Requirements:

Java runtime environment
Minecraft Server JAR
Screen v4.x

Optional:

c10t (for cartography to work)
brownan's overviewer script (for overviewer to work)
Donkey Kong's Biome Extractor (for biomes)
unzip (for auto updating)

Installation :

Install the required programs

Screen and unzip

Try: sudo apt-get install screen unzip

Or: sudo yum install screen unzip

c10t

Download from udoprog's repo:

https://github.com/udoprog/c10t

Minecraft-Overviewer

Download from brownan's repo:

http://github.com/brownan/Minecraft-Overviewer

Biome Extractor

Download from Donkey Kong's post (was tested as of 0.6a):

http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=80902

minecraft.sh

copy the script into your minecraft server folder.
allow the script to be executed

chmod +x minecraft.sh

check the rights of the script user. Every folder specified in the configuration phase has to be available to him.
edit the script to configure it (see the configuration section)

(optional)

I strongly recommend using crontab to automate some of the process. I prefer to perform logs clean + server restart + sync + then all of my mappers at 4AM every day.
The 'logs' command should always be used BEFORE a restart, as the restart wipes the previous logs. I'm running hey0's servermod, which allows to have a log history, but that's not the case for everyone.
I also recommend setting an Internet public folder, for the maps images to be displayed. People on my server love this feature, as they know a new map is generated every day, and they can see the evolution of our world.
I made an alias to be able to use 'minecraft command' instead of './minecraft.sh command'. It also enables the automatic completion, if you type 'mine' then press tab. Much quicker =) You can do this by editing /home/USER/.bashrc, and adding the line:

alias minecraft="/home/minecraft/minecraft.sh"

(of course, change the path if needed)

Considerations:

Space

This script uses rsync to update an offline folder with the latest world information. As maps become larger, time to completion when running mappers on them increases. Having saving turned off for 15-30 minutes while a new map is being generated isn't good for the users. Saving is now only turned off for the time it takes to sync the folders.

Because of this, your world size is effectively doubled when using this script. Whenever you issue the 'minecraft.sh sync' command, you will be shown the size of the two directories in KB.

Overviewer

If using Brownan's Overviewer to create Google-like maps of your worlds, be sure you are using the --cachedir=/path/to/dir to change the location of the png files as you will start to take up considerable space since it defaults to save the files inside of the world folder. This can grow backups that are only 3mb to 99mb files. If you are not cleaning the logs, this will start to consume a considerable amount of hard drive space.

Configuration :

There are several variables to set before you can run the script for the first time. Open minecraft.sh with a text editor, and edit the following lines, at the beginning of the file :

Main Settings

WORLD_NAME="world"

This is the path to the world folder

OFFLINE_NAME=$WORLD_NAME-offline

This is the name to the offline world folder that sync and all mapper functions use to process the world. This is saved in the same directory as your world folder.

SCREEN_NAME="minecraft"

This is the name of the screen the server will be run on

MEMMAX=1024

This is the maximum size of RAM you want to allow the server to use, if you are not sure, keep this and MEMALOC identical.

DISPLAY_ON_LAUNCH=1

Do you want the screen to be displayed each time the server starts? 1 if yes, 0 if no.

MC_PATH=/home/minecraft

This is the path to your minecraft folder

SERVER_OPTIONS=""

This is where you would place any desired flags for running your server.

EXAMPLE:

SERVER_OPTIONS="-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing -XX:ParallelGCThreads=2 -XX:+AggressiveOpts"

Modifications

SERVERMOD=0

If you are running bukkit, this needs to be set to 1 (better logging and automatic updating of the mod)

MODJAR="craftbukkit-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar"

This is the name of the jar file for the server mod you are using. This allows you to use this script for a number of server mods without having to adjust other parts of the script.

RUNECRAFT=0

If you want your script to update runecraft automatically too, set this to 1

Backups

BKUP_PATH=$MC_PATH/backup

This is the path to the backup folder. Map backups and old log entries will go there.

BKUP_DAYS_INCR=3

How long will incremental map backups be kept? (Only used with the './minecraft.sh backup full' command)

BKUP_DAYS_FULL=3

How long will full map backups be kept? (Only used with the './minecraft.sh backup full' command)

BACKUP_FULL_LINK=${BKUP_PATH}/${WORLD_NAME}_full.tgz

Naming convention for full backups.

