Modpack Switcher is a utility to allow you to easily switch between modpacks while only using one server host, like PloxHost or Shockbyte to name a few. This works as a console interface to let you choose which modpack to start when you boot your server. Usage instructions are below.
- File access on the server, something like FTP would be good.
- The ability to change the file that the server executes on start (this can be done with PloxHost but I haven't been able to try anything else).
Modpack Switcher is fairly easy to use. First, download the latest artifact from below, extract it, and place the jar in the main directory of your server. This directory will be the same one where the files for a modpack would go. Now create a directory called packs in the same folder as the jar. This directory will hold all of the directories for your modpacks, and you can put them there now. Here is an example structure.
.
├── packs
│ ├── funny
│ │ ├── modpackswitcher.txt
│ │ ├── forge-1.12.2-server.jar
│ │ ├── server.properties
│ │ └── ...
│ └── rlcraft
│ ├── Install.sh
│ ├── modpackswitcher.txt
│ ├── server.jar
│ ├── StartServer.sh
│ └── ...
└── switcher.jar
Now, inside of each of those modpack folders (in our case funny and sevtech), you are going to want to create a file called modpackswitcher.txt. Inside of this file you are going to want to put the command used to launch the server, which can usually be found in the README of the modpack. In this case, we'll say that to start funny, you need to just use java -jar forge-1.12.2-server.jar, so that's exactly what goes in the modpackswitcher.txt file. For Sevtech: Ages, you need to first run the install script and then the start script. There are 2 ways to accomplish this.
- You can run the install script locally and transfer those files to the server
- You can set the command in
modpackswitcher.txttosh Install.sh, start the server, and then after it's done installing, stop the server and change the command tosh StartServer.sh.
Now, all you need to do is set the file that the server executes on start to switcher.jar, or whatever the name of the first file you downloaded is. This can be done via the control panel on some hosts.
When you first run the switcher jar file, if there isn't a file called mpswconfig.ini in the current directory, the file will be created with the default values set. There is one option for the last used modpack, you probably won't need to change that as it's changed automatically, and there's an option for the absolute path of the working directory. This is useful if the switcher is incorrectly detecting the directory that you're in. To change this, just set it to the absolute path of the directory containing the packs directory.
Modpack Switcher will automatically accept the EULA in two cases. The first case is if accepteula = true is present in mpswconfig.ini, then the EULA will be accepted automatically when you start a modpack. The other case is if the EULA is already accepted in the eula.txt file in the directory of switcher.jar. Server hosts will sometimes include an accepted EULA in your working directory on the server (where you put switcher.jar), and since we're not running a traditional modpack, Modpack Switcher will transfer this accepted EULA into each of it's modpacks.
Latest release artifact: https://nightly.link/TabulateJarl8/modpackSwitcher/workflows/main/master/switcher.jar.zip
