Minetest

Minetest is a free open-source voxel game engine with easy modding and game creation.

Copyright (C) 2010-2018 Perttu Ahola celeron55@gmail.com and contributors (see source file comments and the version control log)

In case you downloaded the source code:

If you downloaded the Minetest Engine source code in which this file is contained, you probably want to download the Minetest Game project too. See its README.txt for more information.

Table of Contents

1. Further Documentation
2. Default Controls
3. Paths
4. Configuration File
5. Command-line Options
6. Compiling
7. Docker
8. Version Scheme

Further documentation

• Website: http://minetest.net/
• Wiki: http://wiki.minetest.net/
• Developer wiki: http://dev.minetest.net/
• Forum: http://forum.minetest.net/
• GitHub: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/
• doc/ directory of source distribution

Default controls

All controls are re-bindable using settings. Some can be changed in the key config dialog in the settings tab.

Button	Action
Move mouse	Look around
W, A, S, D	Move
Space	Jump/move up
Shift	Sneak/move down
Q	Drop itemstack
Shift + Q	Drop single item
Left mouse button	Dig/punch/take item
Right mouse button	Place/use
Shift + right mouse button	Build (without using)
I	Inventory menu
Mouse wheel	Select item
0-9	Select item
Z	Zoom (needs zoom privilege)
T	Chat
/	Command
Esc	Pause menu/abort/exit (pauses only singleplayer game)
R	Enable/disable full range view
+	Increase view range
-	Decrease view range
K	Enable/disable fly mode (needs fly privilege)
L	Enable/disable pitch move mode
J	Enable/disable fast mode (needs fast privilege)
H	Enable/disable noclip mode (needs noclip privilege)
E	Move fast in fast mode
F1	Hide/show HUD
F2	Hide/show chat
F3	Disable/enable fog
F4	Disable/enable camera update (Mapblocks are not updated anymore when disabled, disabled in release builds)
F5	Cycle through debug information screens
F6	Cycle through profiler info screens
F7	Cycle through camera modes
F9	Cycle through minimap modes
Shift + F9	Change minimap orientation
F10	Show/hide console
F12	Take screenshot

Paths

Locations:

• bin - Compiled binaries
• share - Distributed read-only data
• user - User-created modifiable data

Where each location is on each platform:

• Windows .zip / RUN_IN_PLACE source:
  • bin = bin
  • share = .
  • user = .
• Windows installed:
  • $bin = C:\Program Files\Minetest\bin (Depends on the install location)
  • $share = C:\Program Files\Minetest (Depends on the install location)
  • $user = %Appdata%\Minetest
• Linux installed:
  • bin = /usr/bin
  • share = /usr/share/minetest
  • user = ~/.minetest
• macOS:
  • bin = Contents/MacOS
  • share = Contents/Resources
  • user = Contents/User OR ~/Library/Application Support/minetest

Worlds can be found as separate folders in: user/worlds/

Configuration file:

• Default location: user/minetest.conf
• It is created by Minetest when it is ran the first time.
• A specific file can be specified on the command line: --config <path-to-file>
• A run-in-place build will look for the configuration file in location_of_exe/../minetest.conf and also location_of_exe/../../minetest.conf

Command-line options:

• Use --help

Compiling

Compiling on GNU/Linux

Dependencies

Dependency	Version	Commentary
GCC	4.9+	Can be replaced with Clang 3.4+
CMake	2.6+
Irrlicht	1.7.3+
SQLite3	3.0+
LuaJIT	2.0+	Bundled Lua 5.1 is used if not present
GMP	5.0.0+	Bundled mini-GMP is used if not present
JsonCPP	1.0.0+	Bundled JsonCPP is used if not present

For Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install build-essential libirrlicht-dev cmake libbz2-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libxxf86vm-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libsqlite3-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libopenal-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libfreetype6-dev zlib1g-dev libgmp-dev libjsoncpp-dev

For Fedora users:

sudo dnf install make automake gcc gcc-c++ kernel-devel cmake libcurl-devel openal-soft-devel libvorbis-devel libXxf86vm-devel libogg-devel freetype-devel mesa-libGL-devel zlib-devel jsoncpp-devel irrlicht-devel bzip2-libs gmp-devel sqlite-devel luajit-devel leveldb-devel ncurses-devel doxygen spatialindex-devel bzip2-devel

