Minecraft LuckPerms Permissions Guide

LuckPerms is the standard permissions plugin for modern Minecraft servers. Fast, web editor, supports MySQL, has clean inheritance, integrates with every major plugin. This guide covers the 90% you'll actually use.

1. Install

Download the right jar for your platform from luckperms.net , Bukkit, BungeeCord and Velocity all have separate builds. Drop into plugins/. Restart.

2. The mental model

• Groups , default, vip, mod, admin. Players inherit from groups.
• Permissions , nodes that allow or deny commands and features.
• Meta , prefix, suffix, weight, displayname.
• Contexts , conditions where a permission applies (per-world, per-server).

3. The 12 commands you'll actually use

/lp creategroup vip
/lp group vip parent add default
/lp group vip permission set essentials.fly true
/lp group vip permission set essentials.fly.safelogin true
/lp group vip meta setprefix 100 "&a[VIP] "
/lp group vip meta setweight 50

/lp user Steve parent set vip
/lp user Steve parent add mod          # multiple groups
/lp user Steve permission set worldedit.* false   # explicit deny

/lp user Steve permission info
/lp group vip info
/lp editor                              # opens the web editor

4. Inheritance done right

Build groups bottom-up:

default          # everyone
  -> vip         # parents: default
    -> vip+      # parents: vip
       -> mvp    # parents: vip+

helper           # parents: default
  -> mod         # parents: helper
    -> admin     # parents: mod

Keep donor and staff trees separate. A donor should never inherit a staff group.

5. Contexts , per-world and per-server permissions

# Allow /fly only in lobby
/lp group default permission set essentials.fly true world=lobby

# Disable /tpa on the PvP server
/lp group default permission set essentials.tpa false server=pvp

6. Wildcards (use with care)

LuckPerms supports plugin.*. Convenient, dangerous , essentials.* includes essentials.eco.give and essentials.gamemode. Always prefer explicit permissions for staff.

7. The web editor

/lp editor generates a temporary URL that opens a full GUI for your perms tree. Edit groups, drag-drop nodes, hit save and run the apply command in console. Saves an enormous amount of time.

8. Storage backends

Default is YAML. Switch to MySQL for any network where you want one perms set across multiple servers. In config.yml:

storage-method: mysql
data:
  address: 127.0.0.1
  database: luckperms
  username: lp
  password: secret

9. Common pitfalls

• Adding * to default , players can OP themselves via plugins that check it.
• Negating a permission on a parent group expecting it to override a child , LuckPerms uses weights, not group order. Set weight explicitly.
• Forgetting to /lp sync after editing storage by hand.

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