How to Kick and Ban Players on Your Minecraft PocketMine Edition Server

You remove players with commands – either in the console of your server or in the game chat. PocketMine-MP distinguishes between name bans and IP bans.

Note

In the game you need operator rights to use these commands. See Add Admin. In the console of your server the commands are always available to you.

Note

If the server does not react to a command in the console, try it with a leading / as well.

Kick a player

/kick <PlayerName> [reason]

The player is disconnected from the server immediately but can rejoin at any time. The optional reason is shown to them.

Note

kick only works for players who are currently online. The name does not have to be complete – PocketMine-MP looks the player up by the beginning of their name.

Ban a player

/ban <PlayerName> [reason]

The player can no longer connect. If they are online at that moment, they are kicked from the server immediately.

Tip

ban also works for players who are not online. You can therefore ban someone in advance as long as you know their exact name.

Ban an IP address

/ban-ip <IP address or player name> [reason]

If you provide an IP address, that address is banned directly. If you provide the name of a player who is currently online instead, the server bans their current IP address.

Warning

An IP ban affects everyone behind the same connection – for example other players in the same household. Many internet connections also get a new IP address regularly, so an IP ban does not last permanently.

Show bans

/banlist [ips|players]

Without an argument the command shows the banned player names – exactly like players does. Banned IP addresses are only shown with ips.

Lift a ban

/pardon <PlayerName>

/pardon-ip <IP address>

Note

Both commands have short forms: /unban <PlayerName> and /unban-ip <IP address> do exactly the same thing.

Command overview

Command	Description
/kick <PlayerName> [reason]	Disconnects a player from the server
/ban <PlayerName> [reason]	Bans a player name permanently
/ban-ip <IP or name> [reason]	Bans an IP address
/pardon <PlayerName>	Lifts the ban of a player name (also /unban)
/pardon-ip <IP address>	Lifts the ban of an IP address (also /unban-ip)
/banlist [ips|players]	Shows the banned player names, with ips the banned IP addresses

The ban lists as files

All bans are stored in two text files in the main folder of your server:

File	Content
banned-players.txt	Banned player names
banned-ips.txt	Banned IP addresses

Every line in banned-players.txt follows this pattern, separated by a vertical bar:

Name|Created|Created by|Expires|Reason

Note

For a permanent ban the "Expires" field contains the value Forever. Dates are stored in the format year-month-day hour:minute:second ±timezone.

Warning

The ban lists are read on server start. If you edit the files by hand, stop your server beforehand and start it again afterwards – otherwise your changes will not apply reliably. While the server is running it is best to always use the commands.

Whitelist instead of a ban list

If you want to open your server only to specific players instead of banning individual ones, use the whitelist.

1. Enable the whitelist
   Enter the following command:

   /whitelist on

2. Allow players
   Add every allowed player individually:

   /whitelist add <PlayerName>

3. Check the list
   Display all allowed players:

   /whitelist list

Command	Description
/whitelist on	Enables the whitelist
/whitelist off	Disables the whitelist
/whitelist add <PlayerName>	Adds a player
/whitelist remove <PlayerName>	Removes a player
/whitelist list	Shows all allowed players
/whitelist reload	Reloads the whitelist

Note

The allowed players are stored in the white-list.txt file in the main folder of your server. Whether the whitelist is active is additionally controlled by the white-list entry in the server.properties file.