Admins and bans

Identities

A player’s identity is a 32-digit code, the same on every join from one install of the game, and no one else’s. Anyone can type any name, and names are not unique, so the server knows a player by their identity.

The server prints it as each player joins:

Alice joined as 3 from 203.0.113.7:51234, 3f9a0c41d2e87b6a5c0f1e2d3c4b5a69

Admins

List admins’ identities in the admins setting of the server’s file:

{ "admins": ["3f9a0c41d2e87b6a5c0f1e2d3c4b5a69"] }

An admin can, in the chat box:

• /set and /reset the settings an admin may change, and read the password;
• change the match: /match, /match_next, /match_restart, /match_rotation;
• /kick, /ban and /unban;
• join a locked server without its password.

A mod gives its admins more, such as stock’s /mute.

To make yourself an admin on a test server, join it once, copy your identity from the server’s line, then start it again with --set 'admins=["<identity>"]'.

The console

The server’s own console, its standard input, runs the engine’s commands:

• /set and /reset of every setting, but those the server’s file alone sets and the locked ones;
• /match, /match_next, /match_restart and /match_rotation;
• /kick, /ban and /unban.

A mod’s commands, such as /mute, run only in a player’s chat box. A server running in a shell’s background has no console.

Kicks and bans

Command	What it does
/kick <player> [for] [reason]	drops the player; with a time, keeps them out that long
/ban <player> <for> [reason]	drops the player and keeps them out for that long
/unban <identity>	lets them back in; their banned name works too

A player is typed as in chat: any part of their name, or # and their number. A time is a whole number and its unit, 30s, 5m, 12h or 7d, up to 3650d. A reason comes only after a time, and is cut to 51 bytes.

A kick or ban for a while drops every game of that identity and refuses it until then. The banned player is told until when, and why. Bans are kept in bans.json beside server.key, so they outlast a restart.

The server’s bots share one identity, so a bot can be kicked but never kept out.