Rust server: tutorials & guidesAll guides around your own Rust server

A Rust server lives and dies by its configuration: gather rates, wipe rhythm, map size and plugin selection decide whether your community stays. The guides below take you through these decisions in the order in which they actually come up when you build a server - from joining through the server.cfg to optimizing under load.

The clock that sets the pace for everything is the wipe cycle. On the first Thursday of the month, the Facepunch update forces the force wipe, because map generation changes and old saves no longer fit. That date is fixed, and you plan everything else around it: whether you additionally wipe weekly or every two weeks, whether blueprints are reset too, when you roll a new server.seed and when you update Oxide or Carbon. A server without an announced rhythm loses players faster than one with a strict but reliable cycle.

The second big decision is the server.worldsize. It is the main load driver: a larger map means more monuments, more room for bases and therefore, over the course of a wipe, considerably more entities the server computes every second. Memory requirements also do not rise on wipe day, but over the weeks after it - which is why you size for the end of the cycle, not its beginning. Only after that come gather rates and plugins, which define the character of the server but create far less load.

The third question is vanilla or modded. A vanilla server needs no framework, is back online the moment the monthly update is through and appears in the Community tab of the server browser. As soon as you want increased rates, kits, clans or a whitelist, you need exactly one framework - Oxide/uMod or Carbon - and your server moves to the Modded tab. Neither path is better per se; what matters is that the decision fits your group and that you know what it means on wipe day, when the framework has to catch up with the new game build before a single plugin loads again.

Everything you set up runs on a fixed server address made of IP and port, protected by 250 Gbit/⁠s of DDoS protection. Backups are self-service throughout: you download the identity folder, the server.cfg and your plugin configurations yourself via WebFTP or SFTP - ideally before every framework update and before every map change. The guides explain which files actually matter, so a backup takes minutes instead of hours.

Getting started: the first steps

Right after ordering: connect, make yourself an admin, make the server visible. These four steps take the least time and decide whether your first evening on the server goes smoothly - or whether you spend it searching for the right tab in the server browser.

Configuration: world and game rules

The settings that define the character of your server. Most of them only take effect with a new world, so the natural moment to change them is the wipe - plan changes ahead and announce them, instead of surprising your players in the middle of a round.

Presentation & access

How your server appears in the list and who gets in at all. Name, description and tags are a promise to your players; password, whitelist and bans decide who can join. And because a Rust save becomes worthless with the next force wipe, the backup guide focuses on what is truly irreplaceable: your configurations.

Modding: Oxide, Carbon and plugins

Plugins run on a framework - here is the decision and the installation. You need exactly one, not both: Oxide/uMod comes with the largest plugin catalog, while Carbon is usually available again sooner after the force wipe and loads Oxide plugins via a compatibility layer. Above all, plan a switch deliberately - plugin configurations live in a different place for each framework, and permission groups usually have to be created again.

Operation: administration and performance

Once the server is running: control it remotely and keep it stable under load. WebRCON lets you kick, ban and broadcast without starting the game; server FPS, entity count and plugin load tell you where performance is lost long before your players complain.

Troubleshooting

When the server will not come up - usually around the force wipe. In most cases, it is an outdated framework, a single plugin, a corrupted save or a wrong startup parameter, and the console tells you which one if you know where to look.

Before you order

Rust is the most demanding of our games - planning pays off here. Slots are unlimited with us; what you choose is RAM and computing power, and for that, the map size you are aiming for matters far more than the number of players.

Frequently asked questions