Garry's Mod Config Editor: server.cfg Settings and Sandbox Limits

The Garry’s Mod Config Editor is a form-based editor for garrysmod/cfg/server.cfg, the Source-engine config file that controls your server’s name, connection details, and the sandbox limits that decide how many props, ragdolls, NPCs, and vehicles each player can spawn. Instead of hand-editing a plain-text file of key-value console commands, you get labelled fields grouped by what they affect, three one-click presets for the sandbox limits, and a locked read-only view of the couple of keys that are safer set somewhere else. This guide covers exactly what the editor touches, how the settings are grouped, what the presets do, which keys are locked and why, and when a saved change actually takes effect. This feature is currently in BETA.

What the Config Editor Edits

The editor works on garrysmod/cfg/server.cfg, the file at the root of your Garry’s Mod install that Source dedicated servers read at boot for everything that is not a command-line startup flag. Garry’s Mod’s own egg does not template this file the way the panel does for some other games, so the copy sitting on your server’s disk (written out once when the server first installs) is the single source of truth; the editor reads and writes that file directly rather than a config it regenerates from scratch, so anything you added by hand outside the editor’s known keys is left alone.

Alongside server.cfg, the editor also lists garrysmod/lua/autorun/server/workshop.lua, the small Lua script that force-downloads a specific Workshop addon to every connecting client via a resource.AddWorkshop("id") call. Because it is a Lua script and not a key-value config, it is shown as a raw text file rather than a form: open it, edit the addon ID inside the quotes, and save.

Note: server.cfg is edited through a grouped form; workshop.lua is edited as raw text. Note: server.cfg is not templated by the panel, so the on-disk file is authoritative and edits outside the editor’s known keys are preserved. Note: This feature is in BETA. Report anything that looks wrong so it can be fixed quickly.

Opening the Config Editor

The editor appears automatically on Garry’s Mod servers. Open your server in the Loafhosts panel and look in the left sidebar under the Game section, near Change Game, for a Server Config item. Click it to open the Config Editor in place; your sidebar and the live status header at the top stay where they are. The item only shows up on a Garry’s Mod server; it understands server.cfg specifically and stays hidden on any other game.

Tip: The Server Config item lives in the Game section of the sidebar, near Change Game.

Tip: If your server has never been started, server.cfg may not exist on disk yet; start it once so the game writes the file, then reopen the editor.

How the Settings Are Grouped

The form splits server.cfg into three groups:

• Server, covering how the server presents itself: Server name (hostname), Server password (sv_password, locked here, see below), Custom loading screen URL (sv_loadingurl), Fast download URL (sv_downloadurl) for serving custom content, and Steam server list region (sv_region), a 0-7 Valve region filter, or 255 to list worldwide.
• Network, the anti-flood and visibility controls: LAN only mode (sv_lan), plus the query rate limits that guard against server-browser query floods: Global query rate limit (sv_max_queries_sec_global), Per-client query rate limit (sv_max_queries_sec), and the Query rate limit window in seconds (sv_max_queries_window) those two are measured over.
• Sandbox Limits, the per-player caps sandbox gamemodes enforce: max props, ragdolls, NPCs, balloons, vehicles, scripted entities, and effects (sbox_maxprops, sbox_maxragdolls, sbox_maxnpcs, sbox_maxballoons, sbox_maxvehicles, sbox_maxsents, sbox_maxeffects), plus two toggles: Allow sandbox god mode (sbox_godmode) and Allow sandbox noclip (sbox_noclip).

A handful of network-tuning convars that the game’s own default server.cfg comments say to leave at default, such as sv_minrate, sv_maxrate, gmod_physiterations, net_splitpacket_maxrate, and decalfrequency, are deliberately left out of the form. They are still in the file and untouched by the editor; they are just not something you are expected to tune from here.

Tip: Sandbox Limits is where you tune how much a busy server can strain the node: prop and NPC counts are the biggest lever.

