How to Add an Admin to Your Colony Survival Server

Colony Survival manages permissions through groups. Every player starts in the group peasant; they get admin rights once you assign them a higher group. On a fresh server, however, nobody is allowed to make that assignment in-game yet – which is why you define the first admin through a file.

Tip

You need the player's SteamID64 for the file entry. Here you can find a guide on how to find your SteamID64.

The permission groups

Group	Permissions
peasant	Default group for all players – regular play without admin commands
king	Cheats, teleport, time and loot commands as well as /save, /backup and stopping the server
god	Contains all permissions of king and may additionally grant permissions and manage the whitelist and blacklist

Note

For the full admin role – including banning players and granting permissions to others – you need the group god.

Add the first admin

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

2. Connect via SFTP
   Connect to your server via SFTP.

3. Open or create the file
   Navigate to the folder of your world and open the file permissionusers.json there. <worldname> is the folder name of your world – it matches the World Name field in the dashboard:

   /gamedata/savegames/<worldname>/permissionusers.json

   Note

   The file does not exist initially. In that case simply create it.

4. Enter the SteamID64
   Add your SteamID64 together with the group god. Important: the SteamID64 is prefixed with 1. – that prefix marks a Steam player and is mandatory:

   {
     "1.76561198012345678": {
       "includes": ["god"]
     }
   }

   Separate multiple admins with a comma:

   {
     "1.76561198012345678": {
       "includes": ["god"]
     },
     "1.76561198087654321": {
       "includes": ["king"]
     }
   }

   Warning

   Without the leading 1. the server does not recognise the entry and you stay without permissions. If the file already contains entries such as "2.0" or "3.0", leave them untouched and add your entry next to them.

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

6. Check your permissions
   Join your server, press T to open the chat and enter an admin command, for example:

   /reloadpermission

   If the command goes through, you have admin rights. If you lack the rights, the server tells you that the matching permission is missing.

Warning

Make sure the JSON stays valid: double quotes, commas between the entries and no comma after the last entry. If the file is malformed, the permissions are not applied.

Add more admins in the game

Once you are in the group god yourself, you can grant all further permissions conveniently through the chat.

1. Open the chat
   Press T in the game to open the chat.

2. Assign the group
   Assign the desired group to the player – either by their player name or by their SteamID64:

   /setgroup god Sam

   /setgroup king 76561198012345678

   Note

   If the player name contains spaces, put it in quotation marks: /setgroup god "The Dragon Whisperer"

3. Revoke permissions
   To take the rights back, remove the group again:

   /removegroup god Sam

Command overview

Command	Description
/setgroup <group> <player>	Sets the group of a player
/addgroup <group> <player>	Adds an additional group to a player
/removegroup <group> <player>	Removes a group again
/addpermission <permission> <player>	Grants a single permission
/removepermission <permission> <player>	Revokes a single permission
/reloadpermission	Reloads the permission files
/save	Saves the world
/backup	Creates a backup of the world
/tps	Shows the server performance
/time day · /time night · /time add <hours>	Controls the time of day
/worldseed	Shows the seed of the world
/colony addowner <player> · /colony removeowner <player>	Manages the co-owners of a colony

Note

Admin commands are always entered in the in-game chat. The chat opens with T and closes with Esc.

Create custom permission groups

Tip

The default groups are located in /gamedata/settings/permissiongroups.json. That file gets overwritten by updates. If you want to define your own groups, copy it into the folder of your world:

/gamedata/savegames/<worldname>/permissiongroups.json

There your changes survive an update.

Cheat commands disable achievements permanently

Some commands only become available once you enable cheats with /disableachievements. That step cannot be undone for the world in question – Steam achievements stay disabled in it permanently.

Tip

To learn how to lock players out of your server, see Kick & Ban Players.