7 Days To Die Server Configuration Guide -- serverconfig.xml Explained

serverconfig.xml is where 7 Days To Die lives or dies. Every rule your players will ever argue about in Discord – Blood Moon size, loot rates, whether Dave can finally kill Steve on sight – is set in this one file. This guide walks through the settings that actually matter on a LOW.MS box, what the defaults really are in V1.0+, and the values we run on our own test servers.

We'll skip the obvious stuff (nobody needs us to explain ServerName) and focus on the knobs that change how the game feels.

Where the file lives and how to edit it

On a LOW.MS 7DTD server, serverconfig.xml sits in the dedicated server install root, right next to the server executable. You've got three ways to reach it:

1. Open Configuration Files on your control panel and pick serverconfig.xml from the list. This is what we recommend for 95% of edits – it's form-based, it validates, and you don't need to touch raw XML unless you want to.
2. Open File Manager in the same panel and edit the file in-browser. Handy if you want to see the whole XML at once.
3. Connect over SFTP on port 8822 (or plain FTP on 8821) with your panel credentials, pull the file down, edit it locally and push it back.

Always stop the server before you save changes. 7DTD rewrites serverconfig.xml on a clean shutdown, so if you edit it live you'll watch your changes get overwritten the next time someone runs shutdown in the console. Once you've saved, start the server from the panel and your new settings are in.

Every entry in the file looks like this:

<property name="SettingName" value="SettingValue" />

Running a cross-play (console + PC) server? Read this first

Cross-play is brilliant, but it comes with strings attached, and this is the one part of the config that will stop your server dead if you get it wrong. The moment console players (PS5, Xbox) are in the mix, the game enforces a set of console-safe limits on top of everything else in this guide. Get a value wrong and, depending on your build, the server either quietly disappears from the console server browser or refuses to start at all, logging Server configuration is invalid followed by Failed initializing core systems, shutting down. If your server won't boot right after you touched the config, this is the very first thing to check.

First, the master switches. All four have to be exactly right or console players can't see you:

• ServerAllowCrossplay set to true
• EACEnabled set to true
• IgnoreEOSSanctions set to false
• ServerMaxPlayerCount at 8 or lower. Cross-play is hard-capped at 8 players, and that's a platform rule from the console side, nothing to do with your LOW.MS plan.

A cross-play server also has to be vanilla (no mods), and WorldGenSize has to be 8192 or smaller, so the 10240 monster map is off the table here.

Then there are the gameplay settings that only accept specific values once cross-play is on. The big one people trip over is AirDropFrequency: on a PC-only server you can set it to anything, but on cross-play it has to be 0 (off) or 24 and above. A value like 3 or 12 is exactly the kind of thing that takes the whole server down. Here's the rest of the clamped list:

These ranges shift slightly between updates, so if the server still won't start after you've sanity-checked the above, open Log Viewer in the panel and look for any line that says outside of allowed range for cross-play. It names the exact setting and the value it expected, which is the fastest way to find the culprit.

Good news: every preset further down this guide already uses cross-play-legal values, so you can lift any of them onto a console-enabled server without it falling over.

And if you're PC/Steam only with no console players, you can ignore this whole section. None of these limits apply and you can set things however you like.

Server identity and networking

These control how you show up in the server browser and how players get in.

World generation

These build the map. Change any of them on an existing save and nothing happens – you need a fresh world.

Our take on world size: 6144 is the sweet spot for most groups. 4096 feels cramped once you've been playing a few weeks, 8192 is great for big communities but generation is slow, and 10240 is a beast that only really makes sense for 30+ player public servers. If you're eyeing a bigger world and you're not sure your current plan has the headroom, check the 7 Days To Die plans page and size up.

Difficulty and the core gameplay feel

This is where you tune the actual experience.

The real V1.0+ difficulty ladder is:

• 0 – Scavenger – very easy, great for absolute newcomers.
• 1 – Adventurer – easy, less punishing zombies.
• 2 – Nomad – the default, and honestly where most groups should sit.
• 3 – Warrior – hurts, but fair.
• 4 – Survivalist – the point at which Blood Moon stops being a set piece and starts being a crisis.
• 5 – Insane – zombies hit like trucks and soak damage. Only pick this if your group is already bored of Survivalist.

If you've seen old guides claiming the default is Adventurer, that was true years ago – it isn't anymore.

