OP, whitelist, and bans

Who can do what on your server.

OP yourself

From the panel console (no slash needed):

op YourUsername

From in-game chat, as someone who already has OP:

/op YourUsername

That's it. OP level 4 (the default in server.properties via op-permission-level=4) can do everything: change gamemodes, edit configs, kick, ban, restart. Don't hand out OP to people you wouldn't hand the server files to.

Tiers exist if you want more control, but they only work well if you also turn on broadcast-rcon-to-ops and set a per-command plugin for the rest. For 99% of servers, OP/no-OP is enough.

Deop someone:

deop TheirUsername

Whitelist

Whitelist stops anyone not on the list from joining. Good for private servers, development servers, and locked-down streams.

Turn it on from console:

whitelist on

Add someone:

whitelist add TheirUsername

Remove someone:

whitelist remove TheirUsername

Turn it off:

whitelist off

You can do the same in server.properties (white-list=true / enforce-whitelist=true / enforce-secure-profile=true — the secure-profile one is separate and enforces chat signatures; leave it on unless something breaks, on 1.21+ it's increasingly required by plugins).

Bans

Ban from console (no slash):

ban TheirUsername

Ban with a reason they see when they try to join:

ban TheirUsername Griefing the spawn area

IP ban (blocks any account joining from that IP):

ban-ip 1.2.3.4

Kick without banning:

kick TheirUsername Take a break

Pardon:

pardon TheirUsername

List current bans:

banlist

Notes

• OPs bypass the whitelist. Don't rely on whitelist for someone with OP.

• Bans on a vanilla/paper server are name-based by default. Alt accounts exist; catch them by IP if it becomes a pattern.

• Everything above also works from in-game chat with a leading slash if you're OP.