How to Host a Rust Server on LoafHosts

Hosting a Rust server means more than just turning it on: you need to pick a world size and seed, open the right ports, edit server.cfg, keep griefers and cheaters off the island, and — because Rust is Rust — wipe the map on a regular cadence so the server stays fresh. Loafhosts gives you a dedicated set of Rust tools right inside the server panel so you never have to touch SFTP or a raw RCON client to do any of it. This guide walks through hosting a Rust server on Loafhosts end to end: getting it online, setting up ports and world settings, editing config files, moderating players, installing Oxide or Carbon plugins, and scheduling automatic wipes. Whether you searched for how to host a Rust server, Rust server setup, or how to wipe a Rust server, everything you need is below — and every step here describes exactly what the panel does.

Getting Your Rust Server Online

Once your Rust server is provisioned on Loafhosts, open it from your panel and you land on the server’s Console and Files like any other game. What makes a Rust server different is the set of Rust-only tools that appear in the left sidebar under the Game section: Config Editor, Player Manager, Plugins, and Rust Wipe. These are added automatically for Rust servers — they will not appear on a Minecraft or Ark server, and they only show up once your Rust server is recognized. From here, starting the server is the same Start button you would use for any game; the first boot downloads and installs the Rust dedicated server files, which can take a few minutes.

Note: The Rust tools live in the left sidebar under the Game section once you open your Rust server.

Note: Each tool — Config Editor, Player Manager, Plugins, Rust Wipe — only appears on Rust servers.

Note: First boot installs the Rust server files automatically; give it a few minutes before connecting.

Server Setup: Ports, World Size, and Seed

Open the Config Editor and you start on the Server setup tab. This is a friendly form for the core settings every Rust server needs, split into three groups: General (hostname, max players, save interval, description, and the server website URL), World (world size, world seed, and the map/level), and Connection & Ports. The world size is a dropdown of the standard Rust sizes; the larger options are marked “(high RAM)” because a bigger map needs more memory. The world seed has a Randomize button if you want a fresh procedural map without picking a number yourself. When you are done, click Save server setup — these write to your server’s startup settings, so restart the server to apply them.

The ports are special. Rust needs a game port plus separate query, RCON, and app ports, and Loafhosts claims those automatically from your node’s free port pool. The setup screen shows you their status — “Ports auto-configured,” “Ports ready,” or an error if something could not be assigned — and there is a Re-allocate ports automatically button if you ever need the panel to claim them again. You normally never touch these by hand.

Tip: Use Randomize on the world seed for a brand-new map; change the world size only if you understand the RAM cost.

Tip: Leave the query / RCON / app ports to the panel — they are auto-allocated and must stay open on the node.

Tip: Settings on the Server setup tab are startup settings — always restart the server after saving them.

Editing server.cfg and Raw Config Files

The Config Editor’s second tab, server.cfg (form), is where you tune gameplay. Instead of memorizing convars, you get a form of toggles, number boxes, and text fields for the gameplay convars in server.cfg, plus a universal search that finds any convar in the file — even ones without a preset widget, which you can still edit as plain text under “Other convars in server.cfg.” A few convars are shown but locked: the allocation and RCON convars (ports, RCON), the panel-managed server banner image, and the convars already managed by Server setup (hostname, max players, world size, seed, description, URL, save interval, and the map level). They are locked on purpose so the two screens can never disagree — in Rust, server.cfg wins over command-line settings, so Loafhosts keeps server.cfg as the single source of truth and edits you make here persist across restarts.

The third tab, Files (raw), lists every file in your Rust cfg folder for direct editing. users.cfg (your ownerid / moderatorid admin list) and bans.cfg get a raw text editor; serverauto.cfg is listed read-only because the server rewrites it at runtime. If your server runs a modding framework, your Oxide (oxide/config) or Carbon (carbon/configs) plugin configs also appear here as raw JSON that is validated when you save, so a typo can’t write broken JSON to disk. On a vanilla server, that modding section is hidden entirely.

Note: server.cfg is the source of truth on Loafhosts — edits made in the form editor survive restarts.

Note: Locked convars (ports, RCON, and the Server-setup-managed ones) are deliberately read-only to avoid two screens disagreeing.

Note: serverauto.cfg is read-only because the server regenerates it; Oxide/Carbon plugin configs are validated as JSON on save.

