Hosting Custom Maps - Rust Wiki

Hosting Custom Maps on Your Rust Server

If your community is tired of the standard procedural generation, introducing a custom map—often designed using RustEdit—is a fantastic way to revitalize your server. Whether it's a massive island with custom monuments, a 1-grid PvP arena, or an elaborate PvE landscape, running a custom map on your Supercraft server is remarkably simple once you know how the parameters work.

1. Obtaining a Custom Map (.map file)

First, you need a custom map file. These end in the .map extension. You can either construct your own using the free RustEdit software, or purchase/download premade maps from popular marketplaces like Lone.Design or ChaosCode.

2. Uploading the Map to a Direct Download Link

Unlike procedural maps which generate locally based on the seed, a custom map must be downloaded by the server on startup, and subsequently downloaded by every player joining your server. Therefore, the .map file must be hosted on a fast, direct-download link (like a Dropbox direct link or Discord CDN). Usually, your map developer will provide this URL.

Note: If using Dropbox, ensure the URL ends with dl=1 instead of dl=0 so it forces an immediate raw download!

3. Updating Your Server Startup Parameters

To tell your server to ignore the procedural seed and instead fetch your custom map, you must edit your server's startup command line.

1. Log into your hosting control panel and locate your Startup Parameters or Command Line Manager.
2. Find the Level variable. Change this from "Procedural Map" to CustomMap (or leave it blank, depending on the panel hook).
3. Find the Custom Map URL variable (or the +server.levelurl property if editing raw text).
4. Paste your direct-download link into this field. It should look something like this:
   +server.levelurl "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/example/MyCustomMap.map?dl=1"

4. Wipe and Restart

Because you are loading an entirely new terrain, you must wipe the server. Delete the existing .sav files inside your /server/my_server_identity/ folder.

Restart the server. If configured correctly, your server console will display a message stating "Downloading map from URL...", followed by initializing the custom monuments.

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