Download

You can install Git for easily keeping your copy up to date. If you don’t want Git, read below on how to get the source without Git. This is an example for installing Git on Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install git

For Fedora users:

sudo dnf install git

Download source (this is the URL to the latest of source repository, which might not work at all times) using Git:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/minetest/minetest.git
cd minetest

Download minetest_game (otherwise only the "Minimal development test" game is available) using Git:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game.git games/minetest_game

Download source, without using Git:

wget https://github.com/minetest/minetest/archive/master.tar.gz
tar xf master.tar.gz
cd minetest-master

Download minetest_game, without using Git:

cd games/
wget https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/archive/master.tar.gz
tar xf master.tar.gz
mv minetest_game-master minetest_game
cd ..

Build

Build a version that runs directly from the source directory:

cmake . -DRUN_IN_PLACE=TRUE
make -j <number of processors>

Run it:

./bin/minetest

• Use cmake . -LH to see all CMake options and their current state
• If you want to install it system-wide (or are making a distribution package), you will want to use -DRUN_IN_PLACE=FALSE
• You can build a bare server by specifying -DBUILD_SERVER=TRUE
• You can disable the client build by specifying -DBUILD_CLIENT=FALSE
• You can select between Release and Debug build by -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<Debug or Release>
  • Debug build is slower, but gives much more useful output in a debugger
• If you build a bare server, you don't need to have Irrlicht installed.
  • In that case use -DIRRLICHT_SOURCE_DIR=/the/irrlicht/source

CMake options

General options and their default values:

BUILD_CLIENT=TRUE          - Build Minetest client
BUILD_SERVER=FALSE         - Build Minetest server
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release   - Type of build (Release vs. Debug)
    Release                - Release build
    Debug                  - Debug build
    SemiDebug              - Partially optimized debug build
    RelWithDebInfo         - Release build with debug information
    MinSizeRel             - Release build with -Os passed to compiler to make executable as small as possible
ENABLE_CURL=ON             - Build with cURL; Enables use of online mod repo, public serverlist and remote media fetching via http
ENABLE_CURSES=ON           - Build with (n)curses; Enables a server side terminal (command line option: --terminal)
ENABLE_FREETYPE=ON         - Build with FreeType2; Allows using TTF fonts
ENABLE_GETTEXT=ON          - Build with Gettext; Allows using translations
ENABLE_GLES=OFF            - Search for Open GLES headers & libraries and use them
ENABLE_LEVELDB=ON          - Build with LevelDB; Enables use of LevelDB map backend
ENABLE_POSTGRESQL=ON       - Build with libpq; Enables use of PostgreSQL map backend (PostgreSQL 9.5 or greater recommended)
ENABLE_REDIS=ON            - Build with libhiredis; Enables use of Redis map backend
ENABLE_SPATIAL=ON          - Build with LibSpatial; Speeds up AreaStores
ENABLE_SOUND=ON            - Build with OpenAL, libogg & libvorbis; in-game sounds
ENABLE_LUAJIT=ON           - Build with LuaJIT (much faster than non-JIT Lua)
ENABLE_SYSTEM_GMP=ON       - Use GMP from system (much faster than bundled mini-gmp)
ENABLE_SYSTEM_JSONCPP=OFF  - Use JsonCPP from system
OPENGL_GL_PREFERENCE=LEGACY - Linux client build only; See CMake Policy CMP0072 for reference
RUN_IN_PLACE=FALSE         - Create a portable install (worlds, settings etc. in current directory)
USE_GPROF=FALSE            - Enable profiling using GProf
VERSION_EXTRA=             - Text to append to version (e.g. VERSION_EXTRA=foobar -> Minetest 0.4.9-foobar)

Library specific options:

BZIP2_INCLUDE_DIR               - Linux only; directory where bzlib.h is located
BZIP2_LIBRARY                   - Linux only; path to libbz2.a/libbz2.so
CURL_DLL                        - Only if building with cURL on Windows; path to libcurl.dll
CURL_INCLUDE_DIR                - Only if building with cURL; directory where curl.h is located
CURL_LIBRARY                    - Only if building with cURL; path to libcurl.a/libcurl.so/libcurl.lib
EGL_INCLUDE_DIR                 - Only if building with GLES; directory that contains egl.h
EGL_LIBRARY                     - Only if building with GLES; path to libEGL.a/libEGL.so
FREETYPE_INCLUDE_DIR_freetype2  - Only if building with FreeType 2; directory that contains an freetype directory with files such as ftimage.h in it
FREETYPE_INCLUDE_DIR_ft2build   - Only if building with FreeType 2; directory that contains ft2build.h
FREETYPE_LIBRARY                - Only if building with FreeType 2; path to libfreetype.a/libfreetype.so/freetype.lib
FREETYPE_DLL                    - Only if building with FreeType 2 on Windows; path to libfreetype.dll
GETTEXT_DLL                     - Only when building with gettext on Windows; path to libintl3.dll
GETTEXT_ICONV_DLL               - Only when building with gettext on Windows; path to libiconv2.dll
GETTEXT_INCLUDE_DIR             - Only when building with gettext; directory that contains iconv.h
GETTEXT_LIBRARY                 - Only when building with gettext on Windows; path to libintl.dll.a
GETTEXT_MSGFMT                  - Only when building with gettext; path to msgfmt/msgfmt.exe
IRRLICHT_DLL                    - Only on Windows; path to Irrlicht.dll
IRRLICHT_INCLUDE_DIR            - Directory that contains IrrCompileConfig.h
IRRLICHT_LIBRARY                - Path to libIrrlicht.a/libIrrlicht.so/libIrrlicht.dll.a/Irrlicht.lib
LEVELDB_INCLUDE_DIR             - Only when building with LevelDB; directory that contains db.h
LEVELDB_LIBRARY                 - Only when building with LevelDB; path to libleveldb.a/libleveldb.so/libleveldb.dll.a
LEVELDB_DLL                     - Only when building with LevelDB on Windows; path to libleveldb.dll
PostgreSQL_INCLUDE_DIR          - Only when building with PostgreSQL; directory that contains libpq-fe.h
POSTGRESQL_LIBRARY              - Only when building with PostgreSQL; path to libpq.a/libpq.so
REDIS_INCLUDE_DIR               - Only when building with Redis; directory that contains hiredis.h
REDIS_LIBRARY                   - Only when building with Redis; path to libhiredis.a/libhiredis.so
SPATIAL_INCLUDE_DIR             - Only when building with LibSpatial; directory that contains spatialindex/SpatialIndex.h
SPATIAL_LIBRARY                 - Only when building with LibSpatial; path to libspatialindex_c.so/spatialindex-32.lib
LUA_INCLUDE_DIR                 - Only if you want to use LuaJIT; directory where luajit.h is located
LUA_LIBRARY                     - Only if you want to use LuaJIT; path to libluajit.a/libluajit.so
MINGWM10_DLL                    - Only if compiling with MinGW; path to mingwm10.dll
OGG_DLL                         - Only if building with sound on Windows; path to libogg.dll
OGG_INCLUDE_DIR                 - Only if building with sound; directory that contains an ogg directory which contains ogg.h
OGG_LIBRARY                     - Only if building with sound; path to libogg.a/libogg.so/libogg.dll.a
OPENAL_DLL                      - Only if building with sound on Windows; path to OpenAL32.dll
OPENAL_INCLUDE_DIR              - Only if building with sound; directory where al.h is located
OPENAL_LIBRARY                  - Only if building with sound; path to libopenal.a/libopenal.so/OpenAL32.lib
OPENGLES2_INCLUDE_DIR           - Only if building with GLES; directory that contains gl2.h
OPENGLES2_LIBRARY               - Only if building with GLES; path to libGLESv2.a/libGLESv2.so
SQLITE3_INCLUDE_DIR             - Directory that contains sqlite3.h
SQLITE3_LIBRARY                 - Path to libsqlite3.a/libsqlite3.so/sqlite3.lib
VORBISFILE_DLL                  - Only if building with sound on Windows; path to libvorbisfile-3.dll
VORBISFILE_LIBRARY              - Only if building with sound; path to libvorbisfile.a/libvorbisfile.so/libvorbisfile.dll.a
VORBIS_DLL                      - Only if building with sound on Windows; path to libvorbis-0.dll
VORBIS_INCLUDE_DIR              - Only if building with sound; directory that contains a directory vorbis with vorbisenc.h inside
VORBIS_LIBRARY                  - Only if building with sound; path to libvorbis.a/libvorbis.so/libvorbis.dll.a
XXF86VM_LIBRARY                 - Only on Linux; path to libXXf86vm.a/libXXf86vm.so
ZLIB_DLL                        - Only on Windows; path to zlib1.dll
ZLIBWAPI_DLL                    - Only on Windows; path to zlibwapi.dll
ZLIB_INCLUDE_DIR                - Directory that contains zlib.h
ZLIB_LIBRARY                    - Path to libz.a/libz.so/zlibwapi.lib

