A Rust server panel you host yourself

A Rust server listens on four ports: the game’s, the query, RCON and the companion app that Rust+ uses. Zelie takes them from the pool of ports you set up once, and you decide which port of the pool each use gets, when you create the server and later on the Network tab.

Zelie forwards the ports to the container, allows them in ufw when it is on and closes them when the server is deleted. The Server page shows the address players connect to.

RCON gives full control of the server, and many servers run with a short password copied from a guide. If the egg leaves the RCON password empty or sets a placeholder such as changeme, Zelie fills in a long random value when the server is made. The password players join with is left as the egg has it.

The panel is protected the same way: every administrator needs a passkey or an authenticator app, and SFTP never accepts an account’s own password.

Rust plugins for Oxide (uMod) are single C# files. Upload them to the server’s plugin folder with the file manager or over SFTP, then open them in the editor. C# is coloured as you type, and so are JavaScript, TypeScript, Lua, JSON, YAML and config files.

Oxide’s own config and data files are JSON. When one has a mistake, the editor marks it in red with the line and the reason above the file, before you save it. Whether the server has Oxide installed depends on the egg you use, so check its variables on the Startup tab.

Rust updates often, and a server on an old build stops players with a newer client from joining. Zelie asks Steam once an hour which build is the latest and shows on the server’s page when it is behind.

If you let it, Zelie updates the game when nobody is playing. An update takes a backup first, so you can go back if a new build breaks a plugin.

The egg’s variables are on the Startup tab, checked against the egg’s own rules and used on the next start. In the Rust egg they include settings such as the world size and seed, and the address of a custom map. Some eggs lock variables, and the lock holds for users who are not administrators.

Every settings form has a bar with Save, Reset and Undo as soon as something changes, so a wrong value is easy to take back.

The game files alone are about 10 GB, and the server holds the whole map in memory. Zelie suggests 8 GB of memory and 30 GB of disk when you create a Rust server. Both can be changed later on the Settings tab.

That is a lot for a small VPS. If the machine also runs other servers, add up what they ask for before you start them all.

Backups of the server’s files run on a schedule, encrypted on the server, with a copy in any S3-compatible storage. Schedules can also run console commands, restarts and backups at cron times, one task after another.

A status note, since Rust servers are often public. Zelie is in early development. Rust and the Steam update check have so far run against stand-ins in Zelie’s tests, and the egg is checked automatically. Try it on a server you can afford to reset before you put a community on it.