How to Kick and Ban Players on Your Arma 3 Server

There are two ways to remove players: directly in the game through the chat console, or from outside through BattlEye RCON – even when you are not on the server yourself.

Note

You need admin rights to use the in-game commands. See Add Admin.

Use commands in the game

1. Log in as admin
   Press the / key in the game to open the chat console and log in as admin:

   #login yourAdminPassword

2. Kick a player
   Disconnect a player from the server. You can pass the player name, the ID or the player number:

   #kick PlayerName

   The player is disconnected immediately but can rejoin at any time.

3. Ban a player
   Block a player permanently. With #exec, the name or ID has to be wrapped in quotation marks:

   #exec ban "PlayerName"

   The player's ID is added to the ban list ban.txt in the main directory of your server.

4. Lift a ban
   Remove a ban again. Only the player's UID works here, not the name:

   #exec unban "76561198012345678"

Command overview

Command	Description
#kick <name/ID>	Disconnect a player from the server
#exec ban "<name/ID>"	Ban a player permanently
#exec unban "<UID>"	Lift a ban – only possible using the UID
#lock	Lock the server – nobody can join anymore
#unlock	Unlock the server again

Caution

Do not edit the ban files of your server by hand. Use #exec unban or the RCON commands to lift bans – this keeps the list in a valid state.

Set up BattlEye RCON

With RCON you manage players from your PC without being in the game. In Arma 3, RCON runs exclusively through BattlEye.

Important

RCON only works while BattlEye is active on your server. If the server.cfg contains BattlEye = 0;, RCON cannot be used.

1. Stop the server
   Stop your server via the dashboard.

2. Enable BattlEye
   Open the file /server.cfg via SFTP and make sure it contains the following value:

   BattlEye = 1;

3. Determine the port
   RCON runs through the BattlEye port of your server – that is the Game Port + 4. The ports assigned to your server are shown in the dashboard. If that port is not available to you, assign an additional port to your server there and use it instead.

4. Create the BattlEye configuration
   Change into the battleye folder of your server via SFTP and create the file beserver_x64.cfg there – or open it if it already exists. Enter the following two lines:

   RConPassword yourRconPassword
   RConPort yourRconPort

   Note

   BattlEye creates the folder automatically the first time the server starts with BattlEye enabled, by default inside the server profile directory – so under /serverprofile/battleye. If you cannot find it, start your server once with BattlEye = 1; and stop it again afterwards. If your server starts with the 32-bit binary, the file is called beserver.cfg instead of beserver_x64.cfg.

5. Start the server
   Save the changes and start your server.

6. Connect via RCON
   Connect using an RCON tool such as BattleWarden and enter the IP address of your server, the RCON port and the RCON password.

RCON commands

Command	Description
players	Shows all connected players with player number, GUID and ping
kick [player #] [reason]	Disconnects a player from the server
ban [player #] [time] [reason]	Bans a connected player by GUID, 0 means permanent
addBan [GUID or IP] [time] [reason]	Bans a player who is currently not connected
bans	Lists all active bans together with their ban number
removeBan [ban #]	Lifts a single ban
loadBans	Reloads the ban list
writeBans	Removes expired bans from the list
say [player #] [message]	Sends a message, -1 sends it to everyone

Lift a ban via RCON

First run bans and note the number of the entry. Then lift the ban with removeBan <ban #>.

Note

The player numbers from players are only valid for the current session. Check them again right before every kick or ban.