Enshrouded server roles and permissions

On an Enshrouded server, players belong to groups. Each group has its own password and its own rights, like opening chests or banning players. The password a player types when they join decides their group, so you control who can do what by who gets which password.

The groups live in enshrouded_server.json under userGroups. You can change passwords in Settings, and edit groups in Files.

The default groups

A new server starts with four groups. Every group can explore, fight, loot, gather and do quests. The differences are about bases, chests and the world.

Each group starts with a random password, so nobody gets in until you share one. On Wilderack you see and change them in Settings.

What each permission means

Every group in userGroups has these keys:

All the can... keys take true or false.

What the file looks like

This is the Friend group from a new server, with its own password:

{
  "name": "Friend",
  "password": "pick-a-strong-one",
  "canKickBan": false,
  "canAccessInventories": true,
  "canEditWorld": true,
  "canEditBase": true,
  "canExtendBase": false,
  "reservedSlots": 0
}

The groups sit together inside "userGroups": [ ... ], separated by commas.

Make your own group

Say you want builders who can work on bases, but can’t take things from chests:

1. Stop the server.
2. In Files, open enshrouded_server.json.
3. Inside "userGroups", copy the Friend group and paste it after the last group. Put a comma between the two.
4. Change the copy’s name to "Builder" and give it a new password.
5. Set canAccessInventories to false.
6. Save. The editor checks the JSON and warns you if a comma or bracket is missing.
7. Start the server, and give your builders the new password.

You can delete groups you don’t use, like Visitor. Keep at least one group with canKickBan set to true, so somebody can deal with trouble.

Reserved slots

reservedSlots keeps slots free for a group. Your server has up to 16 slots in total (slotCount).

For example, with "reservedSlots": 2 on Admin, the server counts as full for everyone else when only 2 slots are left. Admins can still get in when guests have filled it up.

Keep the total of all reserved slots below your slotCount, or other groups may never find a free slot.

Changing someone’s group

On a dedicated server, a player’s rights come from the password they joined with. You can’t promote or demote them while they play.

To move a player to another group, give them that group’s password. They leave and join again with it. To take rights away from a whole group, change its password in Settings and restart, then share the new one only with the players who should keep those rights.

Kick and ban

Players in a group with canKickBan can remove players in game, from the social menu:

• Kick removes a player. They can join again.
• Ban removes them and adds them to the ban list, so the server turns them away from then on. Admins can view the ban list and unban players in the same place.

The ban list is saved in enshrouded_server.json. If you ever edit it by hand, stop the server first.

The old single password

Before Keen Games added groups, a server had one password at the top of the file. That line isn’t used for joining any more. If an old file still has it, Enshrouded makes a group called default with that password and the same rights as Friend. Move to proper groups when you can, so you can give guests fewer rights.

Wilderack roles are different

The Friends tab in the panel has its own roles: Co-owner, Admin, Moderator, Builder and Viewer. Those decide who can start the server, change settings or restore backups in the panel. They don’t change anything inside the game. A friend can be a panel Admin and still join the game as a Guest.