Is there a way to legally obtain a copy of Minecraft to join "offline" servers with?
I host my own Minecraft server and have online-mode set to false in serer.properties.
Now, I want others to join but I don't expect them to buy a legitimate copy of Minecraft. Isn't that why we use this setting online-mode?
In the ol' days (1.8 and post), I remember using some copy of Minecraft where I could just change my username on every start of this client, and join my server. Period. Done. I want the same again. Is this possible? In a non-illegal way? What about grey-area? I don't care about security or impersonation (partly).
@dysprosium Pretty sure online-mode=false doesn't prevent players with purchased copies of Minecraft from joining the server, they will just have different UUID which means their inventories will be separate from when server is in online-mode=true, did you try joining an offline mode server with your legitimate copy of Minecraft?
Just adding to this, this is because when online mode is enabled, the UUID is given to the server from the Minecraft authentication server. When it is disabled, the UUID is generated from the username.
Is there a way to legally obtain a copy of Minecraft to join "offline" servers with?
Yes! If you already have a legal copy of the game (one that you paid for), Prism Launcher allows you to use an offline account (usually used for singleplayer when your internet is down), which lets you use any username. This is probably a feature in other launchers too.
I host my own Minecraft server and have online-mode set to false in serer.properties.
You can set it to true and use EasyAuth to allow offline players to join. This means online players get online UUIDs, and offline players have to log-in using commands and are given an offline UUID. You can also set up a global password, if you trust players won't log-in as someone else.
There's also EasyWhitelist for a name-based whitelist (by default I think whitelists are UUID-based, which probably don't work with offline players).
I see. EasyAuth seems a very nice idea. I'm not too acquainted with mc mods, however. I planned on researching how to host the Valkyrien Skies mod. Do you know if it's possible and straightforward to have have these two mods work in unison? (I host the mc srv on Ubuntu Server 23.)
Sorry for the late response. I don't think the mods should be conflicting, just put them both in the mods folder and see if that works. IIRC Valkyrien Skies is required on both the client and the server.