Forge server 1.17.1 on Linux won't run - No main manifest attribute [closed]

I'm trying to get a Minecraft forge server up and running. I have Java 16:

[opc@better-minecraft1 ~]$ java --version
java 16.0.2 2021-07-20
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 16.0.2+7-67)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 16.0.2+7-67, mixed mode)

Vanilla Minecraft server 1.17.1 is installed (also in /home/opc/) and working fine.

I downloaded the Forge installer from . Then I ran the installer with java -jar forge-1.17.1-37.1.0-installer.jar --installServer (still in the same directory). This seemed to work - the last line of the output was The server installed successfully.

Now I have two problems. First, I was expecting the Forge jar to appear in the directory but it didn't. I eventually found it in /home/opc/libraries/net/minecraftforge/forge/1.17.1-37.1.0/forge-1.17.1-37.1.0-universal.jar.

Second, trying to run it from there doesn't work:

[opc@better-minecraft1 ~]$ java -Xmx5120M -Xms2048M -jar ~/libraries/net/minecraftforge/forge/1.17.1-37.1.0/forge-1.17.1-37.1.0-universal.jar nogui
no main manifest attribute, in /home/opc/libraries/net/minecraftforge/forge/1.17.1-37.1.0/forge-1.17.1-37.1.0-universal.jar

Any ideas? This is a headless linux server, so no gui tools.

The directory where all this was done now looks like this:

-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 2 Dec 2 11:48 banned-ips.json
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 2 Dec 2 11:48 banned-players.json
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 180 Dec 2 11:38 eula.txt
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 2067991 Dec 2 11:42 forge-1.17.1-37.1.0-installer.jar.log
drwxrwxr-x. 12 opc opc 4096 Dec 2 11:41 libraries
drwxrwxr-x. 2 opc opc 78 Dec 2 11:48 logs
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 2 Dec 2 11:48 ops.json
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 362 Dec 2 11:41 run.bat
-rwxrw-r--. 1 opc opc 365 Dec 2 11:41 run.sh
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 43621201 Jun 8 11:03 server.jar
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 1037 Dec 2 11:48 server.properties
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 2 Dec 2 11:48 usercache.json
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 339 Dec 2 11:41 user_jvm_args.txt
-rw-rw-r--. 1 opc opc 2 Dec 2 11:38 whitelist.json
drwxrwxr-x. 10 opc opc 4096 Dec 2 14:03 world

3

1 Answer

I was getting confused with Paper. You don't need to install vanilla Minecraft first, and you have it seems that Forge will only work if you install it in an empty directory. Trying to install it on top of vanilla won't work.