Note: A few advanced network convars that the game’s own file recommends leaving at default are intentionally not exposed in the form.

One-Click Sandbox Presets

If you would rather not tune every limit by hand, the editor offers three presets at the top of the Sandbox Limits group:

• Vanilla defaults, the stock limits Garry’s Mod ships with: 100 props, 5 ragdolls, 10 NPCs, 10 balloons, 20 vehicles, 20 scripted entities, and 10 effects per player, with god mode and noclip off.
• Relaxed sandbox (higher limits), roughly triple the vanilla caps for a building-focused community that wants more headroom: 300 props, 20 ragdolls, 30 NPCs, 30 balloons, 50 vehicles, 60 scripted entities, and 30 effects.
• Locked down (low limits), tighter caps for a small or shared-resource server: 50 props, 2 ragdolls, 5 NPCs, 5 balloons, 10 vehicles, 10 scripted entities, 5 effects, with god mode and noclip off.

Applying a preset writes that preset’s whole patch of sandbox limits in one save; it does not touch anything in the Server or Network groups. As with any config change, restart the server afterward to bring the new limits into play.

Tip: Relaxed sandbox is a good starting point if players regularly hit prop or NPC caps on a building-heavy server.

Tip: Locked down is a sensible choice for a small server where you want to keep resource usage predictable.

Locked Settings and Why They Are Read-Only

Two keys are shown locked and cannot be edited from this form: Server password (sv_password) and RCON password (rcon_password). Both are password-shaped keys, and the editor deliberately keeps password fields out of a form that cannot safely echo back the current value. If you need to set or change your server password, do it directly in server.cfg through the File Manager, or with the sv_password console command from the panel’s Console tab, then restart.

RCON works a little differently on Garry’s Mod than on some other games in the panel: there is no dedicated RCON startup field for it at all, and the default server.cfg does not set rcon_password out of the box (the file’s own header comment even asks you not to set RCON in it, preferring a startup parameter Loafhosts does not currently expose for this game). The editor locks rcon_password defensively in case you add it yourself; if you want external Source RCON access, set it through the File Manager or the Console, and restart.

Note: Locked settings (orange tag) are kept out of the form because they are password-shaped keys, not because the panel manages them elsewhere for you.

Note: RCON is not wired to a Startup field on Garry’s Mod; set rcon_password in server.cfg yourself if you want it.

Validation

Every field is checked before it is written. Number fields like the sandbox limits and query rate limits are bounded to the ranges shown above (for example, sbox_maxprops accepts 0 to 1000, and sv_region accepts 0 to 255) and must be whole numbers. Toggles like LAN only mode, god mode, and noclip are written as the 0/1 values Source engine expects. If a value falls outside its allowed range or is the wrong type, the save is rejected with a message and nothing is written to server.cfg, so a bad entry never reaches the running server.

Note: Numeric fields are range-checked and toggles are written as 0/1; an invalid value is rejected before anything is saved.

How Changes Apply

Saving writes your changes straight to garrysmod/cfg/server.cfg on disk. Source dedicated servers read server.cfg at boot, so a saved change is not live until the server reads the file again: restart the server after saving to bring your edits into effect. This applies to every group in the editor, including a preset applied to Sandbox Limits, there is no live-reload path for server.cfg on Garry’s Mod.

Note: Saving only writes the file. Restart the server to load the new settings into the running game.

Putting It Together

The Garry’s Mod Config Editor turns server.cfg into a grouped form: server identity and connection details, network anti-flood controls, and the sandbox limits that keep a busy prop-heavy server under control, with three one-click presets for those limits and a couple of password-shaped keys kept safely out of the form. Validation stops a bad value before it reaches disk, and a restart brings whatever you changed into play. As a BETA feature, the field list may grow over time; if you spot something that should be editable here and isn’t, the File Manager always gives you direct access to the raw file in the meantime.