How to Set Up LuckPerms Groups for a Minecraft Server

A permissions plugin answers one question for every command and feature on your server: is this player allowed? LuckPerms is the plugin most servers use to answer it, and a little planning before you type any commands saves a lot of cleaning up afterwards.

Plan the ladder first

Write the groups on paper before you create them. A small server rarely needs more than four:

• default: what every player has, such as chatting, using homes and reading the rules.
• member or trusted: players who have earned more, such as building near spawn.
• moderator: staff who handle behaviour, such as muting, kicking and teleporting to players.
• admin: the few people who manage the server itself.

Each group should build on the one below it. Instead of copying permissions from group to group, make the higher group inherit from the lower one, so that when you add a permission to default everyone gets it.

Create the groups

LuckPerms assigns every player to a group named default when they first join, so that group already exists. Create the others from the console, which is safer than doing it in game:

• /lp creategroup moderator
• /lp group moderator parent add default

The second command makes moderator inherit everything default can do. Repeat for each group, adding the parent below it in the ladder. Parents are how you build the ladder; weights, which are numbers you set on a group, decide which one wins when two groups disagree.

Give each group permissions

Permissions are text strings that plugins define in their documentation. To set one on a group:

• /lp group moderator permission set essentials.kick true

Use the plugin's own documentation for the permission names. Grant only what the group needs, and prefer a few specific permissions over a wildcard. A wildcard grants everything a plugin has, including commands added in later versions that you have not read.

Put players in groups

Add a player to a group with a parent command on the user:

• /lp user PlayerName parent add moderator

Do this for staff yourself and keep a note of who has what. Never add yourself or others to a group by granting the server operator status instead; operators bypass the whole system.

Use the web editor

The command /lp editor creates a link to a web editor that shows the groups, their parents and their permissions in one place. It is the quickest way to review a ladder you built command by command, and to spot a permission granted twice. Changes you make there are applied when you save and apply them in game.

Test before you trust

Do not assume a permission works because you set it. Check it the way a player would:

• Log in with a second account that is only in the default group and try the commands you meant to deny.
• Use the permission check command on a user to see whether LuckPerms thinks they have a permission.
• Use verbose mode while you or a tester run a command; it shows which permission the plugin checked and what answer it got.

Keep it consistent on a network

If you run more than one server, store LuckPerms data in a shared database so a rank is the same everywhere, and install the plugin on the proxy as well as the backends if your setup calls for it. The project's documentation covers storage types and how servers stay in sync.

Habits worth keeping

Back up the LuckPerms data before large changes. Review the staff group every few months and remove access that is no longer needed. When a plugin update adds permissions, read what they do before granting them to a group.