Running a 7 Days to Die dedicated server without a management panel is like fighting a demolisher with a stone axe. Sure, you can do it. But why would you.
I got tired of alt-tabbing into a console window every time someone needed kicking, or SSH-ing into a box just to check if the server was even alive. So I built KitsuneCommand – an open-source web panel that lets you manage your entire 7D2D server from a browser. Dashboard, live map, player cards, economy system, backups, the whole thing.
This is your ELIH (Explain Like I’m Human) guide to setting it up and actually understanding what it does. No filler. No “first, let’s understand the fundamentals of server administration.” Just the stuff that matters.
Getting It Running
Dead simple. Five steps.
- Grab the latest release from GitHub
- Extract the
KitsuneCommandfolder into your server’sMods/directory - Start your server
- Open
http://your-server-ip:8888 - Check the server console for your auto-generated admin password
That’s it. No Docker. No database setup. No config file archaeology. SQLite handles storage, everything’s self-contained, and the web panel serves directly from the mod. You’re looking at maybe 60 seconds between download and login.
The Dashboard (Your New Home Screen)
First thing you see after logging in. And honestly, it’s the thing I open most.
You get live stats across the top – player count, server FPS, uptime, entity count, memory usage, and blood moon status with vote progress. These update in real-time over WebSocket, not some janky polling loop that hammers your server every 2 seconds.
Below that, server info at a glance. World name, game day, difficulty, max players, game version, IPs (with copy buttons because I’m not an animal). There’s also an activity feed that streams player logins, logouts, chat messages, and zombie kills as they happen. You actually see your server breathing.
The bottom section shows economy stats and feature usage – total points in circulation, store purchases, teleports used, active schedules. It’s the kind of overview that answers “is anyone actually using the features I set up” without digging through logs.
The GPS Map
This one’s fun. A full Leaflet.js map with your game world rendered as tiles using SkiaSharp. Player positions show up as markers that refresh every 5 seconds, with names on hover. Click anywhere to get game coordinates.
It’s not just a gimmick. When someone says “I’m stuck at my base” in chat and you need to find them, or when you want to check if anyone’s building in a restricted zone, having a live overhead view is genuinely useful. Works with Navezgane and random gen worlds.
Player Management (The Card View)
This is where the v2.1.0 update really shows. You’ve got two ways to look at your player list – the classic data table, or the new card grid. Toggle between them with the icons in the toolbar, and it remembers your preference.
The cards are way more readable at a glance. Each card shows:
- An avatar with the player’s initials (color-coded by their ID, so everyone gets a unique hue)
- Their name, with custom color if you’ve set one
- Admin badge if they’re an admin
- Level, zombie kills, deaths, and a health bar
- Their current coordinates
- Quick action buttons along the bottom
Those quick actions are the real win. Right from the card, you can view their full details, edit their metadata, send them a PM, give them items, kick them, or ban them. No navigating through three menus to do basic admin stuff.
The table view still exists for when you want sortable columns and denser data. It’s got all the same actions, just in a more compact layout.
Player Metadata
This is new and honestly one of my favorite features. Click edit on any player and you can set:
- Name color – picks a hex color that shows up both in the web panel AND in-game chat. So your VIPs get gold names, your mods get blue, whatever you want. The game handles it through Unity rich text formatting.
- Custom tags – VIP, Supporter, Moderator, Builder, or type your own. Shows as a badge on their card and in the table.
- Admin level – change their in-game admin permissions right from the browser. Admin, Moderator, or Normal.
- Notes – private admin notes. “This person grief-reported three times last week” type stuff.
The name color thing is probably my favorite detail. Set it once in the web panel and it just works in-game chat. No config files, no command-line nonsense.
Economy System
Three pieces here: points, a store, and purchase history.
Points are the currency. Players earn them through sign-in rewards, and admins can manually adjust balances with a reason attached. The points view shows everyone sorted by balance, with their last sign-in time.
The store is where players spend those points. As an admin, you create store items that can give actual game items (with quantity, quality, durability), execute server commands, or both. Everything’s configurable – item names autocomplete from the game’s item database, so you’re not guessing internal IDs.
When a player buys something, the points get deducted, items get granted, commands get executed, and everything gets logged in purchase history. Full audit trail. Date, player, item, points spent.
