DayZ Server Provider Checklist

The provider is the company that owns the route and the hardware, unless you are the company. A checklist is how you avoid discovering their policy during a wipe weekend. Ask in writing. A sales chat that says "yes we support games" is not a port forward.

UDP on the game ports and the query port has to be allowed, inbound, without a weekly ticket. BattlEye RCon is more UDP, on the port you choose, reachable from the internet if CFTools Cloud will manage the server. If their panel only forwards TCP, they do not host DayZ, they host a website that thinks it is DayZ. The port guide is the list to paste into the ticket so the answer cannot be vague.

CPU is a clock question, not a core-count question. Ask what the core is, not how many threads the invoice mentions. RAM has to have headroom past the plan's "recommended for 60 slots" banner, because their banner does not know your mods. Disk has to be restorable. A provider who cannot snapshot or who snapshots so slowly that you never do it will meet you on the day the disk dies. Requirements is the local version of these questions.

Abuse and DDoS policy is the question people skip because it feels pessimistic. Ask what they do when a UDP flood hits a game port. If the answer is "we null-route," ask for how long and whether you get a new IP without a week of waiting. The uptime guide is why this is not paranoia. Also ask whether they reboot the host for their own patches in your peak window. A Tuesday morning reboot can be fine. A Friday night reboot is a wipe of trust.

Location is a player question. "Europe" is not a city. Pick the country you already see on the roster for the community you want. Then read the hosting note for that country. A provider diagram with a dot on a continent is marketing. A traceroute from one of your regulars is a measurement. Do the measurement on the trial, not after the annual plan.

If the checklist is already annoying you, you do not want to be the provider. CFTools Architect is the DayZ host that exists so the checklist becomes their problem: install, branches, mods, process. You still choose a region. You still want Cloud for RCon if you are not going to live on the machine. The comparison is the decision in one place. Pricing for CFTools stays on cftools.com/pricing. Pricing for everyone else stays on their page, next to the answers they gave you. If they would not answer, do not pay them.

One more item: can you get your files out? Persistence, mission, cfg. A provider or a panel that holds the world hostage at cancellation has your community, not a config. Know the export path on day one. The hive files are what you are exporting. Practice once while the server is young and nobody's base is a political issue.

Get the answers in writing, then try to leave

Ask about inbound UDP for the game port, the query port, and a separate RCon port. Ask what happens to a UDP flood. Ask which city the machine is in, not which continent the brochure drew. Ask when they reboot for their own patches. Ask how you export the profile if you cancel. A provider who will not answer those five is a provider you will interview during an outage, which is a bad time to learn their policy. CFTools Architect is the DayZ-specific answer to the first and the last: the dedicated server is the product, and you should still confirm the region and the export with your eyes.

During the trial, join from outside, connect CFTools Cloud from outside, and copy the hive to your own disk. If any of the three fails, stop the trial. Do not start a community on a box that cannot do them. The server list will happily display a server you cannot manage. That is not a favor.

Location is a player test, not a latency number in a sales chat. Have one regular connect from the country you claim to serve. If they rubber-band on an empty server, the full server will be worse. Read the hosting note and then believe the regular over the diagram. A cheap city that fails this test is expensive.

Slots on the invoice are not a sizing tool. Size from the requirements and from the mods you run. A panel recommendation of "recommended 60" ignores your Workshop list. Ignore it back. And if the panel cannot show you beserver_x64.cfg without a ticket, assume RCon will be a ticket too. You do not want tickets at midnight. You want the port open and the password in Cloud. The open roster does not care which company you pay. It cares that the query answers and the count is real. Spoofing the count to look launched on a provider you already regret will get you removed from the honest index. Fix the provider or shut down.