Blood Moon and horde settings

Here's what we actually run on a 16-slot PvE box: BloodMoonEnemyCount at 6, MaxSpawnedZombies at 60, BloodMoonRange at 2. It keeps the hordes chaotic without shredding the CPU, and the surprise-night variance stops players from perfectly optimising horde bases.

Zombie behaviour

Loot, air drops and XP

Player mechanics

PvP and land claims

For a PvE server, we set PlayerKillingMode to 0 and push LandClaimOfflineDurabilityModifier up to 8 so griefers can't waltz through offline bases. For a raiding PvP server, set killing mode to 3 and drop offline modifier to 1 – that's what makes raiding actually feel fair.

Anti-cheat, admin and remote access

Performance tuning

If your server is chugging, here's the order we'd touch things in:

1. Drop MaxSpawnedZombies from 64 to around 48, and pull BloodMoonEnemyCount down to 4–6.
2. Cap ServerMaxAllowedViewDistance at 8 or 10 – most of the time it's client draw distance that eats your frames.
3. Reduce MaxSpawnedAnimals a little if you're still hurting.
4. If you're on a huge world and actually running out of RAM, go look at the 7 Days To Die plans and bump up a tier. No amount of XML is going to fix a memory-starved server.
5. If a Steam update pushes a broken build, roll it back using Steam Update in the panel. Nine times out of ten a dodgy patch is the real cause of sudden lag.

And a quick note on backups: we run Cloud Backup on a schedule for every 7DTD server, and you can restore any of those from Cloud Restore or Backup Manager if a Blood Moon eats the map. Worth knowing before you panic.

Presets we actually use

Drop these into your own serverconfig.xml as a starting point. All three use cross-play-legal values, so they're safe on console-enabled servers too.

Casual PvE for a friends group

<property name="GameDifficulty"                         value="2" />
<property name="PlayerKillingMode"                      value="0" />
<property name="BloodMoonFrequency"                     value="7" />
<property name="BloodMoonRange"                         value="2" />
<property name="BloodMoonEnemyCount"                    value="6" />
<property name="LootAbundance"                          value="150" />
<property name="XPMultiplier"                           value="150" />
<property name="DayNightLength"                         value="90" />
<property name="LandClaimOfflineDurabilityModifier"     value="8" />

Nomad difficulty, no PvP, slightly juicier loot and XP, long days so you can actually get things done before dusk, and tough offline bases so nobody logs off sweating.

Hardcore survival

<property name="GameDifficulty"                         value="4" />
<property name="PlayerKillingMode"                      value="0" />
<property name="BloodMoonFrequency"                     value="5" />
<property name="BloodMoonEnemyCount"                    value="8" />
<property name="LootAbundance"                          value="75" />
<property name="XPMultiplier"                           value="75" />
<property name="DayNightLength"                         value="60" />
<property name="AirDropFrequency"                       value="0" />
<property name="BlockDamageAIBM"                        value="150" />

Survivalist difficulty, hordes every 5 days, air drops disabled, Blood Moon zombies chew through blocks 50% faster. This is a server that assumes you know what you're doing.

PvP raiding

<property name="GameDifficulty"                         value="3" />
<property name="PlayerKillingMode"                      value="3" />
<property name="BloodMoonFrequency"                     value="10" />
<property name="LootAbundance"                          value="100" />
<property name="LandClaimOnlineDurabilityModifier"      value="4" />
<property name="LandClaimOfflineDurabilityModifier"     value="1" />

Warrior difficulty, full PvP, longer gap between Blood Moons so raiding groups have time to build, and offline bases are soft enough to actually raid.

If something breaks

If your server won't come up after an edit, the first thing we do is check serverconfig.xml for a typo in a property name – the server silently ignores unknown keys, but a malformed XML tag will stop it dead. Open it in File Manager or via SFTP on port 8822 and look for mismatched quotes. The other big one, if you're running console players, is a value that's outside the cross-play ranges – jump back up to the cross-play section and check the Log Viewer for an outside of allowed range for cross-play line. Still stuck? Drop our 24/7 support team a ticket and we'll have a look.

A couple of related reads while you're here: if you're moving a singleplayer world up to the server, the how to upload your local save guide covers it end to end, and if you're going the whole overhaul route, installing Darkness Falls has you covered.

Last verified: settings, defaults and cross-play limits checked against the current serverconfig.xml (V2.x, May 2026).