BACKUP_INCR_LINK=${BKUP_PATH}/${WORLD_NAME}_incr.tgz

Naming convention for incremental backups.

Logs

LOG_TDIR=/var/www/minecraftLogs

This is the path to the logs folder

LOGS_DAYS=7

How long will the logs be kept? (Only used with the './minecraft.sh logs clean' command)

Mapping

CARTO_PATH=$MC_PATH/carto

This is the path to c10t's cartography script

MAPS_PATH=/var/www/minecraftMaps

This is the path to the world maps folder

CARTO_OPTIONS="-q -s"

This contains all of the options you want when running cartography.

MAP_CHANGES=1

Set this to 1 if you want cartography to also create a 'changes.png' file that will show you what has changed since the last mapper, 0 will turn this feature off.

BIOME_PATH=/home/minecraft/BiomeExtractor

This is the path to MinecraftBiomeExtractor.jar

MCOVERVIEWER_PATH=$MC_PATH/Overviewer/

This is the path to Overviewer (overviewer.py)

MCOVERVIEWER_MAPS_PATH=/var/www/minecraft/maps/Overview/

This is the location where Overviewer will render

MCOVERVIEWER_OPTIONS="--rendermodes=lighting,night"

This contains all of the options you want when running Overviewer.

Detailed Command Usage

./minecraft.sh

Without arguments, the script will resume the server screen. (If you want to close the screen without shutting down the server, use CTRL+A then press D to detach the screen)

./minecraft.sh status

Tells you if the servers seems to be running, or not.

./minecraft.sh start [force]

Starts the server. If you know your server is not running, but the script believe it is, use the force option.

./minecraft.sh stop [force]

Self explainatory

./minecraft.sh restart [warn]

If the warn option is specified, it will display a warning 30s & 10s before the restart happens.

./minecraft.sh logs [clean]

Parses logs into several files, grouped into a folder named with the date of the logging. If the clean option is specified, it will move the older folders into the backup folder. Again, this command should be issues before a server restart.

Note: If you run this command with Hey0, you will see a message that states something like: "Found a log lock : server_##########" This is not an error and just a notification message. Logs are being generated correctly.

./minecraft.sh backup [full]

Displays a message to the players if the server is online, stops the writing of chunks, create a dated archive and backs up the world folder. If the full option is specified, it will delete the older incremental and full archives based on the settings.

#####./minecraft.sh say message If the server is online, this will send the to all users via the console.

Correct: ./minecraft.sh say "This is a public message"

./minecraft.sh tell user message

If the server is online, this will send a whisper of to .

Correct: ./minecraft.sh tell test_user "This is a private message"

./minecraft.sh sync [purge]

This updates the offline folder to have the most recent information from the online folder This needs to be ran before you update any maps via the commands. The size of both folders will be displayed.

The purge option will delete the offline folder before a sync is performed. This is useful for when you delete chunks from your online world and need those deletions to be transfered to the offline folder.

./minecraft.sh cartography [sync]

Displays a message to the players if the server is online, stops the writing of chunks, initiates c10t's cartography script. I strongly recommend the MAPS_PATH to be an internet public folder. The sync option will sync the world before mapping occurs.

./minecraft.sh overviewer [sync]

Displays a message to the players if the server is online, stops the writing of chunks, initiates Brownan's Overviewer script. The sync option will sync the world before mapping occurs. I strongly recommend the MCOVERVIER_MAPS_PATH to be an internet public folder as well.

./minecraft.sh biome [sync]

Running the extractor will update any biome information from new chunks. The sync option will sync the world before mapping occurs.

./minecraft.sh update

Stops the server if it is online, backs up the old binaries, downloads the last binaries from minecraft.net and restarts the server. If RUNECRAFT=1, then the latest version of Runecraft will be downloaded and injected into the JAR. This is the only way to have runecraft installed. If you want Runecraft, but not hMod, then you would set SERVERMOD=0 and RUNECRAFT=1. You would then run './minecraft.sh update' to inject Runecraft into just the vanilla server jar (the latest one, of course).

Future updates :

Bugfixes ?
Better log parsing, this one is realy primitive
Anything you could think of.

sluther/Minecraft-Sheller