Minecraft wiki entry for Create_a_Mac_OS_X_startup_daemon, associated text: This script listens for activity on the default Minecraft port, 25565 and runs the server when a connection is made. Because Minecraft clients send the username upon first contact, this script uses that to check if the player has access to the server, and ignores them if they don't. This could be changed to allow anyone to remotely start the server by removing the 'if' statement. Note that users must connect twice on a cold run: once to launch the server, and again once it is up and running.