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Server settings and server.cfg

The Config tab is where a server is set up. Everything here is a form, and it writes a real server.cfg for you, so you never have to hand-edit a startup script. If you do want to hand-edit the file, you can, and Crucible Local Server will not overwrite your edits.

The Config tab in Crucible Local Server showing the server name, description, banner image and website fields, max players, tickrate, game mode, and the game and RCON ports

Identity

Section titled “Identity”
  • Server name (hostname): what players see in the server browser.
  • Description: the blurb on the server’s page. It can run to several lines.
  • Banner image URL and Website URL: shown on the server’s page in game. These are URLs the Rust client fetches, so a path to a file on your own PC will not show for anyone. Use a hosted image (512x256).

Slots, gameplay, and game mode

Section titled “Slots, gameplay, and game mode”
  • Max players and Tickrate.
  • PVE mode.
  • Game mode: Vanilla, Softcore, Hardcore or Primitive. This sets server.gamemode, which is what stops the Rust client branding your server as a “Development Server”.

World

Section titled “World”

Choose a procedural world (a seed and a world size, with a random-seed button) or a custom map. Rust accepts a world size from 1000 to 6000, and Crucible keeps every value you type inside the range the game actually accepts, so a typo cannot silently generate a different world than the one you asked for.

Assigning a custom map drops the seed and world size, because the map file defines the world instead. See run a custom map on your server.

Network and the RCON password

Section titled “Network and the RCON password”

The game port and RCON port are set for you and are unique per server, so two servers can never collide. Two servers cannot be given the same port.

The RCON password is what turns the two-way console on. Crucible generates a strong one for every new server, and you can regenerate it or set your own. It is masked, with a reveal toggle.

Rust refuses to run RCON at all on a handful of common passwords (password, 123456, changeme, qwerty and a few others). With RCON off, the console goes one-way, the quick actions and live stats stop working, and a scheduled restart cannot fire. Crucible will not let you save one of those passwords. A short password is only insecure, not broken, so it is allowed with a warning.

Live server rules

Section titled “Live server rules”

A grid of one-click toggles for the things you would otherwise look up a convar for: Bradley, timed events, cargo ship, radiation, scientists and NPCs, structural stability, the seasonal events, and the build set (no decay, instant craft, no animals, locked daylight, locked clear weather, no building upkeep, and Rust’s native creative tools like free build and free placement).

They are baked into server.cfg, so they survive a restart, and they apply live over RCON when the server is running.

Performance

Section titled “Performance”
  • Skip AI navmesh (faster boot): skips building the AI navmesh, so the server starts much faster and uses less CPU. NPCs and animals will not move, which is fine for a build or map-test world, or when running several servers at once.
  • High priority and CPU cores: run the server at a higher CPU priority, and optionally pin it to specific cores (for example the 3D V-cache cores on an AMD X3D chip). Leave CPU cores blank to use all cores.

The server.cfg editor

Section titled “The server.cfg editor”

Open server.cfg (advanced) at the bottom of the Config tab to edit the real file, with line numbers, syntax highlighting, and live validation.

The server.cfg editor in Crucible Local Server, showing the generated config file with syntax highlighting and line numbers, with Save, Reset to preset defaults, and Open cfg folder buttons

The important part is how the two halves get along:

  • Your edits are kept. Changing a setting in the form above rewrites only that one line in the file. Every other line, including ones you wrote yourself and your comments, is left exactly as it is.
  • A hand-edited line updates the form. Type a convar into the file and the matching toggle above turns itself on, so the two can never quietly disagree.
  • server.cfg loads after the game’s own serverauto.cfg, so a line here is the final say over an in-game writecfg.
  • Reset to preset defaults puts the settings and the file back to the preset the server was created from, keeping its name, ports, RCON password and admins.

Settings changes are written to the file straight away, and take effect the next time the server starts. The live server rules also apply immediately over RCON while the server is running.

Section titled “Related”