BattlEye

BattlEye website
Abbreviation: BE

BattlEye is an anti-cheat tool created by BattlEye Innovations. It is currently included in Bohemia Interactive's Arma, Arma 2 and Arma 3 series as an optional installation and server configuration option.

BattlEye works by scanning connected clients for various cheat and exploit methods. Upon detection, BattlEye disconnects (kicking) the offending clients. You can find more details about the BE cheat scanning engine on the about page.

Privacy

BattlEye will never violate your privacy in any way. The EULA clearly states this when installing BattlEye. Any other statements found anywhere else are superseded by the EULA.

BattlEye always has and will secure the user's privacy and protect against any sort of software exploitation from outside.

Setup

Latest version

You can find out what the latest version is by visiting the news section.

Installation

Installation of the BattlEye client is an option during the initial game installation process.

BE updates itself automatically during a running MP session with internet access. However in the case of troubles use the following options:

Manual BEClient.dll download

1. Download the latest BEClient.dll from the download section. Make sure to download the BEClient.dll for the your series of Arma:

   Arma, Arma 2, Operation Arrowhead, Arma 3, …

2. Now you need to put BEClient.dll to the right location:

   Windows 7

   C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Arma 2 OA\BattlEye\

   Windows XP

   C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\ARMA 2 OA\BattlEye\

   STEAM

   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\ARMA 2 Operation Arrowhead\Expansion\BattlEye\

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You need to use the right subfolder for your game version (Arma/Arma 2/Arma 2 OA/Arma 3…).

Automated BEClient.dll installer

1. Download the installer for your series of Arma.
2. Next run it and use run as Administrator (select file by left mouse click, right mouse click, select the run as option).

It is a very fast silent-installer. This means normally you will not notice anything - no application widow, no progress bar, no completion info. Only if there are issues, it will speak up.

The automated installer looks for the BEClient.dll on your computer:

1. If your BEClient.dll is same or newer, then installer does nothing,
2. If your BEClient.dll is older, it updates the BEClient.dll version,
3. If the BEClient.dll is not found, it will install the latest BEClient.dll.

You can verify if it was installed by checking the software uninstall list. You find it under "BattlEye for OA uninstall".

Installation on Linux servers

First of all, set up a working Arma 2 or Arma 2:OA server. When your Linux Arma 2 server works as it should, you can follow these instructions to install and enable BattlEye.

1. Log on to your Linux server with SSH or open a new terminal emulator window.
2. Change directory to where you have the Arma 2 server files installed. In this example we'll use "/home/arma2/arma2server" as the server's installation directory:

   cd /home/arma2/arma2server

3. Next, create a directory for the BattlEye server.
   • For an Arma 2 server, the path should be:

   ./battleye

   • Whilst for an Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead server it is:

   ./expansion/battleye:

   • i.e. mkdir battleye or mkdir expansion/battleye
4. Download the correct BE server from the BattlEye website - there's one file for Arma 2 and another for Arma 2:OA. You can use a command-line download tool such as "wget" or "curl" as well:
   • For Arma 2, use:

   wget http://www.battleye.com/downloads/arma2/beserver.so -O battleye/beserver.so

   • Whilst for Arma 2:OA it is:

   wget http://www.battleye.com/downloads/arma2oa/beserver.so -O expansion/battleye/beserver.so

5. You now have the BE server component installed. Enable it in your game server's config with "BattlEye=1;".
6. Start the server again and watch the log file (usually "log.2302.txt"). With BattlEye enabled, you'll see an extra line of output when the server is started. For example:

   14:20:22 BattlEye Server: Initialized (v1.122)

7. (Optional) In order to administrate your BE server remotely, you'll need to create a configuration file for the BE server. It should be named "beserver.cfg" and placed in the BE directory you just created.
   We'll create one and set the admin password to "mypassword". (You should change the password used in this example to something better).
   • For an Arma 2 server, run:

   echo "RConPassword mypassword" > ./battleye/beserver.cfg

   • For an Arma 2:OA server, do this:

   echo "RConPassword mypassword" > ./expansion/battleye/beserver.cfg

   • For an Arma 3 server, do this:

   echo "RConPassword mypassword" > ./battleye/launch/beserver.cfg

   • For more details, see the section below on RCon.

