Note: When first starting fCraft, type this in the console of your running server: /promote YourUserName DesiredClassName to promote yourself.

Windows

Make sure that you have Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5+ installed.
Download fCraft binaries here.
Extract the zip file into the directory where you wish to keep all the server data (maps, logs, config, etc).
Before starting the server you probably want to run ConfigTool.exe, and carefully configure the options you want your server to run (Config is stored in config.xml).
After configuring the server, you can run either fCraftUI.exe (GUI version) OR fCraftConsole.exe (command-line version) to start the server.
- You will need to forward the port on your router that you set the server to run on for people to be able to connect to you. Default port is 25565

Linux, Unix, MacOS X (Mono)

fCraft has been tested/compiled on:
- Debian Squeeze w/ Mono 2.4.4 - deb http://debian.meebey.net/pkg-mono
- Debian Lenny w/ Mono 2.4.2.3 - deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main | mono-devel package (Thanks to Fighter for testing)
- Mac OS X 10.6.4 w/ Mono 2.6.4 (Thanks to Panda for testing)
- CentOS 4 w/ Mono 2.6.4 (requires a workaround, thanks to iKJames for testing)
The first and most important step here is to ensure you have the Mono runtime installed.
The next step is to download the latest binaries
- fCraft can be compiled from source using Mono (using MonoDevelop IDE is the easiest way) if you wish to keep up with the latest experimental versions on the SVN. Visit #fCraft on irc.esper.net if you need more info.
From here on out is roughly the same as on Windows. You can run mono ConfigTool.exe to configure your server, and then either mono fCraftUI.exe OR mono fCraftConsole.exe to start the server.
- If you want to run console-only on a headless server, the ConfigTool GUI probably won't work for you to configure things. You can run ConfigTool on your local machine and upload edited config.xml/worlds.xml. Alternatively, edit config.xml manually with your favourite text editor. Detailed information about config.xml keys can be found here.

Troubleshooting

I made changed to the config/world list, but changes didn't apply

Make sure that fCraftConsole and fCraftUI are NOT running while you run ConfigTool. fCraft may overwrite your changes if it's still running.
Changes are not saved until you hit "OK" or "Apply" in ConfigTool.
Make sure that ConfigTool is in the same folder as the rest of the server files. If you compiled fCraft from source, copy binaries from separate project folders.

How do I promote myself to the highest rank/class?

Type the following in console (either fCraftConsole or fCraftUI): /promote YourName DesiredClass

CentOS problems

There have been a lot of problems reported with getting Mono working on CentOS.

Use the official package from the Mono website. The version available via yum may be outdated.
You may have to add mono directory (/opt/novell/mono/) to your paths. Adding something like this to your startup script should do it:

#echo export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/novell/mono/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH>>~/.bash_profile
#echo export PATH=/opt/novell/mono/bin:$PATH>>~/.bash_profile
#source ~/.bash_profile

System.DllNotFoundException: libMonoPosixHelper.so

Install libmono-posix2.0-cil package.

This is also a known issue with compiling Mono from source on CentOS. Update to 2.8+ (recommended), or try this workaround.

Memory usage keeps going up under Mono

Try running mono with "--gc=sgen" switch, like this: mono -gc=sgen fCraftConsole.exe (thanks to wootalyzer for discovering).