IceLegends SMP
A vanilla-first Romanian Minecraft SMP built for clean 3–4 month seasons.
The Problem
Running a community SMP means balancing plugin depth against vanilla feel, managing a world-reset cycle, and keeping operations simple enough for a solo admin. IceLegends SMP solves this with 11 carefully chosen plugins, strict feature gating per a "vanilla-first" principle, and fully automated backups and world resets.
My Role
Designed, configured, and deployed solo — server architecture, 11-plugin selection and configuration, LuckPerms permission model, economy and nation design, Docker infrastructure, and Cloudflare Tunnel ingress for Dynmap.
Highlights
- PaperMC 1.21 on Docker with a hard 11-plugin cap — every plugin is justified and none are redundant
- Towny nations with seasonal quests (Quests + Citizens NPCs) and a single manually-spawned MythicMobs boss per season
- AureliumSkills passive bonuses only — active abilities disabled to preserve vanilla combat (P-01)
- DiscordSRV bridge logs every death, join, and chat event to dedicated Discord channels in real time
- Daily automated backups with 7-day retention; resource world resets every Monday at 05:00 via cron
Stack
Constraints
- Solo admin — every operation must complete in under 10 minutes (P-02).
- Vanilla-first (P-01): if any plugin disappeared tomorrow, the game must continue unchanged.
- 11-plugin hard cap — every addition must displace something or prove unique, irreplaceable value.
System Architecture
Key Trade-offs
The decisions worth defending — what I chose, what I turned down, and why.
Plugin count cap
Chose
Hard cap at 11 plugins
Rejected
Unlimited plugin stack
Each plugin is a maintenance surface and a potential conflict point. The cap forces prioritisation and keeps the dependency graph legible for a solo admin.
Public ingress for Dynmap
Chose
Cloudflare Tunnel (no open ports)
Rejected
Expose :8123 directly via UFW
No origin IP exposure, free DDoS protection, and zero firewall rule maintenance — the same pattern used by the IceLegends portfolio site.
AureliumSkills scope
Chose
Passive bonuses only, active abilities disabled
Rejected
Full AureliumSkills feature set including active combat abilities
Active abilities alter vanilla combat — a direct violation of P-01. Passive bonuses reward playtime additively without changing the combat model.
Season lifecycle
Chose
Full world reset every 3–4 months
Rejected
Incremental map expansion with no reset
Resets keep the world fresh, prevent terrain exhaustion, and give every new player an equal start — critical for community health in a small SMP.
What I'd Do Differently
An honest retrospective — the stuff I'd change with more time, more users, or a second pass.
- 1Add a staging compose stack so plugin updates can be tested before touching the live season — one bad update cost several hours of rollback work.
- 2Move backup storage off-site from day one; local-only archives are a single hardware failure away from a full season loss.
- 3Wire Dynmap as a named Docker service rather than relying on the host port, so the Cloudflare Tunnel config survives container IP reassignment on restart.
Technical Deep-Dive
Architecture, specifications, and implementation details.
18 — AntiCheat — Vulcan / Grim
"Protecție împotriva cheat-urilor — necesar înainte de launch public
#De ce e necesar
Pe orice SMP public, în primele 2 săptămâni apare cineva cu:
- Kill aura — atacă automat toți jucătorii din rază
- Speed hack — se mișcă de 3-4x mai rapid
- Fly hack — zboară în survival
- Reach hack — atacă de la distanță mare
Fără AntiCheat, staff-ul trebuie să stea cu ochii pe fiecare jucător manual.
#Opțiuni
| Plugin | Cost | Precizie | Recomandat pentru |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grim | Gratis | Bună | Server mic, buget zero |
| Vulcan | ~20 USD | Excelentă | Server serios, false positive-uri minime |
| Matrix | Gratis/Premium | Medie | Alternativă Grim |
"Recomandare: Începe cu Grim. Dacă ai false positive-uri enervante după 2 săptămâni, upgradezi la Vulcan.
#Download
Grim: github.com/MWHunter/Grim — gratis
Vulcan: vulcan.ac — ~20 USD one-time
#Instalare Grim
cp Grim-*.jar data/plugins/
docker compose restart mc
#Config cheie (Grim)
# data/plugins/Grim/config.yml
# Checks activate — toate ON by default, bune pentru SMP
checks:
movement:
speed: true
fly: true
nofall: true
combat:
killaura: true
reach: true
hitbox: true
# Acțiuni la detectare
alerts:
staff-alerts: true # Notifică staff în chat când detectează
discord-webhook: "" # Opțional: webhook Discord pentru alerte
# Threshold înainte de acțiune automată
# (lasă mai mare pentru false positive-uri mai puține)
violations:
ban-threshold: 200 # violations înainte de ban automat
kick-threshold: 100 # violations înainte de kick
#Permisiuni LuckPerms
# Staff vede alertele și poate bypassa checks
/lp group helper permission set grim.alerts true
/lp group moderator permission set grim.alerts true
/lp group admin permission set grim.bypass true
/lp group admin permission set grim.alerts true
#Comenzi Staff
/grim alerts # Toggle alerte pentru tine
/grim verbose <player> # Log detaliat pentru un jucător specific
/grim freeze <player> # Îngheață jucătorul suspect
/grim log <player> # Istoricul violations unui jucător
#Procedura când primești alert
1. /grim verbose NumeJucator → pornești logging detaliat
2. Observi jucătorul 2-3 minute
3. Dacă confirmi cheat: /ban NumeJucator Cheat detectat
4. Dacă e false positive: /grim exempt NumeJucator temporar
5. Log în Discord #staff-log cu decizia
#False Positive-uri comune
| Situație | Cauză | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Jucător cu lag mare flagged pentru speed | Latență ridicată | Crește lag-compensation în config |
| Jucător pe cal flagged pentru fly | Cal cu viteză mare | Whitelist mount movement |
| Jucător cu bow enchanted flagged | Punch knockback | Ajustează reach threshold |
#Related Documents
- Permisiuni staff →
11_permissions_staff.md - Runbook ban →
14_backup_recovery.md - Security →
12_security.md