Configuration

Client

Apart from installation there is no additional configuration required for game clients.

Server

Refer to the server config section on how to enable BattlEye on a game server.

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If you run multiple game servers on one machine, you need to specify separate BE paths for each in the server startup parameters.

64-bit support

The 64-bit version of Arma 3 uses 64-bit dlls: BEClient_x64.dll and BEServer_x64.dll, as well as BEServer_x64.cfg for configuration.

BE commands

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The #beserver command has been disabled for now, due to the game admin hijacking hack.
You need to use the BE RCon tool to ban players from your server.

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The commands are case insensitive. In other words you can write them all lower case.

GUID banning

BE can permanently or temporarily ban players from your server. The advantage over Arma 2's PID banning is that the BE GUID cannot be hacked/changed client-side, therefore the only way for a player to get unbanned is to buy a new game/cd-key.

The following commands are available to manage GUID bans:

Command	Description
loadBans	(Re)load the BE ban list from bans.txt.
bans	Show a list of all BE server bans.
ban [player #] [time in minutes] [reason]	Ban a player's BE GUID from the server. If time is not specified or 0, the ban will be permanent; if reason is not specified the player will be kicked with "Banned".
addBan [GUID] [time in minutes] [reason]	Same as "ban", but allows to ban a player that is not currently on the server.
removeBan [ban #]	Remove ban (get the ban # from the bans command).
writeBans	removes expired bans from bans file

You can either enter them via BE RCon or in-game using "#beserver [command]" (if logged in as admin). For example:

#beserver ban 11

Keep in mind that the "player #" used here is the one listed by BE's "players" command.

BattlEye GUID and IP bans will now both be loaded from and saved to "bans.txt" (no longer "guidbans.txt" and "ipbans.txt") in your server's BE working directory.
Timed bans're saved into bans.txt as timestamp of end-date(unixformat)

RCon

Latest version

b0.94.

Since BattlEye server version 1.102 you can control your Arma game server remotely (without having to be in-game) using the BattlEye RCon tool.

1. Download the BattlEye RCon tool (BERCon.exe).
2. Create a file called beserver.cfg (or beserver_x64.cfg for 64-bit server) in BattlEye working directory on the server.
3. Set private RCon password in the beserver.cfg (or beserver_x64.cfg for 64-bit server) via setting "RConPassword"
4. Set custom BattlEye's RCON port defined in beserver.cfg (or beserver_x64.cfg for 64-bit server) via setting "RConPort" (for Arma 3 update 1.58.135656 and newer builds)
5. Set optional BattlEye's RCON IP defined in beserver.cfg (or beserver_x64.cfg for 64-bit server) via setting "RConIP" (for Arma 3 update 1.58.135656 and newer builds)
6. Start the RCon tool binary and connect to server with its IP, port and RCon password.

RconPort must avoid reserved ARMA3server port range (gameport *+0,+1,+2,+3,+4))
default reserved ports are 2302 - 2306 (to clarify the reserved ports can't be used for BattlEye's RCON).
example for default server setting, RconPort 2301

RconIP entry isn't needed, as when undefined it equals to value of 0.0.0.0 (all IPv4 local IP addresses used at once)
setting it to e.g. 127.0.0.1 will prevent it to respond on external IP
setting it to e.g. external IP will prevent it to respond on localhost 127.0.0.1

BattlEye working directory

The BattlEye working directory is a folder in one of three places:

1. A folder named "BattlEye" within the Arma 2 application data folder.
2. A folder named "BattlEye" in the path given by the "-profiles" startup parameter.
3. In a folder given by the "-bepath" startup parameter.

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Even with custom locations you will still need the BattlEye .dll's or .so's ALSO in the default location ("<arma2>\BattlEye" for Arma 2 or "<arma2>\Expansion\BattlEye" for Arma 2:OA/CO) for BattlEye to start.

The Arma 2 application data folder

In Windows Vista, 7 and 2008, that's the path given by "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Arma 2" for Arma 2 and "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Arma 2 OA" for the Arrowhead dedi. A typical value is:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Arma 2

In Windows XP and 2003, the application data folder is "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Arma 2". A typical example is:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application data\Arma 2

These locations are the default and are used, if you launch the dedicated server without using either the "-profiles" or "-bepath" launch parameters.

