How to schedule messages and restarts on a DayZ server

Oneleg · Post by **Oneleg** » Sat Oct 26, 2024 3:44 pm

This guide will show you how to create simple automated messages and restarts for your DayZ server. This guide assumes you have an FTP or SSH client for viewing the files of your server, if you need to read more on FTP/SSH clients you can do so here

Login over FTP to your DayZ server using the link on the "File manager" tab of your control panel.
Navigate to the root folder of your DayZ server, and then enter the folder “mpmissions”
Open the mission folder your server is currently using. The default is “dayzOffline.chernarusplus”.
Open the folder within that named “db”.
You’ll see a file named “messages.xml” – this is the file you will need to edit.
Within the body of the file, you will see some example messages you can base your changes off of. Create your own custom messages by entering new message brackets like this:
Code: Select all
```
<message>
        <delay>10</delay>
        <repeat>50</repeat>
        <onconnect>1</onconnect>
        <text>Thank you for joining our server!</text>
</message>
```
This example would display a message to a player after they’ve been connected to the server for 10 minutes, then repeat it every 50 minutes.
Make a copy (backup) of this file. For instance, make a copy in that folder and call it messages.xml.backup. This is important because any game update, server move, or repair will reset the regular file back to the default version. (If you do lose your changes in one of those operations, you may still be able to retrieve it from our last server backup, but it's not guaranteed.)

Here’s a more in-depth breakdown of the options available for creating custom messages:

Code: Select all

<message>
        <delay>10</delay> // Defines how long of a delay in minutes
        <deadline>600</deadline>  // Defines how long in minutes this message will take to trigger from server start
	<shutdown>1</shutdown> // Defines if this message also triggers a server shutdown.
        <repeat>5</repeat> // Defines how long before the message repeats in minutes
        <onconnect>1</onconnect> // Defines whether or not this message is triggered by a player connecting.
        <text>Thank you for joining our server!</text> // The text that you would like your message to display
</message>