How to Become an Admin on Your 7 Days to Die Server

Getting admin on a 7 Days to Die server used to be a one-liner with your Steam ID. The 1.0 update changed that, and it is now the single most common reason people open a ticket saying "I added myself as admin but the commands still get denied." Nine times out of ten it is one of two things: the entry is in the old format, or it got edited while the server was running and never stuck. Here is the way that actually works on a current server.

Following an old guide? Anything that tells you to add a steamID="..." line stopped working at 1.0. The current format uses a <user> entry with a platform and a userid. If a tutorial looks like it was written for Alpha 21, skip it.

What you'll need

Your SteamID64, the 17-digit number that starts with 7656119. If you are not sure of yours, paste your Steam profile URL into steamid.io or the SteamDB calculator and it will give you the number.

If you or your players join through the Epic Games Store or a console rather than Steam, the ID is a different one entirely, and there is a more reliable way to grab it further down.

Step 1: Stop the server

7 Days to Die can overwrite serveradmin.xml while it is running, so make your edits with the server stopped. Otherwise they have a habit of quietly vanishing on the next start.

1. Log in to the LOW.MS Control Panel.
2. Open your 7 Days to Die service.
3. Hit STOP on the service overview and wait for it to actually go offline before moving on.

Step 2: Open serveradmin.xml

In the sidebar, click Configuration Files, find the serveradmin.xml entry (it may show as Server Admins), and click Text Editor.

If you would rather work in the file tree, File Manager gets you there too. The live file sits at save\Saves\serveradmin.xml.

Step 3: Add yourself

Scroll to the part of the file between <users> and </users> and drop in a line for each admin:

<users>
    <user platform="Steam" userid="76561198000000000" name="YourName" permission_level="0" />
</users>

Swap in your own details. platform is the network you connect from, so Steam for the Steam copy of the game. userid is that SteamID64 from earlier. name is just a label for your own benefit so you can tell entries apart later; it does not have to match your in-game name. And permission_level is the one that matters, which brings us to the next bit.

What the permission level actually means

The scale runs from 0 to 1000, and it is backwards from what most people expect: a lower number means more power, not less. A 0 can run every command in the game. Players who are not listed at all sit at 1000. Anything in between is for moderators you want to hand a few commands without giving away the whole toolbox.

For yourself, or anyone you trust to run the server, you want 0.

If you play cross-play (Epic or console)

Cross-play is where most of the "I added my Steam ID and it still does not work" tickets come from. The server identifies each player by both a platform and a userid, and your entry only counts if both match how you actually connect. Add a Steam ID but join through Epic, and the server is looking for a completely different identifier.

The no-guessing way to get the right values:

1. Join the server once with whatever account you will be playing on.
2. Open Log Viewer in the panel sidebar.
3. Find the line from when you connected. It lists the exact platform and user ID the server saw.
4. Copy those straight into the platform and userid fields.

Since you are copying what the server itself reported, there is nothing left to get wrong.

Step 4: Start it back up

Save the file, then hit START from the panel. Once the server is back online, jump in and open the console with F1 to test your commands. Changes only apply on a full stop and start, so a quick reload will not do it.

Still getting "command not allowed"?

Run through these before opening a ticket:

• Make sure you edited the live file. It is the serveradmin.xml under Configuration Files (save\Saves\serveradmin.xml), not some older copy.
• Check the platform matches how you join. A Steam entry will not authenticate an Epic or console connection; pull the real values from Log Viewer as above.
• Confirm the userid is your SteamID64 and not your display name or a vanity URL.
• Make sure the line is genuinely between the <users> and </users> tags, not pasted somewhere else in the file.
• Did you fully stop and start? Editing while the server was up is the classic reason a change does not take.

Related guides

• Getting Started with Your 7 Days To Die Dedicated Server
• 7 Days To Die Server Configuration Guide
• 7 Days To Die Server Troubleshooting