Set up DayZ admin & RCONpasswordAdmin, BattlEye RCON, BEC & BattleMetrics

Published on August 4, 2026 · last updated on November 8, 2026

Set the admin password and log in in-game

In DayZ, admin rights depend on a single value: in serverDZ.cfg, you set passwordAdmin = "YourPassword";. Anyone who knows this password can log in, so only share it with people you trust with full access. You log in through the in-game chat:

#login YourPassword

From that moment on, the BattlEye chat commands are available to you, for example #restart, #shutdown, #lock, #unlock and #kick. That covers everyday moderation: locking the server, removing players and restarting in a controlled way.

Vanilla DayZ does not come with a real in-game admin menu with teleport, item spawns or godmode. For that, you also need admin mods such as VPPAdminTools or Community Online Tools, which you set up on the server like any other mod. If you change the admin password later, the server needs a restart before the new value takes effect - until then, the old one still applies.

How do you control the server without being in the game?

Through RCON. DayZ uses the BattlEye protocol for this; you find the credentials - RCON password and port - in the web interface or in the BattlEye configuration file BEServer_x64.cfg. With them, you connect external tools to the server and send commands without even launching DayZ.

The standard tool for this is BEC (BattlEye Extended Controls). It takes over exactly the tasks that make no sense to do by hand: scheduled restarts, recurring broadcast messages and a scheduler for both. You store the tasks in a Scheduler.xml, and BEC runs them on time.

In DayZ, scheduled restarts are not an optional extra but standard practice: they keep performance and the Central Economy fresh. With a broadcast message a few minutes beforehand, your players also know when to get somewhere safe. Without RCON, you would have to be in the game yourself for each of these actions - not a workable solution for a restart in the middle of the night.

A restart schedule that works

The scheduler is set up quickly - choosing the right times is the real work. This pattern has proven itself:

• A fixed interval instead of irregular restarts. Four to six hours are common in DayZ, and players plan their sessions around it.
• Several warnings by broadcast, for example 15, 5 and one minute beforehand. Anyone far out in the wilderness needs that time to get to safety.
• No restarts during prime time for your community. Put the window into off-peak hours instead of emptying a full server in the evening.
• Keep the time cycle in mind. If the server starts at a fixed time of day, the restart rhythm also decides whether night ever falls at all - see setting the day and night cycle.

The restart window is also the best moment for backups: the server is briefly off anyway and the persistent game state has just been written. Backups are always self-service with us, via WebFTP or SFTP; the process is described in creating backups.

When RCON will not connect

A tool that cannot connect usually only reports that no connection was made - and leaves you alone with the cause. These four cover almost every case:

1. Wrong port. The RCON port is not the game port. Enter the value from the web interface or from BEServer_x64.cfg, not the one your players connect through.
2. Password changed, server not restarted. As with the admin password, the new value is only read at the next start - until then, the old one applies.
3. The server is not running at all. RCON depends on the running server process. A server that does not come up because of a mod problem will not accept an RCON connection either; how to narrow that down is covered in server will not start.
4. A space in the password. One easily slips in when copying - that happens more often than a genuinely wrong password.

Treat the RCON password like full access: whoever has it can lock, ban and shut down the server. The same goes for the admin password from the configuration file. When responsibilities in your team change, renew both passwords - and restart the server once afterwards so that the new values take effect.

When is BattleMetrics worth it?

As soon as more than one person moderates. BEC runs as a tool on your side - every additional admin would need their own local setup plus the RCON password. BattleMetrics moves this into the browser: RCON through a web interface, player lists, ban management, triggers and an activity log.

For a team, the log is the most valuable part. Kicks, bans and broadcasts run centrally, and afterwards you can trace who triggered which action - when players complain, that is the difference between clearing things up and one person's word against another's.

For a server you run alone, the combination of #login in-game and BEC for automation is enough. BattleMetrics does not necessarily replace BEC - both access the same BattlEye RCON and can be used side by side. In every case, the shared requirement is reachable RCON access with the credentials from the web interface.

Frequently asked questions