Falcon Broadcaster
Lists a Minecraft: Bedrock Edition server in the Xbox Live friends list, written in C++17

What is this?

An Xbox Live account runs the broadcaster and publishes a multiplayer session. Its friends see the server as a world in the Friends tab of Minecraft and join it like any friend's world, including on consoles, where custom servers cannot be added. Every player who joins is sent straight on to the server.

• Session - the server is published as a world joinable by friends, over NetherNet with WebSocket or JSON-RPC signaling
• Transfer - joining players get a minimal game start, then a transfer to the configured server
• Routes - players can be sent to another server by language, platform or name, such as a regional server or a lobby
• Console - status, friends, reload and stop; reload applies the settings without a restart
• Server status - the server is queried so the world shows its MOTD and player count
• Friends - friend requests are accepted, and friends who stopped joining are removed to keep room in the list
• Presence - the account stays online, which friends need to see the world
• Several accounts - each account has its own friends list, so more players fit once one list is full
• Reconnection - a lost session or signaling connection is restored on its own, waiting longer after each failure

It is built on Network, which provides the Xbox Live services, the multiplayer session and the NetherNet transport.

Getting started

Run FalconBroadcaster. The first start writes broadcaster.json and exits; set server.host and server.port to the server players are sent to, then start it again. It asks you to sign in each broadcasting account with a Microsoft device code and keeps its token at the path set in accounts.

{
  "server": { "host": "play.example.net", "port": 19132 },
  "routes": [
    {
      "server": { "host": "eu.example.net", "port": 19132 },
      "languages": ["fr_*", "de_*"],
      "platforms": [],
      "players": []
    }
  ],
  "session": {
    "hostName": "",
    "worldName": "",
    "maxPlayers": 20,
    "queryServer": true,
    "updateInterval": 30,
    "signaling": "websocket"
  },
  "accounts": [
    { "name": "main", "token": "cache/token.json" }
  ],
  "friendSync": {
    "enabled": true,
    "updateInterval": 60,
    "acceptRequests": true,
    "removeInactive": true,
    "inactiveDays": 8,
    "maxFriends": 1000
  },
  "cache": { "playerHistory": "cache/player_history.json" }
}

Empty hostName and worldName show the MOTD the server reports. Add an entry to accounts for each extra account, with its own token path; an account stops accepting friend requests once it reaches maxFriends.

A player goes to the first route they match, or to server when none does. Empty lists match everyone. Platforms are android, ios, windows, xbox, playstation, switch, macos, fireos and linux; players takes gamertags or XUIDs. Another file can be used with -config path/to/broadcaster.json.

Players add a broadcasting account as a friend on Xbox, then join it from the Friends tab.

Docker and Pterodactyl

docker run -it -v broadcaster:/data ghcr.io/falcon-mc/broadcaster

The settings, tokens and logs live in /data. A Pterodactyl egg is in the Pterodactyl repository.

Building

Requires CMake 3.16+, a C++17 compiler, zlib and OpenSSL. The first configure needs network access to fetch the dependencies. On Windows the reference toolchain is MSYS2 UCRT64.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
cmake --build build

Related repositories

• Falcon - the server
• Network - RakNet and NetherNet transport, Xbox Live services
• Protocol - packets and network types
• NBT - NBT tags and binary streams

Licensing information

Falcon Broadcaster is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0, which supplements the GNU General Public License v3.0. You may use, modify and redistribute it, as long as changes to it stay under the same license.

Falcon is not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft. All brands and trademarks belong to their respective owners.