How to Host a Squad Server on LoafHosts

Hosting a Squad server means running Offworld Industries’ large-scale combined-arms shooter on an always-on machine so your community can play any layer, day or night, with a permanent address and full control of the server config. This guide covers everything you actually do inside the LoafHosts panel to run a Squad server: editing the .cfg files that live in your server’s ServerConfig folder, finding any setting fast with universal search, managing your admins, bans and layer rotation, and installing Steam Workshop mods with a single apply step. Every screen described here is a real tool the panel gives a Squad server — nothing more, nothing less. Whether you searched for Squad server hosting, how to host a Squad server, or how to edit your Squad Server.cfg, the steps are below.

What You Get with a Squad Server on LoafHosts

A Squad server on LoafHosts ships with two purpose-built tools in the server’s panel: the Squad Server Config Editor for the game’s configuration files, and the Steam Workshop Mod Manager for mods and collections. The config editor reads and writes the files Squad keeps in /SquadGame/ServerConfig — Server.cfg, Rcon.cfg, Admins.cfg, Bans.cfg, LayerRotation.cfg, and any licence or exclusion list your server ships. The mod manager browses the Steam Workshop, stages the items you want, and applies them with a reinstall. Both are gated to Squad servers, so they only appear where they make sense.

One important thing to understand up front: on LoafHosts, your Server.cfg on disk is the single source of truth. The panel does not rewrite Server.cfg from the Startup tab’s variables behind your back, so an edit you make in the config editor persists across restarts exactly as you saved it.

Note: The config editor works on the files in /SquadGame/ServerConfig — the same folder a Squad dedicated server reads at boot.

Note: Both tools are scoped to Squad servers and require the matching plugin to be enabled for your server.

Note: Edits to Server.cfg are written straight to disk and survive restarts — the panel won’t overwrite them.

Editing Your Squad Server Config

Open your Squad server in the panel and go to the Squad config editor. It lists every file currently in the ServerConfig folder with a live read — there’s no fixed allowlist, so whatever your server actually has on disk is what you see. Each file opens in one of two editors depending on what it is.

Server.cfg and Rcon.cfg open in a form editor. Instead of hand-editing raw text, you get a typed control for each setting: a toggle for true/false values, a number field for numeric ones, and a text box for everything else. Values are shown unquoted so they’re easy to edit, and when you save, the editor writes them back with the original on-disk style preserved — comments, blank lines, the order of your keys, and each key’s quoting all stay exactly as they were. You can edit settings across both files and save them together; the whole save is validated first, so a bad value fails cleanly instead of leaving one file half-written.

A few settings are deliberately locked and shown read-only: the network/allocation keys in Rcon.cfg — its Port and IP. Those are managed by the panel, so the editor won’t let you change them, and it will reject a raw edit that tries to. Your game, query and beacon ports aren’t in these files at all — they live in the server’s startup command — so there’s nothing to change there either.

Tip: Use the toggles and number fields in the form editor rather than retyping raw values — it’s harder to introduce a typo that breaks the file.

Tip: Saving preserves your comments and key order, so you can annotate Server.cfg freely and your notes won’t be stripped out.

Note: Rcon.cfg Port and IP are locked because the panel allocates them. The fields show the current value but can’t be edited.

Finding a Setting Fast with Universal Search

Squad’s Server.cfg carries a lot of keys, and remembering which file a setting lives in is half the battle. The config editor solves this with a universal search that spans every key in both Server.cfg and Rcon.cfg at once. Type part of a setting’s name — for example “server name” — and the editor surfaces the matching key (ServerName) so you can edit it inline without first hunting for the right file. The same parsed index that powers the per-file form also powers this search, so what you find is exactly what’s on disk.

Tip: Search by the human meaning of a setting (“max players”, “server name”) — the editor matches against the real keys for you.

Tip: Universal search covers both Server.cfg and Rcon.cfg, so you don’t need to know which file holds the setting before you start.

