Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) is the anti-cheat program that Rust runs on the player’s computer. An EAC disconnect or kick is almost always fixed on that computer: start Rust from Steam, repair EAC and verify the game files. A server owner cannot switch it off or repair it for a player.
Send the player fixes to the player; the owner steps are below.
The Steam page for Rust lists Easy Anti-Cheat as the game’s anti-cheat, a program with deep access to the computer. Facepunch, the maker of Rust, does not list EAC error messages or their causes on its wiki as of 11 October 2026, so this guide gives the steps that are known to be safe and says what it cannot confirm.
Server owner: check these first
Ask: is it one player or everyone? Did a plugin or a ban kick them?
- Check whether your own server kicked the player. Open the Players tab. Under BANS, check whether the player has a ban from you or from a plugin. See ban and unban a player. The player only sees that they were disconnected, so a ban or a plugin kick looks like an EAC problem.
- Check the Console. Open the Console and look at the lines from the time the player left. Note any line that names the player, so that you can tell a kick from your server apart from an EAC problem.
- Look for the EAC log. Facepunch’s wiki lists a file called
Log.EACin the server’s folder and does not say what the file contains. On Loafhosts the folder isserver/rustin Files. Open it if it is there.
If your server did not kick the player, give them the fixes below.
Fixes for the player
Try them in this order, and start Rust again after each one.
- Start Rust from Steam. In your Steam library, press Play on Rust. Facepunch’s wiki gives this as the way to start the game.
- Verify the game files. Right-click Rust in your library, open Properties, then the Installed Files tab, and choose Verify integrity of game files. Wait for Steam to finish.
- Repair Easy Anti-Cheat. Open Rust’s install folder. A default Steam install is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Rust. Open theEasyAntiCheatfolder, right-click the setup program in it and choose Run as administrator. Press Repair service and wait until it finishes. A community troubleshooting guide gives these steps.
What the server owner cannot fix
You cannot:
- Repair a player’s EAC. It runs on their computer.
- Lift an EAC ban. An anti-cheat ban comes from Easy Anti-Cheat, not from your server, so no setting on your server undoes it. The player can send an appeal through the Easy Anti-Cheat support site.
- Turn the anti-cheat off from the panel. The panel has no anti-cheat setting. In the Config Editor, the Security group holds one row, Network encryption, and its help text says to lower it only when asked to by support.
By hand
The same applies when you host yourself: Log.EAC sits in the server identity folder, server/<identity> under the Rust install.
If it does not work
- One player gets it and nobody else. The cause is on that player’s computer. Go through the player fixes again.
- Everyone gets kicked at once. Look at the Console and at the plugins you changed last. Remove the newest plugin and try again. See plugins not loading after an update.
- The player was banned by anti-cheat. Only the anti-cheat’s support can review it. The server cannot.
More about Rust hosting on the Rust page.
Sources: store.steampowered.com: Rust, wiki.facepunch.com: Purchase and Installation, appuals.com: Steam auth timeout error in rust, support.easy.ac: En, wiki.facepunch.com: Getting Started w Server