Advice needed, new server setup

Hi, all--

About 5 years ago I used Bukkit to run a server on the same computer as my own, then I fired up my own copy of Minecraft and played on it. I also gave my son my IP address and he was able to join me from another state. We were able to spend time together in this way while I was separated from my family for half a year. We had a blast building things together.

So it's been a very long time, and I have an interest in firing up a server again, this time on a dedicated machine. I have not yet installed Mojang's no-frill, default server. I'm not sure if that's advisable or even needed before running Bukkit.

I don't really know how Bukkit runs with the current version of Minecraft, which now seems to be updating its launcher quite often. I'm not sure how Bukkit keeps up with the Minecraft versions, if I should even let Minecraft update on its own, or keep it old so it runs with Bukkit, etc... I hope you all know what I'm saying, here.

It's just a little overwhelming. I want to start the whole thing up again, only this time so that my son can join from another machine on the local network, AND some of his cousins can come into the server. I want them to play together in such a way that a bunch of other people can't come in. I want it to be private. Perhaps password-protected? If that's a thing.

Anyway I know this was kind of rambling and I hope it wasn't too vague. Any guidance is appreciated.

 

@Ighnot
You do not need to pre-install the default Minecraft Server to start a Bukkit server. Bukkit is kept up-to-date as much as possible through Spigot. To download the jars (server files), check this thread on Spigot and follow the tutorial in the thread: https://www.spigotmc.org/wiki/buildtools/. Bukkit is compatable with the latest version of Minecraft, 1.11.2

To keep the server private, you can keep a whitelist, which is a list of usernames (uuids actually) of people who can join the server. Just use /whitelist on, then /whitelist add <user> when in-game to add players to the whitelist.

 

If you don't want other people joining it, simply keep the IP private

 

Many thanks for this. I'll get it going!