minecraft server memory
=======================

I learned to today that setting on your minecraft server causes the JVM to egregiously allocate all of that memory. Not setting it causes slow downs and...

Date: December 10, 2025

I learned to today that setting `MEMORY` on your minecraft server causes the
JVM to egregiously allocate all of that memory. Not setting it causes slow
downs and potential crashes, but setting `INIT_MEMORY` and `MAX_MEMORY` gives
us the best of both worlds. It is allowed to use more, but does not gobble it
all up on startup.

In this economy we need to save all the memory we can!

Here is a non-working snippet for a minecraft server deployment in kubernetes.

``` yaml
 containers:
 - name: dungeon
 image: itzg/minecraft-server
 env:
 - name: EULA
 value: "true"
 - name: INIT_MEMORY
 value: "512M"
 - name: MAX_MEMORY
 value: "3G"
```

and in docker compose

``` yaml
 dungeon:
 image: itzg/minecraft-server
 environment:
 EULA: "true"
 INIT_MEMORY: "512M"
 MAX_MEMORY: "3G"
```