Everything your server is lives in two files — servertest.ini (the server: name, password, players, mods) and the sandbox settings (the world: difficulty, loot, zombies). The Settings tab edits the important keys with proper controls; the Files tab exposes both files raw when you want everything.
The one rule: edit stopped
Zomboid rewrites its config from memory on shutdown — an edit made while the server runs is silently overwritten on the next stop. So the dashboard enforces the safe order: settings save while the server is stopped, or use save-and-restart, which stops, applies, and boots in one step. If a save is refused with "server must be stopped", that's this rule protecting your change, not an error.
The settings groups
Identity & access
- Server name / description — what the in-game browser shows.
- Public — listed in the browser, or reachable only by direct address.
- Password — the door key for private groups.
- Open — on: anyone joining creates an account; off: whitelist-only, admins add each player. The strongest anti-griefer setting there is.
Players
- Max players — capped to what your plan's RAM honestly supports; upgrade the plan to raise the ceiling.
- Pause when empty — freezes the world when the last player leaves. Keep it on for friend groups (food stops rotting at 4am); 24/7 community servers turn it off deliberately.
Rules
- PVP and its safety system — co-op or free-for-all, and whether player-kills need mutual opt-in.
Mods — the WorkshopItems/Mods pair, covered fully in Installing Workshop Mods.
Saves & backups — save interval and the game's local rolling backups; the dashboard's own Backups tab is the real net (Backups & Saves).
The sandbox file (world rules)
XP multipliers, loot rarity, zombie population and senses, day length, water/electricity shutoff, and B42's animal populations live in the sandbox settings (servertest_SandboxVars.lua in the Files tab). Two things to know:
- Some choices are effectively world-permanent: population and loot baselines bake into map areas as they generate, so a change three weeks in applies unevenly between explored and unexplored cells. Decide those before launch.
- It's a Lua file — if you edit it raw, keep the syntax intact (the file editor will refuse a save that would corrupt it).
Raw file access
The Files tab shows both files with an ownership gutter: keys the platform manages (ports, admin credentials) are marked, everything else is yours. Nothing is hidden — anything a self-hosted admin can set, you can set.
If a change didn't stick
- Was the server running when you edited the raw file? The shutdown rewrite ate it — redo the edit with the server stopped.
- Changed a world-permanent sandbox value mid-game? It only applies to newly-generated areas — that's the game, not a fault.
- Neither? Open a ticket telling us the key and the value you set — config that won't hold is exactly the kind of thing we want to see.