How to Install Addons to Your Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Server

This article will guide you through the process of adding addons to your Minecraft: Bedrock Edition server.

What are Addons?

Addons for Minecraft: Bedrock edition go by a few different names, formats, and what they can accomplish for your server. They are often referred as Mods, Behavior Packs, Texture Packs and Resource Packs. When they're a Mod or Behavior Pack, they modify the rules or mechanics of the game. As a Texture Pack or Resource Pack, they change the appearance of various things in your game. Some authors of Behavior Packs also include files for new textures as well, causing you to have both in the pack.

These can also come in formats of .mcpack, .mcaddon, or .mcworld. The .mcworld formatted addons come with a premade world included with "mods". It's a system that is very broad, so thankfully the Minecraft Help Center has an FAQ if you have any questions at all that aren't touched upon in this article. That can be found here: https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/4409140076813-Minecraft-Add-Ons-for-Bedrock-Versions-FAQ

How to Install Addons to Your Server

In this guide, we will be using an addon that has both behavior and resource files included; it adds mutated monsters that are quite terrifying.

Download the Addon File to Your PC

There are a few various sites you can go to download addons. They should be in .mcpack, .mcaddon, or .mcworld format, but some authors will provide the files in Zip or WinRar format which can work just as well.

Extract the Addon File

Extract the pack file using a tool such as 7zip or WinRar.

This particular addon pack required us to extract these two new files again to get both the behavior and resource files, but yours might not need this extra step.

Upload to Your Server

Now we must upload these folders to their appropriate places in your NodePanel's File Manager. For this set of packs, we'll upload the NewMutantBeh folder into the behavior_packs folder.

Then we'll upload the NewMutantRes folder into the resource_packs folder.

Activating the Addons

Now we must activate the addon files to be used on the server's world. This is done with some .json files. Inside your existing world folder, create two separate files. One called world_behavior_packs.json and one called world_resource_packs.json.

Let's start with activating the resource pack first. Navigate to the resource pack you want to use in the /resource_packs folder. Select and Edit the manifest.json file.

There are two pieces of information we need from this file that will go into the world_resource_packs.json file. The uuid and version lines, which you will need to copy and paste. If you have Notepad++ or a text editing program, you may use those to save you some time going back and forth between the files.

Return back to the world_resource_packs.json file in your world folder, it's now time to Edit the file. Copy and paste the following into your world_resource_packs.json file:

[
  {
        "pack_id": "uuid here",
        "version": [version number here]
  }
]

Enter in the uuid number you got from the manifest.json file in between the two quotations in the pack_id line. The version number will go in between the two brackets in the version line. Your file should now look very similar to this:

Don't forget to Save your changes!

You'll need to repeat this same process with the world_behavior_packs.json file using the manifest.json file from your resource pack in your /behavior_packs folder.

Start your server

Now you can Start your server up and it will have the extra content included on your server!