Set Up Admin Access on Your ARK: Survival Ascended Server

Running a dedicated ARK: Survival Ascended server is more enjoyable once you give yourself the admin role. With it, you unlock cheats and built-in commands that let you fly across the map, swap day for night, summon tames, or simply moderate your community when things get rowdy. The good news is that the process is short. The slightly less good news is that it takes a few steps in both the panel and the game itself, and skipping one will leave you typing commands into a console that just shrugs back.

This walkthrough covers everything you need to flip admin on for your ARK: SA server.

What Admin Access Actually Gives You

Admin rights in ARK: Survival Ascended grant access to the cheat command suite. That sounds dramatic, but it does not automatically make you stronger than other players. You still need to type the commands to teleport, fly, change weather, or spawn items. Most server owners use admin powers to enforce rules, set up events, or repair bugs caused by random ARK weirdness. A smaller number use them to terraform a base in record time, which is fine too. Whatever you plan to do, the setup is the same.

Step 1: Set the Admin Password in the Panel

The server expects an admin password before any cheats are accepted from a player. You configure this inside the control panel.

• Open your HolyHosting control panel and click Customizations on the left.

• Find the Admin Password field and enter the value you want to use. Keep it long, random, and private.

• Return to the main panel page and restart the server so the new password loads into the world.

A short reminder: anyone who knows this password can grant themselves cheats. Treat it like a root password, not your Steam username.

Step 2: Enable the In-Game Console

ARK: SA hides the developer console behind a setting that is off by default. Turning it on is quick.

• From the ARK: SA main menu, press ESC and select Settings.

• Switch to the Advanced tab and toggle Console Access on.

• Save the changes at the bottom of the screen. You can now press the tilde key (`~`) at any time to open the console.

If tilde does nothing on your keyboard, it is probably bound to something else on non-US layouts. Open the Keyboard category in Settings, find Toggle Console, and remap it to whatever is comfortable.

Step 3: Become Admin In-Game

With the password set and the console working, the last step happens inside the world itself.

• Launch ARK: Survival Ascended and connect to your dedicated server.

• Open the console and type `enablecheats [password]`, replacing `[password]` with the value you saved in the panel.

• The console confirms the change, and your account now has full admin rights for this session.

You will need to run `enablecheats` again every time you log back into the server. The grant only lasts for the current play session.

Using Admin Commands

The cheat list in ARK is long enough to make any beginner pause. To keep things manageable, start typing the first few letters of a command and the console will show matching suggestions. That alone removes most of the guesswork.

One detail trips up nearly every new admin: some commands require a `cheat` prefix on a dedicated server even though they work without it in singleplayer. For example, `cheat GiveCreativeMode` is correct on a multiplayer server, while plain `GiveCreativeMode` will not work. If a command appears to do nothing, add `cheat` in front and try again.

Frequently Asked Questions

The console says my password is invalid. What went wrong?

Open the panel, check the Admin Password under Customizations, and confirm it matches exactly what you typed in-game. If the field was blank, or you changed it without restarting the server, the new value never loaded. Save again, restart the server, and rerun `enablecheats` in the console.

The tilde key does not open the console.

Go to Settings, then Keyboard, and find Toggle Console. Bind it to a key that works on your layout, save, and try again from your world.

Why does my command run in singleplayer but not on the server?

Most cheats need the `cheat` prefix when used on a dedicated server. Prepend it to the command and the server will accept it.

Once you have admin access dialed in, keep the password to yourself. Anything you can do with cheats, a guest with the password can do too, which usually ends with someone summoning a Giga inside the base.