Setting Up LiteBans for Ban, Mute, and Kick Logging

Setting Up LiteBans for Ban, Mute, and Kick Logging

Banning a player is one command. Knowing their full punishment history six months later needs a plugin actually built for that.

LiteBans is a dedicated punishment plugin — bans, mutes, kicks, and warnings, each logged with a timestamp, staff member, reason, and duration. It's built to be the single source of truth for a server's moderation history, rather than relying on console logs or memory.

Install LiteBans

Drop LiteBans-bukkit.jar into plugins/ and restart. LiteBans needs a database — SQLite works out of the box for a single server, MySQL is required if punishments need to sync across a network (see the config for storage.type).

Basic Punishment Commands

/ban <player> [reason]
/tempban <player> <duration> [reason]
/mute <player> [duration] [reason]
/kick <player> [reason]
/warn <player> [reason]
/unban <player>
/unmute <player>

Duration shorthand works directly in the command — /tempban Player 7d Rule violation.

Viewing Punishment History

/history <player>

shows every punishment a player has received, including expired ones — this is the feature that separates LiteBans from basic ban commands.

Checking Who Issued a Punishment

/banlist
/mutelist

list currently active bans/mutes, including which staff member issued each one — useful for accountability and reviewing staff decisions later.

Setting Up Punishment Appeals

LiteBans itself doesn't include an appeal system — that typically lives on a Discord server or web form separately, with staff cross-referencing /history to review the original punishment before deciding on an appeal.

Customizing Punishment Messages

The default kick/ban/mute screens are functional but generic — messages.yml controls exactly what a punished player sees, including the reason, duration, and who issued it. This is the single file most servers end up customizing, since it's one of the few LiteBans screens every punished player actually sees directly.

ZCraft Studios' LiteBans Message Templates is a ready-made version of this file if writing the MiniMessage formatting from scratch isn't worth the time.

Syncing Across a Network

For punishments to apply network-wide (a ban on one backend server blocking the player everywhere), LiteBans needs to be installed on every backend server, all pointed at the same MySQL database — a player banned on one server but not synced to the others can simply reconnect through a different backend.