Moderating Players: Kick, Ban, and Broadcast

The Player Manager is your live moderation panel. It has two tabs — Players and Banned — and a search box that matches by player name or Steam ID. The Players tab carries an All / Online / Offline segmented filter, because the roster includes offline players too; each player row shows the Steam avatar, ping (colour-coded so high-latency players stand out), health, and how long they have been connected. Each player row gives you Kick (reason optional), Ban (reason required), and Unban; above the list you can Kick all players at once or Broadcast a message to the whole server. Bans are read straight from your server’s bans.cfg, so the Banned tab is accurate whether the server is online or off.

These actions run over Rust’s RCON through the server console, which means the server has to be running for live commands to go through — kick, ban-by-Steam-ID, unban, kick-all, and broadcast all need a running server, and the panel tells you if it can’t deliver the command. There is also an optional one-click add-on: the server owner can install the LoafPlayerData plugin to unlock a fuller toolkit — live inventory and backpack, vitals (health / food / water), exact position and teleport, kills and deaths, time alive, and private whispers. The core kick / ban / unban / broadcast actions already work without it over vanilla RCON; the data plugin just adds the deeper, real-time controls.

Tip: Search accepts a player name or a Steam ID, and the Banned tab works even while the server is offline.

Tip: Live actions (kick, ban, broadcast, kick-all) need the server running — RCON can’t reach a stopped server.

Tip: Only the server owner can install the optional LoafPlayerData plugin; the standard moderation actions work without it.

Installing Oxide or Carbon Plugins

Vanilla Rust can’t load plugins, so the Plugins page first checks which modding framework your server is on. On a vanilla server it shows a “Modding framework required” screen with two one-click choices: Install Oxide (recommended — the classic, most widely supported framework, and what the built-in plugin browser searches) or Install Carbon (a modern, high-performance framework). Picking one sets your Modding Framework startup setting and reboots the server so the framework downloads on boot; it does not re-validate the game or touch your save, world, or config — your map and player data are kept.

Once a framework is installed, the Plugins page becomes a browser for the uMod (Oxide) catalogue. Search for a plugin, and install it straight into oxide/plugins (or carbon/plugins on Carbon); Oxide or Carbon hot-compiles the .cs file and loads it live with no restart. Each result links to its uMod page so you can read the details first. The Installed list shows everything on your server, and plugins you uploaded yourself over SFTP appear there too with an External badge alongside the ones the panel installed. Remember that uMod plugins are third-party C# code running inside your own server container, so install only plugins you trust — and check a plugin’s uMod page if it logs a missing dependency, since dependencies aren’t auto-resolved.

Note: Switching framework reboots the server to download Oxide or Carbon, but keeps your save, world, and config.

Note: Installing a plugin hot-loads it with no restart; SFTP-uploaded plugins show an External badge in the Installed list.

Note: Plugins are third-party code that runs inside your server — install only what you trust, and read the uMod page for dependencies.

Scheduling Automatic Wipes

Rust servers need regular wipes, and the Rust Wipe tool automates them. When you create a schedule you choose a wipe type: a Map wipe deletes the procedural map and world save but players keep their blueprints; a Blueprint wipe deletes learned blueprints only and leaves the map untouched; and a Full wipe clears the map, world save, every player database, blueprints, and Oxide/Carbon plugin data. You then set a cadence — Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, the classic First Thursday (force wipe), or a custom weekly schedule — along with the day, a 24-hour run time, and a timezone. Two options let you rotate the world seed on each wipe for a fresh map every time, and announce over RCON before the wipe with a configurable lead time and message (the {minutes} placeholder is filled in for you).

When a wipe runs, Loafhosts does it safely: it first optionally rotates the world seed (rotating it up front so the regenerated map uses the new value), then stops the server, waits until it is actually offline, deletes only the curated, path-checked files for that wipe type, and starts the server back up — and if anything fails along the way it still tries to bring the server back online rather than leaving it dead. The optional RCON announcement isn’t part of that stop/delete/start sequence: it’s posted ahead of time, while the server is still running, during the lead-time window you set — so players actually see the warning before the server goes down. Beyond schedules, there is a Wipe now card to run a one-off wipe on demand (choosing the type and whether to rotate the seed), and a Wipe history that records every wipe that has run. Every wipe is logged.

Tip: Pick Map to keep blueprints, Blueprint to reset progression only, or Full for a true fresh start including plugin data.

Tip: Turn on seed rotation for a new map each wipe, and enable the RCON announcement so players get a heads-up.

Tip: Use Wipe now for one-off resets; the executor always tries to bring your server back online even if a wipe step fails.

Between these four tools — Config Editor, Player Manager, Plugins, and Rust Wipe — you can run a Rust server on Loafhosts entirely from the panel: set it up, tune it, moderate it, mod it, and keep it on a healthy wipe cadence, without ever opening a raw config file or a separate RCON tool.