How do I move my Rust server from another host?

Stop the old server, download its identity folder, and upload the right files into your new server’s identity folder. Your world carries on as long as both servers run the same Rust build and your new server uses the same map settings.

Before you start

1. Run version in the old server’s console and in the live console in your Game Panel. Both should print the same version. Around forced wipe day one host may have updated before the other, so wait until they match.
2. Write down the old server’s startup settings: name, description, max players, seed, size, and server.levelurl if it used a custom map. Many hosts keep these in their panel, not in the files.
3. Stop the old server, then download its files.

What to copy

From the old server’s server/<identity>/ folder:

• the save: the newest file ending in .sav, named like proceduralmap.4000.367122.251.sav. Leave any older backup copies beside it.
• the .map file with the same name
• every player.*.db file (blueprints, deaths, identities, states, tokens), each with its -wal file
• sv.files and its -wal (pictures on signs)
• companion.id, your server’s Rust+ identity
• the cfg folder (users.cfg for admins, bans.cfg for bans, server.cfg for settings)
• the serveremoji and loadouts folders, if you have them

Running Oxide or Carbon? Also copy plugins, config, data and lang from the old oxide folder (Carbon calls them plugins, configs, data and lang under carbon). The data folder holds what your plugins remember, and on Oxide that includes permissions and groups. Install the framework fresh on your new server first, as in adding plugins, and leave the old RustDedicated_Data folder behind. Oxide patches files in it for one Rust version on one system.

Put it on your new server

1. Download a backup from your Game Panel first.
2. Stop your new server from the Game Panel.
3. In your Game Panel’s file manager, open your server’s identity folder, inside server. Delete the .sav, .map, player.* and sv.files files your new server made.
4. Upload your files into that folder, whatever the old one was called. Upload the old folder under its old name and Rust won’t look in it, so you get a new map.
5. Open cfg/server.cfg and fix it (below).
6. Start your server and watch the live console for Server startup complete. Then join and check your base is there.

Fix server.cfg

Rust reads server.cfg at startup, and it wins over anything set on the command line. So delete any line that sets a port, an IP address, RCON or Rust+ networking, such as server.port, server.queryport, server.ip, rcon.port, rcon.password and app.port. Left in, the old host’s values override your new server’s.

Match the map

Rust names the save after the map, and the map after its size and seed. proceduralmap.4000.367122.251.sav is size 4000, seed 367122 (251 is the save protocol). Set server.worldsize and server.seed to your two numbers, in your server’s settings in the Game Panel or as lines in server.cfg. Keep server.level the same as before too. If any of these differ, Rust doesn’t find your save and builds a brand new map. Your uploaded files are still there: stop the server and fix the setting.

Custom maps: keep the old server.levelurl and leave out the seed and size. New players download the map from that link, so it has to stay online all the time. If it lived on the old host’s web space, it’ll vanish when you cancel. Put the same .map file, with the same file name, somewhere public with a direct download link, and point server.levelurl at it.