Set up the Minecraft whitelist and permissions

The whitelist restricts access to a defined list of players. LuckPerms then manages the ranks and permissions of each connected player.

Cause / The problem

Without a whitelist, anyone who knows the IP can join. Without a permission system, all players have the same rights (operator or nothing), which prevents creating differentiated ranks.

Solution

1. Enable the whitelist in server.properties:

   white-list=true
   enforce-white-list=true

   Restart the server to apply.
2. Add players from the console or in-game (as op):

   whitelist add player_username
   whitelist remove player_username
   whitelist list
   whitelist reload

   Entries are stored in whitelist.json. You can also edit this file directly and then run whitelist reload.
3. Install LuckPerms to manage ranks:
   • Download LuckPerms-Bukkit.jar (for Paper/Spigot) or LuckPerms-Fabric.jar.
   • Drop it into /plugins (or /mods).
   • Restart the server.
4. Create your groups with LuckPerms commands:

   /lp creategroup admin
   /lp creategroup vip
   /lp group admin permission set minecraft.command.gamemode true
   /lp group admin permission set luckperms.admin true

5. Assign a player to a rank:

   /lp user username parent set admin

6. Verify the setup with /lp info username to list a player’s effective permissions.

LuckPerms also offers a web editor (/lp editor) that opens a full interface in the browser to manage all groups and permissions at once.