Editing Admins, Bans, and Layer Rotation

Every file that isn’t Server.cfg or Rcon.cfg opens in a raw-text editor — Admins.cfg, Bans.cfg, LayerRotation.cfg, and any licence or exclusion list. These files don’t have a fixed key/value shape (they’re lists and group definitions), so the editor gives you the full text to edit directly. This is where you set up admin groups and assign Steam IDs in Admins.cfg, manage the ban list in Bans.cfg, and define your map/layer cycle in LayerRotation.cfg. Save, and the file is written back to disk as-is.

The editor is confined to the ServerConfig folder: it only reads and writes files directly inside that one folder, and any path outside it is rejected before the request ever reaches your server. There’s also a size cap on any single file — 1 MB by default — which is far larger than a normal Squad config but keeps an accidental giant paste in check.

Note: Admins.cfg, Bans.cfg, and LayerRotation.cfg use the raw editor because they’re list-style files, not simple key/value settings.

Tip: Keep a copy of your LayerRotation.cfg somewhere safe before a big rewrite — the raw editor saves exactly what you type.

Note: The editor can only touch files inside ServerConfig; it can’t browse or write anywhere else on the server.

Installing Mods from the Steam Workshop

Squad’s mods come from the Steam Workshop, and the panel’s Steam Workshop Mod Manager handles them end to end. Open the mod manager on your Squad server and you can browse and search the Workshop, with sort options and the choice to look at individual mods or whole collections. Browsing uses a Steam Web API key that the panel operator configures once; if that key isn’t set up, the search grid is unavailable, but you can still add any mod the manual way.

That manual path always works: paste a Workshop ID or the full Workshop URL and the manager looks up the item’s details and adds it. You can also paste a collection — the manager expands it into its individual mods, because the underlying download step installs items, not collections, so expanding them is handled for you. Adding a mod stages it; removing one un-stages it. The “installed” list reflects exactly the items currently set on your server.

Under the hood, Squad tracks its installed mods in the server’s WORKSHOP_ITEMS variable (you’ll also see this on the Startup tab), and the mod manager edits that list for you as you add and remove items. The Workshop app the manager browses for Squad is app 393380.

Note: Browsing/searching the Workshop needs a Steam Web API key configured by the panel operator. Without it, adding mods by ID or URL still works.

Tip: You don’t have to add a collection’s mods one by one — paste the collection and the manager pulls in its items for you.

Note: Adding or removing a mod stages the change in your server’s WORKSHOP_ITEMS list; it isn’t downloaded until you apply.

Applying Your Mods

Staging a mod doesn’t download it on its own — Squad downloads workshop items through SteamCMD at install time. So once your list looks right, you use the manager’s single apply action, which triggers one server reinstall. The reinstall re-validates the game files and downloads every workshop item in your list; it deliberately does not wipe your server, take a backup detour, or touch your config and save data. After you add or remove items, the manager flags that an apply is needed, so you know when a reinstall is pending.

Because everything is staged into one list and applied with a single reinstall, you can queue up several mods or a whole collection and bring them all in at once, rather than reinstalling once per mod.

Note: Apply runs a reinstall so SteamCMD can download the workshop items — that’s the only way Squad pulls them in.

Tip: Stage all your add/remove changes first, then apply once — it’s faster than applying after each mod.

Note: The reinstall validates the game and downloads mods only; it doesn’t clear your ServerConfig files or save data.

Sharing Access with Sub-users

If other people help run your server, the panel’s sub-user permissions cover both tools. The config editor reuses the generic config read and config update permissions, and the mod manager uses the mod read, install, and remove permissions — the same permissions Squad shares with the panel’s other config and mod tools. Grant config update to whoever should change Server.cfg, and the mod permissions to whoever manages your Workshop list, and they’ll see only the actions they’re allowed to take.

Tip: Give a trusted admin config-update access so they can tweak Server.cfg without full account control.

Note: Mod read, install, and remove are separate permissions, so you can let someone view the mod list without letting them change it.

With the config editor handling Server.cfg, Rcon.cfg, your admins, bans and layer rotation, and the Workshop manager handling mods and collections, everything you need to run a Squad server lives in the LoafHosts panel — and because Server.cfg is the source of truth on disk, the settings you save are the settings your server runs.