Every serverDZ.cfg Setting Explained (DayZ Server Configuration)

Every serverDZ.cfg value you are likely to want is already a typed field in the panel: open Instances → your server → Settings and the Instance Settings editor lists all thirty of them, each with its own help line underneath. This guide documents every field — the serverDZ.cfg key it writes, its accepted range and a recommended value — plus the two things people get wrong most often: how time acceleration maps to real day length, and what changing the map does to your persistence.

The editor only saves while the instance is Stopped, so plan a stop or a Controlled Restart before you start editing. Nothing here takes effect until the server boots again.

Before you start

• An instance you can stop. Save is disabled while the status pill reads Running.
• The Edit settings permission. Sub-users without it do not see the Settings button at all, and changing the map needs the separate Change mission permission — see staff permissions and API keys.
• Nothing else. You never need to open serverDZ.cfg by hand for any field listed below, although you can read it in File Browser under the config share if you want to check the panel’s work.

1. Stop the instance and open the editor

On Overview, click Stop and wait for the status pill to read Stopped. With players online, warn them with a Controlled Restart first — see restarting without rollbacks — then stop it.

Now click Settings in the tab bar. A dialog opens titled Instance Settings with your instance id beneath it. It contains, in order:

1. A two-column grid of all thirty serverDZ.cfg fields, each with its help text under it.
2. Edit Mission — the map selector, covered in step 7.
3. Server & RCON Authentication — the admin and RCON password, covered in getting started with the control panel.

Two behaviours are worth knowing before you touch anything. Grey placeholder text in a numeric or text box is DayZ’s own default, not a value you have set. And clearing a field removes that key from serverDZ.cfg entirely, which hands the setting back to the engine default rather than writing a zero. That is the correct way to undo a change you no longer want.

2. Identity and access: name, description, password and slots

These four are the only fields most servers ever change, and they are what a player sees before deciding whether to join. Treat Host Name as a search result rather than a title: the map name and your headline features earn far more clicks than decoration.

Max Players is the one field with a hard ceiling above it. Its help line tells you yours — Maximum amount of players. This instance's provisioned cap is 60. with your own number. Anything from 1 up to that cap is allowed; above it the save fails. The agent also re-checks the value before every launch and clamps it back down, so editing serverDZ.cfg by hand will not get you extra slots.

3. Time of day, and how long a day actually lasts

This is the group that generates the most confusion, because the two acceleration fields multiply together rather than acting independently.

Work the arithmetic through once and it stops being mysterious. Take a 24-hour in-game cycle split evenly into 12 hours of daylight and 12 of night; the real split shifts with the map and the date, but even is close enough to plan with. With Server Time Acceleration at 8 and Server Night Time Acceleration at 4:

• Daylight runs at 8×, so 12 in-game hours take 90 real minutes.
• Night runs at 8 × 4 = 32×, so 12 in-game hours take 22.5 real minutes.
• A full cycle is therefore just under two real hours, of which players spend about 20 minutes in the dark.

The general form: real minutes per cycle = (daylight hours × 60 ÷ acceleration) + (night hours × 60 ÷ (acceleration × night acceleration)). Written into the file, that example is:

serverTime = "SystemTime";
serverTimeAcceleration = 8;
serverNightTimeAcceleration = 4;
serverTimePersistent = 1;

Server Time Persistent matters more than it looks. With it off, every restart re-reads Server Time, so a server pinned to a literal timestamp lands on the same hour forever. With it on, the clock carries across restarts and keeps moving through the week.

4. Gameplay restrictions

Every field in this group is a checkbox that writes 0 or 1. Read the labels carefully: most of them are phrased as disable, so ticking the box removes the feature rather than adding it.

Building a first-person server? Tick Disable 3rd Person and Disable Crosshair together and say so in Host Name — players searching for first person read the browser text, they do not filter on the key.

5. Admin logging: what lands in the ADM log

These four checkboxes control how much detail the engine writes to its admin log. The panel always launches your server with -adminlog and a profiles directory, so the .ADM file always exists — you can read it live from the Live Logs card on Overview by setting the Stream dropdown to adm, or open it in the profiles share.

Turn all four on. The log is the only record of what happened once players have logged off, and it cannot be reconstructed retroactively — a setting you left off yesterday tells you nothing about yesterday.

6. Networking, view distance and object streaming

Everything in this group trades server CPU and bandwidth for what players can see and how quickly the world appears around them. The defaults are Bohemia’s and they are well chosen; change them one at a time and watch Server FPS on Overview afterwards.

Heavily modded servers are usually better served by leaving these alone and managing mod load order instead. Loot volume belongs in types.xml and the loot economy, not here.

7. Enable CfgGameplay File, and changing the map

Two controls reach outside serverDZ.cfg, so they behave a little differently.

Enable CfgGameplay File is the last checkbox in the grid and writes enableCfgGameplayFile = 1;. With it on, the engine also reads gameplay values from cfggameplay.json inside your mission folder — things serverDZ.cfg cannot express, such as stamina and base-building rules. The panel neither edits nor validates that file, so check it exists in File Browser → mpmissions → your mission before ticking the box, and read the rpt stream on the next start. It is JSON: one stray comma is enough to break it.

Edit Mission sits under the field grid and is how you change map. Pick from the Preset dropdown or type into the Value box:

Then click Save mission. Clear only empties the box on screen; you still have to save, and a blank value resolves back to dayzOffline.chernarusplus. Both buttons are disabled while the server is running, and this one save is governed by the Change mission permission rather than Edit settings.

8. Save, start and check your work

Click Save at the bottom of the dialog. You want Changes Saved! in a green banner. Anything else is telling you something:

• No changes required. — the editor compared your fields against what it loaded and found nothing different.
• Stop the instance to change settings. — the instance is not stopped.
• A red message naming one field, such as 'hostName' too long (max 96). — fix that field and save again. Nothing was written.

Edit Mission and Server & RCON Authentication have their own buttons and save independently of the main Save, so if you changed the map or the password, make sure you pressed Save mission or Save password too. Close the dialog with Cancel, the Close icon in its top corner, or the Escape key.

Now go back to Overview and click Start. Watch the Live Logs card with Stream on rpt through the first boot — a bad value that the panel accepted will show up there rather than in the panel. Once it is up, your changes are live: check the day length against the clock, or open config/serverDZ.cfg in File Browser and read the keys back.

Troubleshooting

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• Getting started with the control panel
• Editing types.xml safely
• installing Steam Workshop mods