Host a Craftbukkit Minecraft server
Craftbukkit is a third party minecraft mod that allows you to use minecraft addons. The mod is available on Bukkit.org and works as a JAR file that runs the Minecraft JAR server.
After downloading the latest version of Craftbukkit, rename the downloaded file to craftbukkit.jar. You can download the development build or the recommended build. The recommended builds are more stable; however, these are often older versions of Minecraft that users with updated clients cannot connect to. Unless the recommended build is also updated for the latest version of Minecraft, you’ll want to run the development build.
Copy the craftbukkit.jar file to the same directory that contains your minecraft_server.jar. This article assumes you already have a Minecraft server running; if not, check out my article on setting up your own minecraft server.
Start your Minecraft server as you normally would, but replace minecraft_server.jar with craftbukkit.jar. You may want to increase the amount of RAM allocated to your server, as Craftbukkit will require more memory, especially with plugins. Craftbukkit will initialize and create a configuration file called bukkit.yml. You don’t need to change anything in this file and the setup is pretty basic.
The next thing with Bukkit is choosing and installing plugins. Plugins are available on the Bukkit.org site at plugins.bukkit.org. Here you can list plugins by category and even search for plugins based on keywords. Plugins that have not been updated recently may not work with the latest version of Craftbukkit/Minecraft. On a plugin page, you can download the plugin, find information and documentation, and interact with other users.
Downloading and installing a plugin is a fairly simple process. If you get a JAR file, just put that file in the “plugins” folder automatically generated by Craftbukkit. You will need to restart the server for this change to take effect. The plugin will also generate a folder with the same name as the JAR file that contains the configuration files and other assets needed to use the plugin.
If your download is a zip or rar file, you must unzip/unzip this file using a program that can handle these extensions. Move these files to your plugins folder and make sure the JAR file is in the root of the plugins folder. Restart your server and the new plugin will be activated.
If you’re having trouble figuring out how to use the plugin you downloaded, the download page will have a link to the author’s resources where you can learn how to use their plugins to the fullest.