Minecraft EssentialsX AntiBuild

in Plugins

By Nathan Young

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Overview

Protecting your Minecraft server from griefers or random players is an important element to ensure your world’s progression. No one would want to build for hours on end to only have it blown up by a troublesome user in-game. The EssentialsX AntiBuild plugin allows you to completely configure what can be placed, broken, or used on your Spigot or Paper server. There’s even an alert system that can offer more protection for your buildings or loot. Apex Hosting will show you exactly how to install the plugins and to configure them properly for your desired outcome.
 

Installation

1. Head over to the EssentialsX Download page and click Download for the EssentialsX & EssentialsX AntiBuild plugins.
   
2. After obtaining the files, navigate towards your Apex server panel and in the top left corner press FTP File Access.
3. Login with your panel password and enter into the plugins directory.
4. Once there, locate and click the Upload button near the top left of the panel.
5. Drag and drop the plugin JAR files in the respective area and wait for them to reach 100%.
   
6. Afterward, head back to the main panel to Restart your server so the plugins can load.

Getting Started

The main EssentialsX plugin has been in the Minecraft community since 2015 and collected over 6 million downloads. That includes their respective addons such as the AntiBuild one to offer more control in your server. The plugin is relatively small compared to others, but is nonetheless effective against griefers in-game.
 

Configuration

Griefers may try all sorts of things to ruin your worlds, buildings, farms, etc. Protecting against those threats is important to guarding your valuable progression. There are no commands to configure the plugin sadly, so everything is programmed in the FTP panel.

1. Head to your server panel and locate the FTP File Access area, then login using your password.
2. Once there, enter into the plugins folder and press Edit to the right of the config.yml file.
3. Scroll down until reaching the AntiBuild section of the file, which is on line 1083.
   
4. You may now start configuring what players can use, build, and break in-game.

 
It’s advised to keep the following settings enabled if you want to still allow people to interact with your world.

build: true  -  Toggles if building is allowed for players in your world.
use: true  -  Controls if using or interacting in your world by players is disabled or not.

You may find an entire description of the settings and values on EssentialsX’s AntiBuild wiki.
 

Alert Setup

Inside the file, you may set up alerts to be notified if specific items or blocks are placed, used, or broken. It’s entirely configurable and makes it so you can keep track of what’s interacting in your world. Alternatively, you could make no notifications happen if that’s something you're not wanting to utilize.

An example to be notified about lava, water, TNT, and bedrock interactions is down below.

  alert:
    on-placement: LAVA,TNT,LAVA_BUCKET,WATER,WATER_BUCKET,BEDROCK
    on-use: LAVA_BUCKET,WATER_BUCKET,TNT
    on-break: BEDROCK

All materials for the checks can be found on Spigot’s Enum Materials page. Use their respective names/IDs when editing the alert settings.
 

Blacklisting

Similarly to the alerts, you can configure specific entities in the settings. However, you can start actually preventing blocks or items from being used, placed, or broken within the blacklist category of the file. This is the most important aspect to EssentialsX AntiBuild since it controls what players can interact with in your world.

For instance, preventing creeper spawn eggs among other items from being used is down below.

  blacklist:
    placement: TNT,LAVA_BUCKET,BEDROCK,CREEPER_SPAWN_EGG
    usage: LAVA_BUCKET,TNT,CREEPER_SPAWN_EGG
    break: BEDROCK
    piston: BEDROCK
    dispenser: CREEPER_SPAWN_EGG

Permissions

If you disabled building from the configuration and only wanted specific individuals to do that, then you’d want to install a permissions managing plugin. We advise using LuckPerms for that functionality, which will give you the ability to implement AntiBuild bypass features for players or ranks. You may review the permission node list down below to get started.

 
Those are all the permissions from the AntiBuild addon in EssentialsX, but you can review an entire list of them here.
 

Conclusion

Most Minecraft server owners want to protect their world from griefers, and EssentialsX gives you the ability to do that through its AntiBuild addon. You can get alerts for specific blocks being placed or broken such as Bedrock or Lava Buckets. The key aspect to the plugin is preventing them from being used at all, which is done by blacklisting entities. Once everything is properly programmed, you may enjoy a safe experience while building in your world. We hoped this guide assisted you in setting up the plugin and protecting your server!
 

Useful Links

EssentialsX Download page
EssentialsX’s AntiBuild wiki
EssentialsX’s Permission wiki
Spigot’s Enum Materials page