Run your map on a server

What Creator saves is a standard Rust .map file, and a stock Rust server runs one with no mods, no plugins and no extension. This page is how you get it there, and which parts of your map need the server extension to come alive.

Save the map first

Use FILE > Save Map (or FILE > Save Map As… for a new name).
Take the .map and the sidecar file beside it whenever you copy or move your work.

The sidecar holds your editor working state. A map without its sidecar still loads and still plays; you lose working state, not the world. See The map file and the sidecar.

The two ways to run it

Route	Use it when
Crucible Local Server	You are testing your own map on your own PC. It manages the server, the map library and the delivery for you. See Test in Crucible Local Server.
A Rust dedicated server you run yourself	You are publishing the map for other people to play.

On a dedicated server you run yourself

A Rust server loads a custom map from a URL rather than from its own disk, because every player downloads the map from that URL too.

Put the .map file somewhere with a direct download link. Opening the link in a browser must start the download immediately.
Add +server.levelurl "<your url>" to the server’s startup line.
Remove +server.worldsize and +server.seed. Those two are the procedural-map inputs, and a server told to do both does not do what you want.
Start the server. It loads the world once, at startup.

A custom map is loaded from a URL, not from a folder, and every player downloads it from there too.

Changing the map on a running server

Stop the server first. It reads the world at startup and nothing else, so a swapped file does nothing until it restarts.

Both the server and every player cache the map they downloaded. If you re-upload an edited map under the same name, give the new file a new name instead (yourmap_v2.map), or clear the cached copy from the server’s identity folder and from each client’s Rust maps folder. A new name is one step and always works.

What a stock server reads

Everything in the standard format. That is most of a map.

What you made	What runs it
Terrain heights, water level and the terrain holes	The server, unmodified
Biomes, ground textures and topology	The server, unmodified
Every placed prefab: monuments, rocks, buildings, deployables	The server, unmodified
Roads, rivers, rails and powerlines	The server, unmodified
Trigger volumes, IO wiring, loot, vending and NPC profiles, ziplines	The server extension
Placed vehicles, Bradley patrol paths and the cargo ship’s route	The server extension. Without it there are no placed vehicles, the launch site’s Bradley drives its usual route, and the server works out the cargo ship’s ring for itself
Deep Sea islands, floating cities and ghost ships you placed on the map	The server extension keeps them through every Deep Sea close and shows them to mainland players; without it they are deleted at the first one. Islands and ghost ships can instead be swapped for their art (EDIT menu), which stays on any server
The map’s Deep Sea settings, such as the Tropical look	The extension applies them; without it, paste the `.server.cfg` file Creator saves beside the map into `server.cfg`

The bottom row is the part the standard format has no room for. Creator saves it inside the same .map file, where a stock server ignores it: the map loads, plays and looks right, and the wiring does nothing. Install the extension and it comes alive. Nothing is lost either way, so you can ship the map first and add the extension later.

A monument you swapped for a pack

A monument swapped for one of your packs runs on a stock server: every ordinary prefab in the pack is there, the roads and rails still reach it, and players see its name on the map. What differs is how the server itself knows the place.

	Stock server	With the server extension
The name players see on the map	Your label, as plain text	The same
The server’s own list of monuments	One entry with no size at the pack’s center: a patrol helicopter stop and a 50 meter circle where new players do not spawn	The entry has the original monument’s type, tier and bounds again, so the no-spawn area, building checks and helicopter rules cover the whole footprint
The name the server console, Rust+ and plugins read	Empty	Your label
Safe zone status	Never	Only when the original monument was a safe zone and your pack brings a safe zone of its own
Loot, NPCs, wiring and volumes	Only the prefabs the pack places	Also the pack’s loot, vending, NPC, wiring and volume data

The extension gives the entry your label as its name, never the original monument’s internal name, so nothing on the server mistakes your pack for the monument it replaced. The monument’s own machinery does not come back with or without the extension: no Bradley at a swapped Launch Site, no cargo ship docking at a swapped Harbor. A swap with no label (only a map another tool edited can have one) still gets its entry back, with no name.

What happens to the things you placed by hand

A crate, a barrel, an ore node, a tree or a hemp plant that you placed yourself is part of your map, and a server treats it differently from the ones Rust spawns for itself. Select one in Creator and the inspector says which of these it is.

What you placed	On a stock server
A crate, barrel, food box or other ordinary loot container	It comes back at the same spot once it is looted, on a server-wide timer (about every five minutes), with its normal loot or your profile
An ore node, a tree, a log or driftwood	The same: back at the same spot, on the same timer
A hackable crate, a supply drop, a helicopter or Bradley crate, a train wagon crate	It is there once. Looted or destroyed, it is gone until the next wipe
A collectable: hemp, mushrooms, berries, the stone, metal, sulfur and wood pickups	It is there after a wipe. A picked one does not return, and all of them are gone after the first server restart
A road sign prop or a natural beehive	Like a collectable: gone after the first restart

Five minutes is fast for a hand-built loot room, and a hemp field that lasts one session is not much of a field. FILE > Map Settings > Server upkeep lets the map set its own pace. The Map Settings window holds the settings that belong to the map rather than to a tool: the server target, the Tropical mode and server upkeep. There is one row for each of four groups: crates and barrels, ore nodes, trees and logs, and collectables.

A row set to	What it means
Rust’s own	Nothing changes. This is every row on a new map, and a map left this way saves no upkeep data at all.
Paced by the extension	It comes back after the wait you set, Wait from (s) to Wait to (s), and with Keep clear (m) not while a player is that close. Leave both waits at 0 and a crate or barrel waits as long as Rust takes to refresh that container’s loot (one to two hours for most); a collectable waits five minutes. For collectables this is also what brings them back after a restart.
Never comes back	It stays gone until the next wipe. Collectables do not offer this row: Rust’s own already means that for them.

Each change is one undo step, and the line under each row says what it means with the extension and without it. A wait or a distance that is not a whole number of 0 or more is not used, and a message says so.

These settings need the server extension. A server without it follows the first table whatever the rows say, and the server-ready check reminds you of that once you set one. The extension only delays or allows Rust’s own respawn for crates, ores and trees, so a wait can run up to one of Rust’s timer ticks longer than its number. Hackable crates and the other one-time containers are not covered by any row: nothing brings those back.

The Shopkeepers row under them is for a shop front placed without its shopkeeper. It decides whether the extension gives it one; the default leaves that to the server.

Trees, ore and animals

They are not in your map, and they are not supposed to be. Rust spawns vegetation, ore nodes, collectibles and animals at runtime, from the biome and topology layers your map does carry. If a region of your map comes up bare in game, the layers under it are the thing to look at rather than the prefab list. Drizzza’s Rust biomes and topology explained is the page for that, and it applies to any custom map whichever tool built it.

Before you publish it

Walk the map in game at least once. Floating cliffs, a monument sitting proud of the ground and a zipline that does not connect are all things you see in a minute in game and never see in the editor.
Check your player spawns. A map with nowhere valid to spawn looks fine until somebody joins.
Keep Rust up to date in Steam when you save. When the map uses a prefab the live Rust build on this PC does not have (one only on Rust’s staging branch, or one an update removed), the save asks first, because a live server skips that prefab and logs a warning. The check reads the Rust build installed in Steam. See the check when you save.
If you used the extension’s features, read its boot lines once (the extension prints a boot line for each feature) so you know they applied rather than assuming it.
If the server already has an extension from before Creator 0.1.8, delete its two renamed files before you copy the new ones, or a Carbon server applies your map’s data twice: Upgrading from a Creator older than 0.1.8.