Mindustry Admin Commands & Permissions Guide

1. Accessing the Server Console

Admin commands in Mindustry can be executed from two primary locations: the physical (or SSH) server console where the jar is running, and in-game by players who have been granted administrator rights.

If you set up your server using Linux `systemd`, accessing the raw interactive console requires caution, as `journalctl` only shows logs, but does not allow input. To interact with it, we highly recommend launching the server process within `tmux` or `screen` environments, allowing you to easily type commands directly.

2. Granting In-Game Administration

It is far more convenient to manage griefers dynamically while playing inside the game client rather than logging into an SSH terminal continuously. To do this, you must explicitly mark a player UID or IP as an administrator in the server configuration.

While the player is actively connected to the server, locate their ID from the console by running:

status

The console will output the active players. Copy their ID (a randomly generated string unique to their game installation) and use the admin command:

admin add [Player_ID]

The player will instantly see their chat name highlight red, noting their new administrative status. They can now type commands into the chat menu preceded by a slash (e.g., /ban username).

To revoke these privileges, simply use admin remove [Player_ID] from the console.

3. Core Moderation Commands

These commands are specifically designed to stop, reverse, and punish toxic behavior within your factories.

4. Anti-Grief Mechanisms and History

Mindustry contains native tools specifically to reverse destruction. This is commonly referred to in the community as tracking and undoing.

If someone destroys an entire logic processing array, an admin can type:

/sync

However, if blocks are actually deleted, you can utilize community plugins like AntiGrief to rollback changes made by an individual IP address quickly. By default, Mindustry vanilla requires you to use the server console map reloading to reset malicious attacks if no backup was recently saved.

To forcefully save the current, un-griefed state of the map to disk, type:

save [filename]

You can execute this command right before logging off for the night, ensuring you have a pristine restore point. If you return tomorrow to absolute destruction, use load [filename].

5. Game State & Environment Modification

Sometimes you need to radically alter the flow of the game to bypass a bug or transition maps seamlessly without a restart.

• host [mapname] [mode] - Immediately shifts the server to a new map. Valid modes are `survival`, `attack`, `pvp`, or `sandbox`.
• gameover - Triggers an immediate defeat state. The core will explode, statistics will display, and the map will re-roll based on your playlist.
• pause / unpause - Completely halts logic ticks, unit movement, and factory belts. Useful if you need to perform an update or investigate a bug without time passing.
• rules - Used to manipulate specific JSON configurations of the current game, such as altering unit build caps, disabling specific schematic drops, or changing the wave wait time dynamically.

6. Advanced Console Output and Logs

It's vital to have logging enabled through the `server.properties` so you can retroactively review what happened during times when no admins were online.

To alter chat features locally, use say [message] from the headless console to broadcast a message natively from "Server". Users will see it distinctively.

Furthermore, use the status command frequently. It displays the TPS server tick rate. A server struggling to maintain 60 TPS indicates excessive processor load, likely due to massive amounts of scattered items, gigantic pathfinding requests, or intensive logic processors running in continuous loops.

7. Automating Moderation

While the native commands are profound, heavily populated Mindustry communities always complement these vanilla tools with server-side plugins. Plugins written in Java or JavaScript can be dropped into the mods/ directory.

Plugins provide automatic swearing censorship, automatic VPN detection (to prevent ban evasions), economy tracking, and most importantly, automated rollback systems that detect when hundreds of conveyer belts are deleted simultaneously, kicking the culprit before the damage is registered.

Check the Anuken community Discord and GitHub to download certified administration plugins for maximum effectiveness.