Compiling on Windows

• This section is outdated. In addition to what is described here:

  • In addition to minetest, you need to download minetest_game.
  • If you wish to have sound support, you need libogg, libvorbis and libopenal

• You need:

  • CMake: http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
  • A compiler
    • MinGW: http://www.mingw.org/
    • or Visual Studio: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default
  • Irrlicht SDK 1.7: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
  • Zlib headers (zlib125.zip) http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/index.html
  • Zlib library (zlibwapi.lib and zlibwapi.dll from zlib125dll.zip): http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/index.html
  • SQLite3 headers and library https://www.sqlite.org/download.html
  • Optional: gettext library and tools: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/downlinks/gettext.php
    • This is used for other UI languages. Feel free to leave it out.
  • And, of course, Minetest: http://minetest.net/download

• Steps:

  • Select a directory called DIR hereafter in which you will operate.
  • Make sure you have CMake and a compiler installed.
  • Download all the other stuff to DIR and extract them into there. ("extract here", not "extract to packagename/")
    • NOTE: zlib125dll.zip needs to be extracted into zlib125dll
    • NOTE: You need to extract sqlite3.h & sqlite3ext.h from the SQLite 3 source and sqlite3.dll & sqlite3.def from the SQLite 3 precompiled binaries into "sqlite3" directory, and generate sqlite3.lib using command "LIB /DEF:sqlite3.def /OUT:sqlite3.lib"
  • All those packages contain a nice base directory in them, which should end up being the direct subdirectories of DIR.
  • You will end up with a directory structure like this (+=dir, -=file):

  ---

  • DIR
    • zlib-1.2.5.tar.gz
    • zlib125dll.zip
    • irrlicht-1.8.3.zip
    • sqlite-amalgamation-3130000.zip (SQLite3 headers)
    • sqlite-dll-win32-x86-3130000.zip (SQLite3 library for 32bit system)
    • 110214175330.zip (or whatever, this is the minetest source)
    • zlib-1.2.5
      • zlib.h
      • win32 ...
    • zlib125dll
      • readme.txt
      • dll32 ...
    • irrlicht-1.8.3
      • lib
      • include ...
    • sqlite3 sqlite3.h sqlite3ext.h sqlite3.lib sqlite3.dll
    • gettext (optional) +bin +include +lib
    • minetest
      • src
      • doc
      • CMakeLists.txt ...

  ---

  • Start up the CMake GUI

  • Select "Browse Source..." and select DIR/minetest

  • Now, if using MSVC:

    • Select "Browse Build..." and select DIR/minetest-build

  • Else if using MinGW:

    • Select "Browse Build..." and select DIR/minetest

  • Select "Configure"

  • Select your compiler

  • It will warn about missing stuff, ignore that at this point. (later don't)

  • Make sure the configuration is as follows (note that the versions may differ for you):

          BUILD_CLIENT             [X]
          BUILD_SERVER             [ ]
          CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE         Release
          CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX     DIR/minetest-install
          IRRLICHT_SOURCE_DIR      DIR/irrlicht-1.8.3
          RUN_IN_PLACE             [X]
          WARN_ALL                 [ ]
          ZLIB_DLL                 DIR/zlib125dll/dll32/zlibwapi.dll
          ZLIB_INCLUDE_DIR         DIR/zlib-1.2.5
          ZLIB_LIBRARIES           DIR/zlib125dll/dll32/zlibwapi.lib
          GETTEXT_BIN_DIR          DIR/gettext/bin
          GETTEXT_INCLUDE_DIR      DIR/gettext/include
          GETTEXT_LIBRARIES        DIR/gettext/lib/intl.lib
          GETTEXT_MSGFMT           DIR/gettext/bin/msgfmt
    

  • If CMake complains it couldn't find SQLITE3, choose "Advanced" box on the right top corner, then specify the location of SQLITE3_INCLUDE_DIR and SQLITE3_LIBRARY manually.

