^TUTORIAL
How to Install and Set Up Dynmap for Your Minecraft Server

Oh no! Did you go too far, and now you can't find your way back home!? What if you had a live interactive map that showed your entire world and tracked player locations in real time?! That's exactly what Dynmap does! It creates a Google Map kind of view of your server that you can access from your browser.

In this guide, we will walk you through its installation and setup so you may never lose your way back home again. Alright, let's get started and turn your Minecraft world into an epic live map!

Installing Dynmap

Before starting with the process, we recommend you install the Dynmap plugin/mod from its Modrinth marketplace, which allows you to choose the correct version of the plugin/mod according to your server type (Example - Spigot, Paper, Forge, etc) and version.

1. Navigate to your MCServerHost dashboard and choose the server in which you want to install Dynmap.

2. On selecting a server, stop the server to avoid any errors while installing Dynmap, go to the file manager, and add the Dynmap .jar file into the 'plugins' or 'mods' folder.

3. Restart your server, in order to let Dynmap create its configuration files.

Allocating an Additional Port

In order to let Dynmap work correctly on your server, you have to allocate it a separate port. To do that on your server, follow the steps below -

1. Log in to the MCServerHost dashboard and select the server that you want to configure.

2. Navigate to the Dashboard and find the 'Network Section'. This is usually located at the right end of the dashboard, where it shows the IP and port of your server.

3. Click the '+' (plus) button next to the 'Extra Ports' heading. This will request and allocate an additional port for your server.

4. After the port has been allocated, note down the newly allocated port number before proceeding to the next step.

Configuring Dynmap

After you are done installing Dynmap on your server, along with allocating an additional port to your server. You can start following the below steps in order to start the configuration process.

1. Head toward the file manager, go to the 'plugins' or 'mods' folder, where you will find a newly generated Dynmap configuration folder.

2. Inside the folder, locate a file named 'configuration.txt' containing all the configurable fields.

3. Locate the ‘webserver-port’ field in your ‘configuration.txt’ file. The default is port 8123. Set the value to the port you noted while allotting your server an additional port.

4. Similarly, set the ‘deftemplatesuffix’ field to 'vlowres' or 'lowres' to reduce the size of the images that are generated. Using 'vlowres' or 'lowres' helps reduce the image size, saving space on your server.

Using Dynmap

After you are done with the process, you can go to 'http://IP:Port' to view your server world generated by Dynmap, where the IP is your server's IP and the Port is the new port you allocated while configuring your Dynmap. Initially, Dynmap won’t load any world and display chunks. However, as the players start exploring the world, you will observe changes, and chunks will load gradually.

If you want to avoid slow loading, you can use commands such as ‘/dynmap fullrender world’. It starts rendering the entire world.

Conclusion

You now have an interactive map for your Minecraft server. Dynmap keeps you informed about your position, your player's location, and helps with world navigation. Making everything right along your fingertips!

Similarly, if you are having any type of issue or problem with your server at MCServerHost you can always get in touch with us by joining our Discord server or writing us at support@MCServerHost.com.