Garry's Mod Admin Commands: ULX and Server Console List

Garry's Mod ships with almost no admin system, so real moderation comes from ULX — the community-standard admin mod built on the ULib library. This guide covers the built-in server console commands and convars you still need, then the complete ULX command set, its group and permission model, and where it is all configured.

ULX is an addon, not a feature

Nothing in the ulx command set exists on a stock server. ULX requires ULib underneath, and both must be installed before any ! chat command or ulx console command does anything.

1. What Vanilla Garry's Mod Gives You

The base game has two admin tiers — admin and superadmin — and one file that assigns them:

"Users"
{
	"superadmin"
	{
		"garry"			"STEAM_0:1:7099"
	}

	"admin"
	{
	}
}

That is the whole native system. Membership sets Player:IsAdmin(), which gates physgun pickup on other players' props and the admin cleanup command. There are no built-in kick, ban, freeze, teleport or jail commands for in-game admins — everything else happens at the server console or through an admin mod.

settings/users.txt is not the ULX admin list

These are two separate systems. Adding yourself here grants no ULX command — ULX keeps its own user list in the server's SQLite database (the ulib_users table), which it imports once from garrysmod/data/ulib/users.txt and then owns. Editing the wrong file is the most common cause of "I'm admin but nothing works".

2. Built-in Server Console Commands

From the Source engine, working with or without ULX. Run them at the server console or over RCON.

Garry's Mod also registers kickid2 and banid2 as Lua aliases. Facepunch's own source comments them "do not use" — they exist for legacy scripts.

banid takes minutes first, and bans vanish on restart without writeid

The order is banid <minutes> <SteamID>, not the reverse — Garry's Mod's own admin helper calls it that way. Engine bans are in-memory only: run writeid afterwards or the ban is gone at the next restart. ulx ban has neither problem.

3. Server ConVars Worth Setting

Sandbox behaviour toggles and per-player limits, with the shipped defaults from Facepunch's sandbox.txt:

The remaining per-entity caps follow the same sbox_max<thing> pattern — wheels and thrusters 50, balloons 100, emitters 20, lamps 3, lights 5.

4. Installing ULX and ULib

ULX requires ULib. Install both, ULib first.

Workshop: add both IDs to your server's Workshop collection and load it with +host_workshop_collection <id> — ULib is 557962238, ULX is 557962280. See Setting up Steam Workshop and FastDL for Garry's Mod.

Manual: download the release ZIPs from ulyssesmod.net and extract each into its own folder, giving you garrysmod/addons/ulib/ and garrysmod/addons/ulx/.

A map change is not enough

Team Ulysses' install notes are blunt: "You absolutely, positively have to do a full server restart after installing the files. A simple map change will not cut it!" Stop the server and start it again.

Current releases are ULib 2.71 and ULX 3.81. Check yours with ulx version.

5. Granting the First Admin

Nobody has ULX access on a fresh dedicated server. The server console has full access by default, so grant the first superadmin from there:

ulx adduserid STEAM_0:1:7099 superadmin

Promote everyone else in-game with ulx adduser <player> <group>. adduser needs the player connected; adduserid works offline and also accepts an IPv4 address.

adduserid needs the STEAM_0 format, not SteamID64

ULib validates against ^STEAM_%d:%d:%d+$. Paste a 17-digit SteamID64 and it is silently treated as a Garry's Mod UniqueID — no error, no access. Convert to STEAM_0:X:YYYYYYY first.

Run it from the panel, not in-game

The Console tab on your Garry's Mod game server is the server console, so it already holds full ULX access. Paste the ulx adduserid line there and it takes effect immediately, no restart.

Promoting someone from the in-game menu

Once one superadmin exists, nobody has to touch the console again to hand out access. Type !menu in chat and open the Groups tab.

1. Choose the group from the dropdown at the top — admin, superadmin, or any group you have created.
2. The panel below lists Users in group:. Click Add....
3. Connected players come first, each shown as Name | current group. Below a separator are users ULX already knows but who are offline, and below that Add by SteamID... for everyone else.
4. Click a name. It applies immediately — no restart, no map change, and if the player is connected their group changes under them there and then.

Nothing separate is happening here. Picking a name runs ulx adduserid <steamid> <group> for you, so the menu and the console write to the same ULX user list — still nothing to do with garrysmod/settings/users.txt. Change... moves whoever is selected into another group, and Remove User inside that same menu drops them back to user.

The Groups tab is superadmin-only

ULX puts the tab behind an access string, xgui_managegroups, granted to superadmin by default. An admin opening !menu will not see it at all. That is also why the very first superadmin has to come from the console — until one exists there is nobody in-game with the access to grant it.

Add by SteamID... is validated exactly as ulx adduserid is: paste anything that is not STEAM_0:X:YYYYYYY and you get an "Invalid SteamID!" box rather than the silent failure the console gives you. To read a connected player's STEAM_0 ID, run status in the console.

6. Where to Type Commands, and How to Target Players

ULX registers ! say commands only — /kick does nothing. If / commands work on your server they come from a gamemode like DarkRP; see Garry's Mod Gamemodes. !menu opens XGUI, the bundled admin menu, which shows only what you have access to.

Every command taking a player accepts partial names, a comma-separated list, or these keywords: * all players, ^ yourself, @ the player you are looking at, #<group> that group exactly, %<group> that group counting inheritance, $<id> a particular ID, @<team> a team. Prefix any of them with ! to negate.

ulx slay *              ; slay everyone
ulx freeze @            ; freeze whoever you are looking at
ulx kick %user Minging  ; kick the user group and anything inheriting it
ulx bring !^            ; bring everyone except yourself

7. ULX Moderation Commands

[minutes] accepts a time string as well as a number, so ulx ban Bob 2w Cheating works. Since ULib 2.7 bans live in the ulib_bans table of Garry's Mod's sv.db SQLite database — data/ulib/bans.txt is read once for migration, then ignored.

