sitting in the same AnvilMC folder you cloned, so that step just sets up the service, no separate download.
In Anvil Server Manager's Backups tab: pick a local path (an external/second disk is ideal) or an S3-compatible/Backblaze B2 bucket, set a repository password, and click "Initialize repository." Add /opt/crafty/servers as a source path, turn on scheduling, and click "Run backup now" once to confirm it works end to end.
While you're there, add a Discord webhook in Notifications so you hear about backup failures instead of finding out the hard way.
From here it's all optional extras: the RCON console for quick commands without opening Crafty, the Players tab for whitelist/ops/bans, and the Logs tab if a server ever crashes and you want a plain-English guess at why. Check the FAQ if anything comes up.
