RustMapGen
Install

Custom maps on a server

Add a custom map to your Rust server

A Rust server, and every player who joins it, downloads a custom map from an address you give it. Three things make it work: a .map file, a direct HTTPS link to it, and one setting on the server.

  1. Get a .map file

    Any custom Rust map is a .map file. Two free ways to get one:

    • Make your own with RustMapGen. It runs the game's own generator on your computer with your settings (monuments, land, hills, rings, your prefabs), checks the map, and Download .map gives you the file. Install it free.
    • Take one of our free maps. Four maps, one of each preset, checked and load-tested: free Rust maps to download.

  2. Put it at a direct HTTPS link

    The address must be HTTPS (the game refuses plain HTTP) and must give the file itself, as it is: not a page with a download button. Ways to host it:

    mapstr.gg

    Free, no account: upload the file (up to 100 MB a map) and use the direct link it gives you. Signing in with Discord lets you see and delete your uploads.

    Cloudflare R2

    For many maps, uploaded by script: free at this scale, served near your players. Connect a domain of your own to the bucket: its r2.dev address is rate-limited.

    Your own web server

    Any web server with HTTPS that serves the file unchanged. Give each map a name of its own, such as the name RustMapGen gives it.

    Test the link in a private browser window: the .map download should start at once. If a page opens instead, the server will not get the map either.

    How to set up each host, with the commands for R2: the guide's hosting section.

  3. Point the server at it

    Your own dedicated server

    Add +server.levelurl with the address to the line that starts RustDedicated, next to your other settings:

    In the server's start line
    +server.levelurl "https://your.host/maps/your-map.map"

    A server at a game server host

    Hosts put the same setting in their control panel: a field for a custom map (called Level URL, Custom map URL or similar), or a box for extra startup parameters, where the line above goes as it is. Paste the address there.

    With a level URL the server ignores its seed and world size settings: the map file decides both.

  4. Restart the server

    On its next start the server downloads the map and loads it; each player downloads it from the same address when they join. A new map is a new world for your players, so switch maps when you wipe.

If the map does not load

The server still makes a procedural map of its own

The address did not reach the server. Check the line or the panel field: +server.levelurl, then the address in double quotes, then restart the server.

Players cannot download the map, or the server cannot

The address is not a direct link, or not https://. Open it in a private browser window: a download of the .map file must start at once, with no page or sign-in first.

You put a new map at the same address and players still get the old one

The game keeps a downloaded map by its name. Give every map an address of its own and never change the file behind one; RustMapGen never gives two maps the same name.

After the monthly Rust update the maps change

The forced wipe (the first Thursday of the month) brings the update that changes how maps are made. Make the maps for after it on the updated game; RustMapGen can make them before the update is out.

Make the map first

RustMapGen is a free Rust map generator: the game's own procedural generator on your computer, steered by your settings, with every map checked and a 3D view before your players see it.

Install RustMapGen Free maps