How to Add a SA-MP Server to the Open.MP Public List
Technical walkthrough to register your SA-MP server on the official Open.MP public list, validate masterlist requirements, and diagnose why it doesn't show up.
A SA-MP server that does not appear on the public Open.MP list is the most common issue when you bring up a new host. In most cases it is not a masterlist bug — it is a missing setting in server.cfg, a firewall blocking UDP query traffic, or the server announcing to the wrong endpoint (leftover configs pointing to the old Rockstar masterlist, which was shut down).
This tutorial is for SA-MP server owners who already have samp-server or omp-server running and want to make it appear on open.mp/servers — the public list that replaced the official masterlist. Expected persona: you have SSH access to the server (Linux) or RDP (Windows), you can edit configuration files, and the server already accepts direct IP connections.
Estimated execution time: 15 to 25 minutes to configure, plus up to 1 hour for full masterlist indexing.
Prerequisites
Before submitting the server to the public list, confirm the game is already running and accepting direct connections. If you cannot connect by IP yet, fix that first — the masterlist will not index a server it cannot reach itself.
SA-MP server 0.3.7 R2/R3 or Open.MP server (omp-server) installed and starting without errors in the log. Dedicated public IP (not behind residential NAT). UDP game port reachable externally. Access to server.cfg for editing.
7777/UDP UDP (query + game) open.mp/servers 15-60 min Configuring server.cfg for public announce
The server’s listing is controlled by two directives in server.cfg: announce and lanmode. Together with hostname, gamemode0, and weburl, they define how your entry appears visually in the browser.
Open the server.cfg file at the root of the server installation:
cd /home/samp/server
nano server.cfgOn Windows, open it with Notepad++ or similar — avoid the default Notepad because it may save in the wrong encoding.
Confirm or add the essential lines. The minimum block to appear on the public list:
hostname My RP Server BR
gamemode0 grandlarc 1
rcon_password change_this_password_now
port 7777
maxplayers 100
announce 1
lanmode 0
query 1
weburl mysite.comannounce 1 is what triggers registration with the masterlist. lanmode 0 marks the server as public (mode 1 hides it from the public list and only accepts local IPs). query 1 enables responses to the UDP query protocol, which is how the masterlist verifies that you are online.
Save the file keeping ANSI/Windows-1252 encoding if you use accented characters in hostname. In nano (Linux), use Ctrl+O and confirm. In Notepad++, go to Encoding → Convert to ANSI before saving.
A server.cfg saved as UTF-8 with an accented hostname causes samp-server to truncate the line at the first multibyte byte or register the name corrupted. If you don’t need accents, use plain ASCII and avoid the problem entirely.
Restart the server to apply the changes:
./samp03svrOr, if you use omp-server:
./omp-serverWatch the startup log. The line confirming the announce looks like Announcing to: lists.open.mp or Server registered with masterlist. If you see a DNS error or timeout, the problem is the outbound firewall — next section.
Allowing the firewall for masterlist queries
Open.MP needs to perform UDP queries against your server from its crawler IPs. If you have a firewall (UFW, iptables, firewalld, Windows Firewall) blocking inbound UDP with a restrictive whitelist, the masterlist marks the server as offline even though clients can still connect.
Allow the game’s UDP port on the firewall. On Ubuntu/Debian servers with UFW:
sudo ufw allow 7777/udp comment 'SA-MP game + query'
sudo ufw reloadOn CentOS/Rocky/AlmaLinux with firewalld:
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=7777/udp
sudo firewall-cmd --reloadOn Windows Server, via admin PowerShell:
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "SA-MP Server" -Direction Inbound -Protocol UDP -LocalPort 7777 -Action AllowConfirm the port is open externally. From a different machine (not the server):
nmap -sU -p 7777 YOUR_PUBLIC_IPExpected output is 7777/udp open|filtered samp. If you get closed or plain filtered, the firewall is still blocking or there is NAT in the path. Fix it before continuing.
nmap UDP scans have common false negatives because UDP does not reply “closed” like TCP. If nmap is ambiguous, test connecting from another network using the SA-MP client — if it gets in, the port is fine.
Submitting manually to Open.MP
Even with announce 1, in some cases the server takes a while to appear because the masterlist hasn’t made the first discovery. You can force a manual submission through the official site.
Open the submission panel at https://open.mp/servers and look for the “Add Server” or “Submit Server” link in the menu. Fill in the public IP and the port declared in server.cfg (format IP:port, e.g., 203.0.113.45:7777).