There’s also CD Keys (promo codes with item rewards and redemption limits), VIP Gifts (one-time or recurring reward packages), and a blood moon vote system where players vote on horde night difficulty. The economy runs deeper than most paid server tools I’ve seen.
Teleportation
Three flavors.
Cities – admin-created waypoints with a point cost. Set up a “Trader Joel” waypoint that costs 50 points and players can teleport there. You define the name, cost, position, and camera direction.
Homes – player-set home locations. They save a spot, they can warp back to it. You can see everyone’s homes, teleport them there, or delete them.
History – a complete log of every teleport. Who went where, when, what type (city, home, coordinates), origin and destination positions. Good for catching abuse.
Config Editor
Editing serverconfig.xml used to mean opening the file in Notepad, making a typo, and wondering why your server won’t start. The config editor gives you a proper form UI with fields organized into sections – Core, World, Block Damage, Gameplay, Zombies, Loot & Drops, Land Claims, Network, Admin, and Advanced.
Each field has the right input type. Numbers get number inputs with min/max constraints. Booleans get toggles. World selection auto-detects your available worlds. Passwords get visibility toggles. And every field has a description so you know what you’re actually changing.
Want to go raw? There’s an XML view with syntax highlighting for the “I know what I’m doing” crowd. The editor tracks dirty state and diffs, so it only sends changed fields when you save. And it warns you that changes need a server restart.
Mods Manager
Upload, enable, disable, delete. That’s the workflow and it’s exactly as simple as it should be.
Upload a mod as a ZIP file (up to 200MB), and it extracts into the right place. The mod list shows name, version, author, description, folder size, and status. Toggle mods on or off without deleting them. KitsuneCommand itself shows as protected so you can’t accidentally nuke your management panel.
Search works across name, folder, author, and description. And there’s a persistent banner reminding you that mod changes need a server restart, because someone (me) kept forgetting that.
Auto Backup
Set an interval, set a max retention count, and forget about it. Backups run automatically and old ones get cleaned up. You can also trigger manual backups whenever you want.
The backup list shows filename, world name, file size, creation date, and backup type (manual, scheduled, or emergency) with color-coded tags. Restore is one click with a confirmation dialog. Delete is one click with a confirmation dialog. Simple stuff, but the kind of simple stuff that saves you at 3 AM when something goes wrong.
Web Console
Full command execution from your browser. Type a command, get the output. It’s WebSocket-based, so you see log output streaming in real-time – commands in cyan, output in white, warnings in yellow, errors in red.
Arrow keys navigate your command history. Auto-scroll keeps up with the feed but you can lock it to read back through output. Connection status shows green or red so you know if you’re actually connected.
Viewers can watch the console output but can’t execute commands. That’s the role system doing its job.
The WebSocket Thing (Why It Feels Alive)
Here’s what ties it all together. KitsuneCommand runs a WebSocket server alongside the HTTP API, and every game event gets broadcast to connected clients in real-time. Player joins? Your dashboard knows. Someone sends a chat message? Activity feed updates. Zombie kill? Logged.
This isn’t cosmetic. It means you’re not refreshing pages to see what’s happening. The data comes to you. Player positions on the map update every 5 seconds. The console streams live. The dashboard stats tick up as things happen.
It also means multiple admins can watch the same server simultaneously without stepping on each other. Everyone sees the same live state.
What’s Actually Under the Hood
For the curious:
| Thing | Tech |
|---|---|
| Backend | C# 11 on .NET Framework 4.8, OWIN, ASP.NET Web API 2 |
| Frontend | Vue 3, TypeScript 5, Vite 6, PrimeVue 4 |
| Database | SQLite with Dapper |
| Auth | OAuth2 with BCrypt |
| Map | SkiaSharp tile rendering + Leaflet.js |
| Real-time | WebSocketSharp |
| Game hooks | Harmony runtime patching |
Five languages supported out of the box – English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, and Chinese Traditional. And there’s a plugin system if you want to extend it with custom DLLs.
Go Get It
It’s MIT licensed, it’s on GitHub, and it works with 7 Days to Die V2.5+. If you’re running a dedicated server and you’re still managing it through the console window, you’re making your life harder for no reason.
Install it. Set up the economy features if your players are into that. Ignore them if they’re not. Either way, having a dashboard that shows you what’s happening on your server without touching a terminal is worth the 60 seconds it takes to install.
Your server deserves better than a blinking cursor.
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