Step 4: SQL
What is SQL?
SQL is a term you'll see quite often when looking at Minecraft mods and server tools. SQL Stands for Structured Query Language and what its really doing is giving us a Database too hold lots of information, in a way that is easy to search through and organize. It is also VERY fast compared to mods that just use text files to store their information, which is the main reason that we need to get a SQL server setup for our Minecraft world, with out it mods like Towny, Craftconomy, BetterShops, and others would slow the game down to a crawl.
There are several versions of SQL out there, from tiny little portable ones to huge systems designed to run vast businesses. You can be guaranteed that when you visit a very popular website that much of its content is stored in SQL or SQL like systems. For our Minecraft server we're going to use one of the small portable versions as it gets the job done with the least amount of trouble.
There are several versions of SQL out there, from tiny little portable ones to huge systems designed to run vast businesses. You can be guaranteed that when you visit a very popular website that much of its content is stored in SQL or SQL like systems. For our Minecraft server we're going to use one of the small portable versions as it gets the job done with the least amount of trouble.
Uniform Server Zero
We are going to learn how to use the Uniform Server Zero software. Download the program following the link from The Mods page. You'll now have a program that you'll run and choose where you want to extract the files. I suggest you pick your Minecraft server's folder. Once extracted you should have a UniServerZ folder and inside a UniController.exe program. Lets launch that program now.
The control panel shows buttons to Start Apache and SQL, and the server console, phpMyAdmin and places for optional addon modules. Before we get started though we want to change the password for our MySQL server (MySQL is a free version of a SQL server). Click on the MySQL menu at the top and then click on "Change Password" and set the password to something you'll remember. You're going to need that password for every mod you use with SQL.
Now go ahead and start the server. You should get no errors and the colored square should change from RED to GREEN. Now we need to create the databases we'll need for our mods. Its important to remember that the mods can't create their own databases, they can only read and write into one that has already been setup. To create a new database we click on the MySQL tab at the top and then click on "Database Create-Delete".
In the new window that opens, we can create new databases by entering in their name and clicking Create Database. We can also see all databases that have been created and delete any that we no longer need. Go ahead and create the following databases as we'll use them later: "economy", "bettershops", "plots", "permissions", and "chest_regen".
The control panel shows buttons to Start Apache and SQL, and the server console, phpMyAdmin and places for optional addon modules. Before we get started though we want to change the password for our MySQL server (MySQL is a free version of a SQL server). Click on the MySQL menu at the top and then click on "Change Password" and set the password to something you'll remember. You're going to need that password for every mod you use with SQL.
Now go ahead and start the server. You should get no errors and the colored square should change from RED to GREEN. Now we need to create the databases we'll need for our mods. Its important to remember that the mods can't create their own databases, they can only read and write into one that has already been setup. To create a new database we click on the MySQL tab at the top and then click on "Database Create-Delete".
In the new window that opens, we can create new databases by entering in their name and clicking Create Database. We can also see all databases that have been created and delete any that we no longer need. Go ahead and create the following databases as we'll use them later: "economy", "bettershops", "plots", "permissions", and "chest_regen".