How to Host a Local DayZ Server
The process is fairly quick and simple and includes the four main steps below. Note: This only works for PC (sorry consoles) and this guide covers hosting the server on a Windows PC. You can host a server on Linux but that's not covered here. This is the most basic installation to get you up and running. It doesn't include installing mods or admin tools. You're going to need a text editor. The regular text editor works fine but eventually you're going to want Visual Studio Code or some other code editor to edit the server configuration files (such as spawn points, loot economy, etc.)
See my other guides here
In Steam, go to your Library and near the upper left corner of the sidebar and make sure that "Tools" is checked.
This will show all of the tools associated with the games you have in your library. Find "DayZ Server" in the list. The list may be extensive depending on how many games you have. You can search for "DayZ Server" in the search bar.
Click on DayZ Server and install it. It's about 3.75 GB so make sure you have that space on your drive.
Open the folder on your PC where DayZ Server was installed. It's typically:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\DayZServer.
You can also easily right click on DayZ Server in the sidebar and then "Manage"->"Browse Local Files".
Your folder should look something like this:
Open the "serverDZ.cfg" file in your text editor. There are a lot of setting here and there are even more possible that aren't included here. You can read all about them on the Bohemia wiki. We're just going to make two changes to get up and running.
First, change the name from "EXAMPLE NAME" to whatever you want your server to be called (this isn't required to get up and running but you might as well do it now). This is what will show in the DayZ Launcher.
Next, scroll to the bottom of the file where you see "class Missions". As of the writing of this page, Bohemia hasn't updated the default configuration file to include the Sakhal mission yet (this isn't required if you never want to run the Sakhal map on your server). So we need to add it. All you need to do it add this:
// DLC mission Sakhal: dayzOffline.sakhal
So your file looks like this:
⚠️ Important! Change the "template=" line to be whichever map you want to run on the server. "dayzOffline.chernarusplus" is Chernarus (obviously), "dayzOffline.enoch" is Livonia, and "dayzOffline.sakhal" is...Sakhal. Adding the commented section above isn't required, I just do it so I have it there easily accessible. But changing the template is required if you want to run Livonia or Sakhal (it will run Chernarus by default). You obviously need to own Sakhal to play Sakhal.
💾 Save the serverDZ.cfg file.
If you ever lose the file somehow or break it, you can get all of the default content on my github here.
In the DayZServer folder create a new text file named "serverStart.bat". You can actually name it whatever you want, just remember that this is what you'll run to start your server. There's an example file located at "DayZServer->server_manager->example_launch_params.txt". We'll create a very basic file here to get you up and running. You can read about all of the different possible startup parameters on the Bohemia wiki here.
Open the file in your text editor (note: don't just double-click the file, it will try to execute and do nothing since the file is currently empty.)
Copy and paste the code here into the file. If you want an explanation of all of the paremeters, watch the video at the top of this page. Edit the serverName variable (line 4).
Credit: I got the basics of this file from Dagger \ on Steam and very slightly changed some things.
💾 Save the serverStart.bat file.
🤞 Double-click the serverStart.bat file and hopefully your server will start. You should see a command window with some basic information and a countdown until the next server restart and a DayZ window which shows the server startup information and will show when players connect and log off etc. As mentioned, this is a very basic way of getting up and running. Many people use all kinds of dashboard and mods to manage their servers. This is really simple.
Launch DayZ from Steam. In the launcher, click on the LAN tab. Your server should be there ready to join! Join your server! 🖥️
You now have your own server to mess around with and play single player DayZ. Unlike Community Offline Mode, your server is persistent so every time you log off and back on you'll have your same player with their loot and so on (as long as your server is running).
Anyone in your house (on the same network) can easily connect to your server. However, connecting your friends from outside your home requires forwarding ports on your router which is beyond the scope of this guide. Have fun!