How can I make myself an admin on my Ark Server?

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This guide will help you enable and use Admin, or "cheat" commands, on your ARK: Survival Evolved multi-player server.

• Set an Admin password on your ARK: Survival Evolved server
• Open the "Console" in-game.
• Enable admin "cheat" permissions on your character, so you're allowed to use Admin/Cheat commands.
• Show you how to enter commands manually, or use the GUI of "ShowMyAdminManager"
• How to find ID numbers that some commands will require.

Setting the Admin Password

Players who want to use admin commands on a multi-player ARK server have to enter an admin password first to authorize them, which is set in the server configs.

Only multi-player servers require this, in single player games you are automatically an admin, and you don't have to "turn on" admin access.

The admin password for your server can be set via the server's configuration file. Access this through Configuration Files as seen below:

Once you're editing the config file, scroll down to ServerAdminPassword= and type your desired password next to the equals sign. Then Save the file and restart the server for the changes to take effect!

ARK Console Bar

Connect to your ARK server. When you load into the game, hit the tab key to open the console window in game, which appears as a black bar at the very very bottom edge of the screen. Sometimes, depending on your monitor settings, it may be hard to see it. If so, hit tab a second time.

When you hit tab a second time, the entire top portion of the screen will be the console window, with a black bar near the middle for entering commands, and it will also show the previous commands you've entered on the top half of the screen.

The expanded window is very handy for realizing you made a typo entering an admin command earlier, and that is why it didn't work.

For example, I repeatedly type "cheats" instead of "cheat" when entering commands. cheat works. cheats with the s on the end is wrong, and the entire command is ignored.

Hitting escape closes the console, or hit tab repeatedly to cycle through the two views and back to the normal game.

Enable Cheats on your Character:

Once you have the console open, enter the following command to activate "cheats" in game for your character.

enablecheats (admin password)

Replace "(admin password)" with the actual password. You don't need the parenthesis.

If done right, you are now an admin and you can use the "cheat" commands! The admin access only last for your current session, if you leave the server and come back, you have to re-enable cheats again.

NOTE: You normally don't get any kind of confirmation message when admin is turned on. It's just "on".

If you're not 100% sure if it actually worked, you can test to make sure you're an admin by hitting tab again, and type in the console bar:

cheat fly

You should see a message that you "You feel much lighter", and when you hit the jump key you will rise into the air! Up, up, and away!

To turn off fly mode if you want afterwards. hit tab again and enter:

cheat walk