The -profiles location

The path given as the "-profiles=..." startup parameter used when launching the Arma 2 dedi. If, for example, you would launch the Arma 2:OA dedicated server using:

arma2oaserver.exe -profiles=D:\Games\ArmA2

then the BattlEye working directory would be:

D:\Games\ArmA2\BattlEye

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Even if using custom locations you will still need the .dll's or .so's ALSO in the default location ("<arma2>\BattlEye" for Arma 2 or "<arma2>\Expansion\BattlEye" for Arma 2:OA/CO) for BattlEye to start.

The -bepath location

You can also specify the BattlEye working directory directly using the startup parameter "-bepath". Example:

arma2oaserver.exe -bepath=D:\MyBattlEye

In this case, the BattlEye working directory will be:

D:\MyBattlEye

If path contains spaces, encase everything in quotes:

arma2oaserver.exe "-bepath=D:\My BattlEye"

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Even if using custom locations you will still need the .dll's or .so's ALSO in the default location ("<arma2>\BattlEye" for Arma 2 or "<arma2>\Expansion\BattlEye" for Arma 2:OA/CO) for BattlEye to start.

Full examples

Here are examples of the full paths to the "beserver.cfg" file for a few different cases.

• The examples assume that the username of the user that will run the servers is "jimbob".
• "Arma 2" means running the "arma2server.exe" whereas "Arma 2:OA" means you're launching "arma2oaserver.exe".

To Launch	Follow Path
Arma 2, Windows 7/Vista/2008, default:	C:\Users\jimbob\AppData\Local\Arma 2\BattlEye\beserver.cfg
Arma 2:OA, Windows 7/Vista/2008, default:	C:\Users\jimbob\AppData\Local\Arma 2 OA\BattlEye\beserver.cfg
Arma 2, Windows XP, default:	C:\Documents and Settings\jimbob\Local Settings\Application data\Arma 2\BattlEye\beserver.cfg
Arma 2:OA, Windows XP, default:	C:\Documents and Settings\jimbob\Local Settings\Application data\Arma 2 OA\BattlEye\beserver.cfg
Any Arma 2, any Windows, -profiles=D:\profiles:	D:\profiles\BattlEye\beserver.cfg

Linux

For Linux dedicated servers, the default locations are:

• For the Arma 2 dedi, it is "./battleye"
• For the Arma 2:OA dedi, it is "./expansion/battleye"

Sample beserver.cfg

RConPassword xyzxyz
MaxPing 200

RCon commands

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The commands are case insensitive. In other words you can write them all lower case.

Command	Description
loadScripts	loads the "scripts.txt" file without the need to restart the server.
missions	Returns a list of the available missions on the server.
players	Displays a list of the players on the server including BE GUIDs and pings.
kick [player#]	Kicks a player. His # can be found in the player list using the "players" command.
RConPassword [password]	Changes the RCon password.
MaxPing [ping]	Changes the MaxPing value. If a player has a higher ping, he will be kicked from the server.
logout	Logout from current server, but do not exit the program.
Exit	Closes the connection.
Say [player#]	Say something to player #. -1 equals all players on server (e.g. "Say -1 Hello World!")

Server commands are passed directly to server

#mission [missionName] - Loads the given mission on the server.

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Look at the GUID banning section for additional commands.

Support

• BE Support page with contact details
• Frequently Asked Questions:
  • I am getting kicked for the following violation(s). I don't use hacks, so what can I do to resolve this?
  • How do I enable BattlEye in-game to be able to play on BE-enabled servers?
  • Are administrator rights required when playing with BattlEye enabled?
  • I am using a 64-bit operating system but can't seem to find the right files in the download section. Is 64-bit unsupported?
  • I am running multiple dedicated servers from one installation. Is there anything I have to keep in mind regarding BattlEye?
• Official BattlEye threads in the BI forum
  • BattlEye Installer (A2:OA)
  • RCon server administration
  • BattlEye GUID banning
  • New BattlEye features for server admins
  • Explanation: Why does BattlEye need administrator privileges now?