Enshrouded roles, passwords and permissions

An Enshrouded server does not have one password, it has a password for each role, and the role a player gets is decided by which password they type when they join.

6 min read · Updated Oct 21, 2026 · By GuavaHost Team

How the roles work

Enshrouded servers use a userGroups section in enshrouded_server.json instead of a single server password. Each entry in that section is a role with a name, a password of its own and a set of permissions. A fresh server comes with three, which is the setup almost everybody keeps:

• Admin, for you and anyone you trust with the whole server.
• Friend, for your regulars.
• Guest, for people you want to let look around without handing them your base.

When a player joins, they enter a password. The server matches it against the role passwords and gives them that role for the session. There is no account list to maintain and nothing to approve: the password is the invitation, which makes it quick to run and means a leaked password is the same as a leaked role.

Because the role is decided by the password, two things follow. Give everybody the Friend password and everybody is a Friend, no matter who they are. Change a role's password and anyone who had the old one is locked out of that role until you send them the new one.

The fields in the file

Each role in userGroups looks roughly like this, with a name, a password and the permission switches:

{
  "name": "Friend",
  "password": "something-you-can-say-out-loud",
  "canKickBan": false,
  "canAccessInventories": true,
  "canEditBase": true,
  "canExtendBase": true,
  "reservedSlots": 0
}

What each permission actually controls:

The exact list can gain fields between Enshrouded updates, so treat the file on your server as the authority and edit the values that are already in it rather than pasting a userGroups block from a forum post.

A sensible shape for a private group: Admin gets everything, Friend gets inventories and building but not kick and ban, Guest gets neither. If you run a server where strangers can join and you want your builds safe, set canEditBase and canAccessInventories to false for Guest and you have a role that can walk around and fight but cannot touch anything.

Reserved slots are worth knowing about if your server fills up. Giving Admin one or two reserved slots means you can always get in to sort out a problem, even at a full house.

Changing a role password

Lists inside the file, including userGroups, are not shown on the Server properties page, so this one is edited in the file itself.

1. Sign in at customer.guavahost.com, open My servers and click Manage on your Enshrouded server.
2. Open the Backups page and click Create backup. A stray comma in a JSON file stops the server booting, and this is how you get back in one click.
3. Press Stop at the top of the server page and wait for it to go fully offline.
4. On the Files tab, click enshrouded_server.json in your server's main folder to open it in the editor.
5. Find the role inside userGroups and change the text between the quotes on its password line. Leave every quote, comma and bracket exactly where it is.
6. Click Save, then press Start and watch the Console until the server reports ready.

Enshrouded reads the file at boot, which is why the stop and start matter. An edit made to a running server is at best ignored until the next restart and at worst written over when the server shuts down.

If the server will not start after an edit, the cause is nearly always punctuation: a missing comma between two roles, a quote that was deleted along with the old password, or a stray bracket. Restore the backup you took and try again, changing one thing at a time. Editing enshrouded_server.json covers the rest of the file.

Choosing passwords worth using

• Make the Admin password long and unlike the others. It is the one that matters.
• Keep the Friend and Guest passwords easy to type and easy to say in a voice call, because you will be reading them out.
• Never reuse the password you use for your GuavaHost account or your e-mail. These are shared in Discord servers and screenshots all the time. Keeping your panel account secure covers the account side.
• Rotate the Guest password occasionally if your server has been posted publicly. It costs you one message and removes everyone who found it somewhere old.

What players see

Players enter the password on the way in, through the game's co-op menu, and the role they get is whichever password they used. Connecting to your Enshrouded server walks through the join flow if somebody needs sending the steps.

A wrong password reads as a refused connection rather than as "wrong password", which trips people up. If a friend swears the server is down, check they are using the current password for the role you meant to give them and that there is no trailing space on the end of it. If nobody can see the server at all, that is a different problem, and Enshrouded server not showing is the guide for it.

In-game roles versus panel access

A role in userGroups is power inside the game. It is not access to the server itself: nobody with an Admin password can restart the server, read the console or restore a backup.

If you want a friend to be able to do those things, add them on the People page under More in the server menu, with only the permissions they need. Giving a friend access with sub-users explains the options. Keeping the two separate is a feature, not a nuisance: your builder friend can have full in-game powers without being able to reinstall the server.

Kicking and banning

A player with canKickBan can remove somebody from inside the game. From the panel side, the blunt and reliable tool is changing the password of the role that person used and restarting, which removes everyone on that password at once and lets you hand the new one back to the people you meant to keep.

For a server that has had an incident, the honest order of events is: take a backup, change the Admin and Friend passwords, restart, then hand out the new passwords by name. Doing the backup first means the clean-up itself cannot make things worse.

Common questions

Where are Enshrouded admin passwords stored?

In the userGroups section of enshrouded_server.json in your server's main folder, one password per role. There is no separate admin file, and the passwords are stored as plain text in that file, so anyone with file access to your server can read them.

How do I change the role a player has?

Give them the password for the role you want them in and have them rejoin, because the role is chosen by the password at the moment they connect. There is no way to promote someone mid-session, so a change of role always means a reconnect.

Can two roles share one password?

They can technically hold the same text, but it defeats the point: the server matches on the password, so you lose any way to tell the roles apart. Give each role its own password and the permissions stay meaningful.

What happens if I leave a role password empty?

An empty password usually means anyone can join into that role without typing anything, which is how people accidentally run an open server. If you want a public server, leave Guest open deliberately and make sure Guest cannot edit bases or open inventories.

Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.

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