How to Install and Set Up Dynmap on Your Minecraft Server

Dynmap generates a live, interactive Google-Maps-style view of your Minecraft world that anyone can browse from a web browser. It shows terrain, player positions in real time, claim borders, sign markers, and can render multiple worlds and dimensions. It's the most popular web-mapping plugin for Minecraft and has been actively maintained for over a decade.

What Dynmap Looks Like

When set up, players visit http://your-server:8123 (or your custom URL) and see:

• A pannable, zoomable rendered map of your world
• Live player positions (toggleable)
• Multi-world dropdown
• Sidebar with player list and chat (optional)
• Flat / 3D / cave / nether render types

Install Dynmap

Render Your Whole World

Dynmap renders chunks as players load them. To pre-render the entire world, use:

/dynmap fullrender

This walks the entire loaded world and generates tiles for everything. It's CPU-intensive and will lag the server — run during off-peak hours or with no players online.

Render Commands

Render Time Estimates

Times depend heavily on server CPU and render quality settings.

Configuration

Dynmap's main config is plugins/dynmap/configuration.txt. The most important settings:

Web Server

webserver-port: 8123
webserver-bindaddress: 0.0.0.0

To change the port (and update Network allocation accordingly):

webserver-port: 8125

Map Behavior

defaultzoom: 0
showplayerfacesinmenu: true
player-sort: name
hidenameswithpermission: false

Disable Live Player Tracking

For privacy or PvP servers, hide player positions:

display-whitelist: false
showplayerfacesonmap: false

Players can also hide themselves with /dynmap hide (requires permission).

Multi-World Setup

Each world has its own config in plugins/dynmap/worlds.txt. By default, all loaded worlds are mapped — to disable a world:

worlds:
  - name: world_nether
    enabled: false

Map Types

Dynmap supports multiple render styles per world:

Edit worlds.txt to add or remove map types per world.

Add Markers and Claims

Dynmap supports markers, area highlights, and integration with land-claim plugins:

Drop the addon JAR into plugins/ alongside Dynmap. They auto-detect.

Public Web Address

By default, Dynmap is at http://your-ip:8123. To make it look nicer:

1. Buy a domain and create an A record pointing to your server IP (see Custom Server IP)
2. Set up a subdomain like map.yourserver.com
3. (Optional) Set up an Nginx reverse proxy with HTTPS for https://map.yourserver.com instead of port 8123

Performance Tips

1. Run renders during low traffic — full renders are CPU-heavy
2. Lower update-perchunk to reduce mid-game render load
3. Use the flat render type instead of surface for huge worlds — it's much faster
4. Disable cave / nether maps if you don't need them
5. Set tilescale: 1 instead of 2 — half the disk usage, slightly less detail
6. Pre-generate the world with Chunky before the full render

Storage Considerations

Rendered tiles are stored in plugins/dynmap/web/tiles/. For a 10,000-block radius world with default settings, expect:

• Surface map: 1–3 GB
• Flat map: 500 MB – 1 GB
• Cave + nether: another 500 MB – 1 GB

Monitor your disk usage. Dynmap can fill a small server's disk if you run multiple full renders.

Common Issues

Common Mistakes

Alternatives

For most servers, Dynmap is still the safe choice. For pretty visuals, try BlueMap. For tiny servers that just want a basic top-down map, try Squaremap.

Related Guides

• Plugin Setup
• Pre-Generate Chunks
• Custom Server IP
• Optimize Server
• Setup WorldGuard