How to host a Rust server, three ways.

Every Rust server runs the same software: Facepunch's Rust Dedicated Server, Steam app ID 258550. What changes is where it runs and who looks after it.

• Your own PC. Free, apart from the electricity and the hit to your own frame rate. Fine for a weekend with friends. Not fine for a public server, because your home upload speed, your IP address and your PC's uptime become the server's.
• A VDS or dedicated server. You rent the machine, install Rust yourself and manage everything through RCON or SSH. Full control, full responsibility. This is the route for large modded servers and owners who want to run several servers on one box. See Rust VDS hosting and baremetal dedicated servers.
• Panel hosting. The host installs and updates Rust, you manage it from a web control panel: start, stop, wipe, plugins, files, console. It is the quickest way to a public server and the one most community servers use. RSH panel plans start at £7.50 a month for up to 50 players.

Rust is one of the heavier games to host. The server loads the whole map into memory and simulates every entity on it, so RAM is the first thing that runs out.

• RAM: 8 GB is the floor for a small vanilla map. Plan on 16 GB for a 3500 to 4000 size map with plugins, and more for a high-population modded server. Our panel plans are sized at 16, 24 and 32 GB for 50, 100 and 150+ players for that reason.
• CPU: Rust's server is largely single-threaded, so a high clock speed matters more than core count. One fast core per server, with a second for the OS and anything else on the box.
• Storage: around 10 GB for the server files plus the map and save data. Put it on an SSD. NVMe makes saves and wipes noticeably faster on busy servers.
• Network: a stable connection with real upload bandwidth, and ideally DDoS protection. Rust servers are a common target, which is the main reason a home connection does not last long as a public host.
• OS: Windows or Linux. Both are supported natively; Linux is the usual choice on rented machines.

SteamCMD is Valve's command-line Steam client. It downloads and updates the server files, and you will run the same command again after every force wipe to update.

1. Download SteamCMD from Valve's developer site and extract it to its own folder, for example C:\steamcmd on Windows or ~/steamcmd on Linux.
2. Open a terminal in that folder and run the install. One line does the whole job:

steamcmd +login anonymous +force_install_dir C:\rustserver +app_update 258550 validate +quit

On Linux use ./steamcmd.sh and a path such as /home/rust/server. The download is several gigabytes, so give it a few minutes. When it finishes you will have RustDedicated.exe (Windows) or RustDedicated (Linux) in the install folder.

To update later, run exactly the same command. SteamCMD only downloads what changed.

Rust does not read a config file on first launch. Almost everything is passed as +convar value parameters on the command line, and the server writes them to server.cfg inside the identity folder when you run server.writecfg. Create a batch file (Windows) or shell script (Linux) in the install folder with this, and adjust the values:

RustDedicated.exe -batchmode -nographics ^
 +server.port 28015 ^
 +server.queryport 28017 ^
 +rcon.port 28016 ^
 +rcon.password "change-this" ^
 +rcon.web 1 ^
 +app.port 28082 ^
 +server.identity "myserver" ^
 +server.level "Procedural Map" ^
 +server.seed 1234 ^
 +server.worldsize 3500 ^
 +server.maxplayers 50 ^
 +server.hostname "My Rust Server | Biweekly | Vanilla" ^
 +server.description "Wipes every other Thursday at 19:00 UK." ^
 +server.url "https://example.com" ^
 +server.headerimage "https://example.com/header.jpg" ^
 +server.saveinterval 600

Line by line, the ones that matter:

• server.identity names the folder your save, config and player data go in. Change it per server if you run more than one.
• server.seed and server.worldsize decide the map. Browse seeds on RustMaps before you commit. Size 3500 is a comfortable map for up to 100 players; 4500 is the default and gets heavy.
• server.maxplayers defaults to 500, which nobody wants. Set it to what your RAM can carry.
• rcon.password is the password for remote admin tools. Make it long and keep it private.
• app.port is the Rust+ companion app port. Leave it out and Rust+ will not pair.
• server.hostname, server.description, server.url and server.headerimage are what players see in the server browser. The header image should be a 512 x 256 JPG or PNG hosted somewhere public.

On Linux replace the ^ line continuations with \ and the executable with ./RustDedicated. The first launch generates the map, which takes a few minutes on a large world. You will know the server is ready when the console prints the Server startup complete line.

Players cannot join a server they cannot reach. On a home PC that means port forwarding on your router and allowing the ports through Windows Firewall. On a VDS it means the provider's firewall plus the OS firewall.

Those are the defaults from the start line above; if you change a port there, change it here. On panel hosting none of this applies: the ports are allocated and opened for you, and the server is behind the network's DDoS filtering from the first boot.

With the server running, join it from the Rust client console with client.connect YOUR.IP:28015, or find it in the Community tab of the server browser once Steam has picked it up.

Make yourself admin from the server console (not the in-game one) with your 17-digit SteamID64:

ownerid 76561198000000000 "YourName" "owner"
server.writecfg

The server.writecfg line saves it to users.cfg so it survives a restart. Reconnect and you have admin. The full list of what you can do from there is in the Rust admin commands guide.

For mods, you will want Oxide (uMod) or Carbon. Both are a drop-in install on a self-hosted server and a one-click install on the panel; the Rust server plugins guide covers both routes and the plugins worth starting with.

On your own PC the server is free, but the PC has to stay on, and a public server on a home line usually ends with the first DDoS attack. Renting works out as follows at RSH, and most of the market lands in the same bands:

• Panel hosting: from £7.50 a month for a 50-player, 16 GB server, £15.00 for 100 players and 24 GB, £22.50 for 150+ players and 32 GB. The Extreme tier doubles that for faster DDR5 hardware.
• VDS: from £24.99 a month with pinned cores and root access. Worth it when you want more than one server or software outside the panel.
• Baremetal dedicated: from £45 a month for a whole physical machine.

Rust itself charges nothing to run a server. The cost is the hardware, the bandwidth and the DDoS protection, and the price difference between hosts is mostly about how much of each you are actually getting.