Terraria server commands: console, chat and TShock

Terraria has three separate command systems and they are not interchangeable. The vanilla dedicated server has a small console command set that you type with no slash. Players have a handful of / chat commands that work in any multiplayer game. TShock replaces the server outright and brings its own, far larger / command system with groups and permissions. Which one you get depends on the Server Type variable in your panel's Startup tab, so the first job is working out which server you are actually running.

Which command set do you have

Separately from all of that, every player in a vanilla or tModLoader game has a short list of / chat commands. Those are covered further down.

Console commands take no slash

Type say hello, not /say hello. The forward slash belongs to the in-game chat commands and to TShock. Sending /save to a vanilla console does nothing.

Vanilla server console commands

This is the complete set, as documented on the official Terraria wiki. There is nothing hidden behind a permission flag — if you can reach the console, you can run all of it.

Server control

Players and messaging

Time and world

settle is the one to remember. When someone empties a few hundred buckets or a dupe leaves water cascading across half the map, the server will grind until the physics resolve. settle forces it to finish in one pass.

Death counters

Added in 1.4.4:

Running commands from the panel

The Console tab is the server's standard input. Anything in the table above can be typed straight into it while the server is running.

Two things worth knowing before you rely on it:

• port is genuinely useful here. Assigned ports frequently are not the game default of 7777, and port prints the value the server actually bound to — handy when a player insists they are connecting correctly. The Address at the top left of your panel is the same information.
• Console changes are not saved anywhere. password <pass> and motd <message> change the running server only. They do not write back to your Startup variables, so the next restart reapplies whatever those variables say. If you want a change to stick, set it in the Startup tab.

Stopping the server from the console is a choice between two commands: exit saves the world first, exit-nosave does not. There is almost never a reason to use exit-nosave on a live server.

Commands that do not exist in vanilla Terraria

Command lists for Terraria are copied between sites constantly, and several of them have picked up entries the vanilla server has never had. None of the following work in a vanilla console:

Check before you copy a command table

If a list includes item spawning, IP bans or god mode for a vanilla Terraria server, it is wrong. Vanilla's console has no item, teleport or cheat commands at all — that is precisely the gap TShock exists to fill.

Unbanning a player

There is no unban command, which surprises most people the first time they need it. Bans land in banlist.txt in the server root, one entry per banned player with their name and IP.

To lift a ban, stop the server, open banlist.txt in the File Manager or over SFTP, delete the line for that player, and start the server again. Editing it while the server is running risks the file being rewritten from memory on shutdown.

In-game chat commands

These are the vanilla client's chat commands. Any player can use them; they are not admin tools.

TShock owns the slash prefix

On a TShock server the / prefix is handled by TShock's own parser rather than the vanilla client, so do not assume this list applies unchanged. Run /help on your own server to see what it actually accepts.

When you need real admin commands

Vanilla's console covers moderation and housekeeping and stops there. There is no way to grant an in-game player any authority, no permissions model, and no way to hand out items, teleport people or protect a build.

That is what TShock is for, and switching to it is a Server Type change plus a reinstall — see TShock Setup for the /setup flow that claims superadmin, and TShock Plugins for extending it further. If you would rather stay on vanilla, Maintenance covers backups and the failure modes worth knowing about.

FAQ

How do I open the console on a Terraria server?

On a hosted server it is the Console tab in your panel, which is wired straight to the server's standard input. There is no in-game console in Terraria — the client has a chat box, not a developer console, and no key opens one.

Do Terraria server commands need a slash?

No. Console commands are typed bare: save, playing, settle. The slash is only used by the in-game chat commands and by TShock.

Is there a command to set the world seed?

No. seed= is a serverconfig.txt option and it only has any effect when the server auto-creates a world. An existing world keeps the seed it generated with; you cannot change it afterwards. If you want a specific seed, generate the world with it and then swap the world in — Getting started covers uploading a .wld file.

Can players run admin commands in vanilla Terraria?

No. Vanilla has no concept of an admin. Everything in the console command list requires access to the server console itself, which on a hosted server means panel access. If you need to give someone moderation powers without giving them your panel login, you need TShock.

Why did my password change revert after a restart?

Because password <pass> only changes the running server. The Startup tab's Server Password variable is reapplied every time the server boots. Change it there instead.

Do the console commands work on tModLoader?

Yes — tModLoader runs Terraria's own dedicated server, which is why the console banner still shows a Terraria version alongside the tModLoader one. Anything individual mods add is documented by those mods.

---

Made with 💜 by GameServerKings