WARDOGS whitelist and reserved slots across multiple servers

How a WARDOGS whitelist works, how to keep one list across every server you run, how a clan roster carries a grant, and how seeding rules hand out slots.

Updated 16 September 2026

Two things called a whitelist

Searching for “WARDOGS whitelist” turns up two different subjects. One is hosting: Bulkhead licenses its server files only to approved hosts, so a community server is always rented, never self-hosted. The other is the one this guide is about — the list on your server that says which players keep a slot when it is full.

In the server’s configuration that list is the reserved slots. Edited by hand it is a set of SteamIDs in a file, one file per server, updated by whoever holds the RCON password. That is fine for one box and ten friends. It stops being fine the moment you run two servers or a clan joins.

One grant, every server

On BulletMeta a whitelist grant belongs to the community, not to a server. You grant it once and it is written to the reserved-slot list of every server you run — and when you register a third server, it gets the same list. A grant can go to:

• a player, by Steam name, SteamID64 or profile link;
• a clan — the clan’s roster is read at apply time, so a leader adding a member propagates without you touching anything, and a member who leaves the clan loses the slot with it;
• a role — everybody holding one of your admin roles, so a new moderator is on the list the moment they accept the invite.

Grants are free and unlimited. There is no slot to buy and no seat price: whitelist entries are the community’s to hand out, and BulletMeta never sells a player a way onto somebody else’s server.

What happens when a server says no

Every push reports what each box answered. If one server refuses the list — it is down, or its build rejected the write — the grant still saves, and the console shows a warning naming the server rather than pretending it went through. The audit log carries the same answer per server, so a slot that was “granted” but never applied is visible rather than a mystery a player discovers on a full night.

Seeding rules: whitelist as a reward

The people who sit on an empty server so that others will join are the reason it fills. Seeding rules turn that into a slot automatically: a rule says the players with the most seeding time this week, or anyone above so many seeding points, get whitelist for a period, and an hourly sweep writes the grants. Each grant shows its source and its expiry in the list, and a player can see their own standing on their account page.

A rule is saved off and turned on as its own confirmed step — having the feature grants nobody anything until you say so. Seeding rules are part of the paid plans; manual grants are on every plan, including free.

Setting it up

• Register your servers with admin features (the RCON guide covers that).
• Open Whitelist in the dashboard and add a grant — a player, a clan or a role — with an optional expiry.
• Ask your clans to keep their rosters on BulletMeta; a clan is free to create and is what makes the grant follow the roster.
• Use Re-apply after you restore a server from a backup, so its list matches what the console says.