Can Malmo Platform be used under non X window server?

[WXFMAV]

In order to accelerate the trainning process, we want to run the Malmo platform in a Server computer,
which has no X window client.
I have tried in ubuntu terminal(Ctrl+Alt+F1).
but the client cannot be launched.
We want to know if we can run Malmo in a server without any X window?
thanks

[DaveyBiggers]

Hi, we've had some success running Minecraft headless on a Linux cluster using a virtual display. You need an x-server, and Minecraft will need open-gl installed. I can try to dig out the steps we used here, though I suspect it varies quite a bit from cluster to cluster.

[okdshin]

@DaveyBiggers
I want to know how to run Minecraft on remote machines without screens. I have tried but failed.
Please describe the steps or any hints.

[WXFMAV]

@DaveyBiggers It seemed that there are no gui Minecraft versions On the internet. I wonder if the minecraft included in Malmo platform can be set to run in no gui mode?

[DaveyBiggers]

@WXFMAV I believe you are thinking of the nogui flag for running a dedicated Minecraft server. This is no good to us, as we require a running client - there is no nogui flag for the client (it wouldn't make sense to anyone other than researchers, since a game that you can't see is unlikely to be a big seller...)

However, as stated above, it is possible to run the client using a virtual display. If you give us some details of your environment we might be able to provide some pointers.

[katja-hofmann]

Hi @WXFMAV and @okdshin,

if you work on Linux, these steps may help:

• Install xinit (a tool for manually running an X display server)
• Start xinit (e.g., in a separate shell, or detach the process: nohup xinit & disown)
• Export the display variable and start the Minecraft client: DISPLAY=:0.0 launchClient.sh

Let us know if these help. If you are working on other platforms some changes may be required (we tested these on Ubuntu only).

[WXFMAV]

@DaveyBiggers My server is CentOS instead of Ubuntu, my system version is:
CentOS Linux release 7.2.1511 (Core)
3.10.0-327.el7.x86_64
command runlevel returns N 3 indicating that there is no x-server.
And I wonder if a linux system running inlevel 3 can be installed with xinit?

[okdshin]

@katja-hofmann Thanks! I can run Minecraft on ubuntu server without any display by following your steps.
@DaveyBiggers Just for your information, on my ubuntu server, runlevel indicates N 2 now and I had to install gdm.

[katja-hofmann]

Hi @okdshin - thanks for confirming that this solution works for you.

@WXFMAV - runlevel 3 should be fine. Were you able to install xinit and run it? If not what error message do you get?

[diazf]

here's what i've done, usually within a separate screen window,

1. make sure /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config is set to "allowed_users=anybody"
2. nohup xinit -- :<FREE_DISPLAY_NUMBER> &
3. DISPLAY=:<FREE_DISPLAY_NUMBER>.0 ./launchClient.sh