  • If you want to build 64-bit minetest, you will need to build 64-bit version of irrlicht engine manually, as only 32-bit pre-built library is provided.

  • Hit "Configure"

  • Hit "Configure" once again 8)

  • If something is still coloured red, you have a problem.

  • Hit "Generate" If using MSVC:

    • Open the generated minetest.sln
    • The project defaults to the "Debug" configuration. Make very sure to select "Release", unless you want to debug some stuff (it's slower and might not even work at all)
    • Build the ALL_BUILD project
    • Build the INSTALL project
    • You should now have a working game with the executable in DIR/minetest-install/bin/minetest.exe
    • Additionally you may create a zip package by building the PACKAGE project. If using MinGW:
    • Using the command line, browse to the build directory and run 'make' (or mingw32-make or whatever it happens to be)
    • You may need to copy some of the downloaded DLLs into bin/, see what running the produced executable tells you it doesn't have.
    • You should now have a working game with the executable in DIR/minetest/bin/minetest.exe

Bat script to build Windows releases of Minetest

This is how we build Windows releases.

set sourcedir=%CD%
set installpath="C:\tmp\minetest_install"
set irrlichtpath="C:\tmp\irrlicht-1.7.2"

set builddir=%sourcedir%\bvc10
mkdir %builddir%
pushd %builddir%
cmake %sourcedir% -G "Visual Studio 10" -DIRRLICHT_SOURCE_DIR=%irrlichtpath% -DRUN_IN_PLACE=TRUE -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=%installpath%
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto fail
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" ALL_BUILD.vcxproj /p:Configuration=Release
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto fail
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" INSTALL.vcxproj /p:Configuration=Release
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto fail
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" PACKAGE.vcxproj /p:Configuration=Release
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto fail
popd
echo Finished.
exit /b 0

:fail
popd
echo Failed.
exit /b 1

Windows Installer using WIX Toolset

Requirements:

• Visual Studio 2017
• Wix Toolset

In Visual Studio 2017 Installer select "Optional Features" -> "Wix Toolset"

Build the binaries like described above, but make sure you unselect "RUN_IN_PLACE".

Open the generated Project file with VS. Right click "PACKAGE" and choose "Generate". It may take some minutes to generate the installer.

Docker

We provide Minetest server docker images using the Gitlab mirror registry.

Images are built on each commit and available using the following tag scheme:

• registry.gitlab.com/minetest/minetest/server:latest (latest build)
• registry.gitlab.com/minetest/minetest/server:<branch/tag> (current branch or current tag)
• registry.gitlab.com/minetest/minetest/server:<commit-id> (current commit id)

If you want to test it on a docker server, you can easily run:

sudo docker run registry.gitlab.com/minetest/minetest/server:<docker tag>

If you want to use it in a production environment you should use volumes bound to the docker host to persist data and modify the configuration:

sudo docker create -v /home/minetest/data/:/var/lib/minetest/ -v /home/minetest/conf/:/etc/minetest/ registry.gitlab.com/minetest/minetest/server:master

Data will be written to /home/minetest/data on the host, and configuration will be read from /home/minetest/conf/minetest.conf.

Note: If you don't understand the previous commands, please read the official Docker documentation before use.

You can also host your minetest server inside a Kubernetes cluster. See our example implementation in misc/kubernetes.yml.

Version scheme

We use major.minor.patch since 5.0.0-dev. Prior to that we used 0.major.minor.

• Major is incremented when the release contains breaking changes, all other numbers are set to 0.
• Minor is incremented when the release contains new non-breaking features, patch is set to 0.
• Patch is incremented when the release only contains bugfixes and very minor/trivial features considered necessary.

Since 5.0.0-dev and 0.4.17-dev, the dev notation refers to the next release, i.e.: 5.0.0-dev is the development version leading to 5.0.0. Prior to that we used previous_version-dev.