Getting player count from server for java+bedrock connection monitoring

[doctorray117]

As a minecraft player, I want to use this procedure with bedrock edition. Right now, bedrock communicates on a UDP port which makes the current netstat+grep+wc method of determining connected player count inadequate for bedrock users.

https://github.com/itzg/mc-monitor is a project that offers server querying for both bedrock and java edition servers, which will return server status as well as an online player count. While available as a standalone container, fargate is not set up in a way that we can fire off individual containers for the purpose of querying server status. Nor can we do Docker inside of Docker within this setup.

Potential options are:

1. include the mc-monitor code as a go get function within this container build, call it against the local server host, and parse the quantity of online players. Advantages is that it works out of the box for java and bedrock, disadvantage is that it will likely increase the container size to over 1gb.
2. Write a new curl and/or socat request to query the server and just pull the online player count.
3. Grep the logfile for connect/disconnect messages to determine player count.

Switching to this will allow the easy addition of bedrock servers.

[safetymonkey]

There are other monitoring tools that may be a bit easier to use than the itzg/mc-monitor. For example, mcstatus is a Python library that can be installed and executed pretty easily.

  $ mcstatus example.org status
  version: v1.8.8 (protocol 47)
  description: "A Minecraft Server"
  players: 1/20 ['Dinnerbone (61699b2e-d327-4a01-9f1e-0ea8c3f06bc6)']

Another approach would be using the mcsrvstat.us API, which you could hit with cURL:
$ curl -sb -H "Accept: application/json" "https://api.mcsrvstat.us/bedrock/2/example.org"
It returns a JSON object which I'm bad at parsing via grep, but it's easy enough to do it in a one-liner with Python.

$ curl -sb -H "Accept: application/json" "https://api.mcsrvstat.us/2/mc.snapcraft.net" | python -c 'import json,sys;obj=json.load(sys.stdin);print(obj["players"]["online"])'
339

NOTE: The API URL I used above was for a Java edition server because I was in a hurry. The Bedrock API format is https://api.mcsrvstat.us/bedrock/2/example.org. If you wanted to be extra clever, you could just check both API endpoints.

[doctorray117]

Those are much simpler solutions. I'll get to work incorporating the detection shortly, and I have Minecraft on a tablet here I can test with. Thanks for the legwork!

[safetymonkey]

Sure thing. I'm having difficulty getting mcstatus to work properly with Bedrock servers for some reason, so if it were me I'd do the mcsrvstat.us API approach. Here's a valid test example for Bedrock:

$ curl -sb -H "Accept: application/json" "https://api.mcsrvstat.us/bedrock/2/play.fallentech.io" | python -c 'import json,sys;obj=json.load(sys.stdin);print(obj["players"]["online"])'
99

[safetymonkey]

Also: Thanks for your work! This is such a cool concept. I'm hoping to borrow the approach to work on an on-demand Valheim server this weekend.

[doctorray117]

Sure thing.

Also, found this as a possible solution that can query both types of servers. Playing with it now.

[safetymonkey]

If you're looking at even more solutions, there's also Gamedig: https://github.com/gamedig/node-gamedig

…

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 4:38 PM Ray Gibson ***@***.***> wrote: Sure thing. Also, found this <https://github.com/PassTheMayo/minecraft-server-util> as a possible solution that can query both types of servers. Playing with it now. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#11 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABN4CFI6GUBUCVM75DS4CDUB2DQDANCNFSM5D3KSROQ> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>.

[doctorray117]

Bedrock supported now; player count extracted from raknet ping/pong through ncat. Detection of edition automatic in watchdog.