How To Ban and Unban Players from your Core Keeper Server

To ban or unban players on a Core Keeper dedicated server, you can use the in-game admin controls via the Pause menu or directly edit the server’s config file.

Ensure You Are an Admin

First, confirm that your Steam ID is listed in the Admins.json file of your dedicated server. This grants you the necessary admin privileges. Please refer to our How to Add Admins article for more details.

Banning Players

Join the server where you have admin privileges. Make sure you are connected to the server as an admin.

While in-game, press Esc to open the game menu.

A view of the Connected Players for a Core Keeper server, with the banning button highlighted

You will see a list of players. Next to the name of the player you wish to ban, click on the red cancel symbol. A confirmation box will appear to confirm the ban.

The banning player confirmation box for Core Keeper

Unbanning Players

To unban a player, press the Esc key in-game to bring up the main menu.

Click on the “Manage players” option in the list of settings.

The Manage Players view for Core Keeper, with the Unban button highlighted

In the “Banned players” section, click the red cancel symbol next to the player’s name you wish to unban. A confirmation box will appear to confirm the unban.

The Unban confirmation box for Core Keeper

Manually Ban/Unban a Player via Configuration File

You can also manage banned players through the PlayerBans.json file. This file is located where you’ve set your server’s DataPath. At Nodecraft, this will be in the Server Files tab, in the /DedicatedServer folder.

Select the PlayerBans.json file and click Edit.

The PlayerBans.json file location in Nodecraft Pro for Core Keeper, selecting the file to edit

Inside, you’ll see how the game auto-formats banned players.

The PlayerBans.json file contents

{
    "banList": [
        {
            "index": 1,
            "name": "CharacterName",
            "steamId": STEAM64ID,
            "crossPlatformId": 0,
            "stringId": ""
        }
    ]
}

When you edit this file, make sure to Save Changes and then Restart your Core Keeper server for the changes to take effect.