8. ULX Player State and Punishment

9. ULX Teleport Commands

10. ULX Chat Commands

gag is voice, mute is text. A player being a nuisance in both needs both.

11. ULX Voting Commands

Thresholds are convars: ulx votekickSuccessratio defaults to 0.6 with ulx votekickMinvotes 2; ulx votebanSuccessratio to 0.7 with ulx votebanMinvotes 3.

12. ULX Server and RCON Commands

All superadmin by default, and all capable of ending your server.

ulx luarun is root access to your server

It runs arbitrary Lua in the server realm — it can read your files, wipe your database and open a backdoor. Never grant it to a group you would not hand the RCON password to. The same applies to ulx rcon and ulx cexec.

ulx debuginfo and ulx resettodefaults ship with no default group access at all — ULib's rule is "no specific instruction, assume they don't have access". Until granted explicitly they run only from the server console or listen-server host.

13. Groups and Permissions

ULib's access system (UCL) ships with four groups. Inheritance flows upward, so a superadmin has everything an admin has.

operator exists but has no permissions by default — it is a blank slate for a trusted-moderator tier.

ulx addgroup moderator user
ulx groupallow moderator "ulx kick"
ulx groupallow moderator "ulx slay"
ulx groupallow moderator "ulx freeze"
ulx setgroupcantarget moderator !%admin
ulx adduserid STEAM_0:0:12345678 moderator

Groups live in data/ulib/groups.txt. Users do not — ULX stores them in the SQLite ulib_users table, and data/ulib/users.txt is only the legacy file it imports from. ULX writes both automatically — edit them only with the server stopped, and expect ULib to rewrite a malformed file (keeping a backup). To audit a rank, log in as an account in it and run ulx help.

14. Configuration and Logging

ULX writes its configuration into garrysmod/data/ulx/ on first run. The main file is config.txt, and every setting in it is also a live convar you can set with ulx <setting> <value>.

Logs land in data/ulx_logs/MM-DD-YY.txt. data/ulx/ also holds banreasons.txt, adverts.txt, gimps.txt, votemaps.txt, downloads.txt, motd.txt and sbox_limits.txt. Per-map and per-gamemode overrides work too — create data/ulx/maps/<mapname>/config.txt or data/ulx/gamemodes/<gamemodename>/config.txt. Settings add to each other, except gimps.txt and votemaps.txt where only the most specific file applies.

15. Sourcebans++ for Multi-Server Communities

Sourcebans++ shares bans across every server pointed at the same MySQL database, adding a web portal, appeals and a public ban list. It needs that database (see How to create a Database via your panel), a web server for the PHP portal, and the addon on each GMod server. It is overkill for one server — run ULX alone until you have two or more that need shared enforcement.

16. Common Problems

• !menu does nothing. ULib is missing, or you only changed maps after installing. Both addons must be in garrysmod/addons/ and the server needs a full restart.
• ulx adduserid said nothing and the user has no access. You used a SteamID64. ULib only validates STEAM_0:X:YYYYYYY.
• Commands work for you but not your staff. You are the listen-server host or at the server console, both of which bypass access checks. Test with a real account in the target group.
• A command shows in ulx help but is refused. An explicit deny on the user overrides every group allow. Clear it with ulx userdeny <player> <command> and the optional boolean, which removes the entry rather than denying it.
• Bans reappear after a restart. You used the engine's banid and never ran writeid. Use ulx ban or ulx banid instead.

17. FAQ

How do I make myself admin in Garry's Mod?

From the server console — or your host's console tab — run ulx adduserid STEAM_0:X:YYYYYYY superadmin. The server console always has full ULX access, so this works before anyone is an admin. It is separate from garrysmod/settings/users.txt, which controls only the vanilla IsAdmin() flag.

What is the difference between ULX and ULib?

ULib is a developer library providing user access lists, command parsing and utility functions. It has no admin commands of its own and you never interact with it directly. ULX is the admin mod built on top of it, and will not load without ULib installed.

Are ULX commands typed with ! or /?

! in chat, or ulx <command> in console. ULX also registers @ for admin chat, @@ for a chat-box broadcast and @@@ for centre-screen. It never registers / — those come from gamemodes like DarkRP.

How do I create a custom admin rank?

ulx addgroup <name> <group to inherit>, then grant commands one at a time with ulx groupallow <group> "<command>". Limit who they can act on with ulx setgroupcantarget <group> !%admin. All of it is also doable through the Groups tab of !menu.

Where are ULX bans stored?

In the ulib_bans table of Garry's Mod's sv.db SQLite database, since ULib 2.7. The old data/ulib/bans.txt is only read once for migration, so editing it has no effect. Engine bans from banid are separate again, landing in banned_user.cfg after you run writeid.

How do I stop players spawning hundreds of props?

Lower the sandbox limits — sbox_maxprops defaults to 200 per player, sbox_maxsents to 100, sbox_maxragdolls to 10. Set them in server.cfg or via the Settings tab of !menu. Turning on ulx logSpawns also tells you who is doing it.

Why can my moderators kick each other?

No targeting restriction is set. Run ulx setgroupcantarget <group> !%<group> so members of a tier cannot act on their own tier. The default admin group already carries !%superadmin for this reason.

18. What to Read Next

• Getting started with your Garry's Mod server
• Setting up Steam Workshop and FastDL for Garry's Mod - how to deliver ULX and ULib to your server
• Garry's Mod Gamemodes - the DarkRP and TTT servers you will be administering

Made with 💜 by GameServerKings