Wait for automatic verification. The masterlist runs an immediate UDP query and, if it gets a valid response, adds the server within 15 minutes. If verification fails, the panel shows the reason — usually “no response” (firewall/port) or “invalid response” (server replied but with a corrupted payload, typical of outdated mods).
Repeated submissions of the same IP in short intervals can trigger temporary rate limiting on the panel. Submit once, wait an hour, and only resubmit if it really did not appear — after checking the firewall and server log.
Verification
To confirm the server is indexed and publicly visible:
Open https://open.mp/servers in your browser and search for your exact hostname (no color codes, just the plain text). If it appears with status “Online”, correct player count, and the right gamemode, you are done.
You can also use the Open.MP query API to confirm from a terminal:
curl https://api.open.mp/servers | grep -i "your_ip"Your server entry should appear in the returned JSON with ip, hostname, players, and maxplayers fields.
Troubleshooting
Server does not appear even after 24 hours
Most common cause: announce in server.cfg is 0 or got commented out by mistake. Reread the file and confirm the line is active, with no # or // at the beginning. Second cause: the server log shows a DNS error resolving the masterlist endpoint — check DNS resolution on the server with nslookup lists.open.mp.
Appears as offline intermittently
The masterlist runs periodic checks every few minutes. If your server restarts often, suffers network lag spikes, or has aggressive UDP rate limiting (common at providers that filter against amplification), the checks fail and the entry flips between online and offline. Check the actual process uptime and the server’s network logs.
Hostname appears corrupted on the list
Wrong encoding in server.cfg. Save the file as ANSI/Windows-1252 if you use accents, or switch to plain ASCII. Color codes {RRGGBB} are accepted and rendered by the Open.MP browser, but only work in the exact format with 6 hex digits and curly braces.
Player count shows “0/0” even with connected players
The query 1 directive is disabled (or was set to 0). Without query enabled, the masterlist can see the server is online but cannot read its internal stats. Re-enable it and restart the server.
Next steps
With the server listed, the next job is to keep the entry relevant and well-positioned:
- Configure a stable gamemode that retains players — entries with consistent player counts climb the Open.MP discovery ranking
- Add
weburlpointing to the community’s site/Discord to capture browser traffic - Implement automated restarts via systemd or supervisor to avoid downtime that temporarily removes the server from the list
- Consider regional mirrors with differentiated hostnames if your player base is spread across multiple continents
- Monitor external uptime with a tool like UptimeRobot pointed at the game’s UDP port
If you are taking the server to serious production with 50+ concurrent players, a Hostini VPS tuned for SA-MP (/jogos) ships with DDoS protection sized for the common attacks against game servers, along with low-latency links to the main international providers — both factors that directly affect your position in the masterlist’s discovery ranking.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take for a new SA-MP server to show up on the public list?
Once the announce is working and the server responds to the Open.MP masterlist, indexing usually takes 15 to 60 minutes. If 24 hours pass without it appearing, the problem is almost always a firewall blocking outbound UDP or a wrong hostname/lanmode setting.
Do I have to use Open.MP or can I stay on the original SA-MP 0.3.7 R2/R3?
The official SA-MP masterlist was shut down by Rockstar/Take-Two in 2022. The usable public list today is Open.MP's (open.mp/servers), which accepts both servers running the original samp-server and the omp-server. You don't need to migrate — just point the announce to the correct endpoint.
My server shows as offline even though I can connect by direct IP. Why?
The masterlist performs a UDP query on the server port (same as the game port, 7777 by default) from Open.MP IPs. If your firewall allows client connections but blocks external queries from specific IPs, or if you have aggressive UDP rate limiting, the masterlist marks it as offline. Allow inbound UDP on the game port with no source restriction.
Is port 7777 mandatory or can I use another?
It is not mandatory. You set the port via `port` in server.cfg and the masterlist registers the declared port. The catch is that the port must be reachable externally over UDP. Servers running on non-standard ports (7778, 7779, etc.) appear normally in the list, but rank slightly lower in discovery because clients sometimes filter by the default port.
Can I list the same server multiple times or on different IPs?
Technically yes — each unique IP:port combination counts as a separate entry. But the Open.MP masterlist deduplicates by gamemode plus similar hostname and may demote entries that look like clones. If you run regional mirrors, use distinct hostnames indicating the region (e.g., 'MyServer BR' and 'MyServer EU').
Do hostnames with special characters (accents, emoji, color codes) work on the list?
SA-MP color codes in the `{RRGGBB}` format are supported and rendered by the client — they work both in-game and in the browser. Latin-1 accented characters (á, ç, ã) work if server.cfg is saved as ANSI/Windows-1252; multibyte UTF-8 breaks the samp-server parser. Unicode emojis are not supported by the protocol.