Documentation

How RustSatellite works

A plain-English guide to every part of the panel — what each screen does, how to connect your server in about a minute, and exactly what we can and can’t see. No jargon, no surprises.

On this page

Getting started

RustSatellite is a hosted, mobile-first, AI-first way to run your Rust server — it manages everything over WebRCON, so there is no software to install on a PC that has to stay on. Here is what it is and how to get going.

What RustSatellite is

A cloud-hosted admin panel for Rust servers that connects over WebRCON. It is mobile-first and AI-first: moderate, tune rates and watch for cheaters from your phone or desktop, with an AI copilot keeping an eye on things for you.

Sign up in seconds

Create an account with just an email and a password (at least 8 characters). No download, no PC left running 24/7 — the panel lives in the cloud and dials out to your server.

Free 7-day trial, no card

Your 7-day trial starts the moment you sign up — no credit card required, and you can cancel any time. Add PayPal billing later only if you decide to keep going.

Connect your first server

You can add a server right from the signup form or afterwards on the Servers page. All it needs is your RCON host, port and password — the next section walks through it.

First steps after login

Once a server is connected, live players, chat, the map and stats stream straight into the panel. Head to the Dashboard for your live player count and the AI’s latest key insights.

Optional companion plugin

Drop in one Carbon plugin file to unlock live player positions, teams, base ownership and the live gather/stack/smelt/craft rate multipliers on the map. It is optional — moderation, chat, bans, decay control and analytics all work over plain RCON without it.

Connecting your server

Connecting takes three fields and a firewall allow-list — no SSH, no Steam login, no access to your machine. Here is exactly what you enter, how it stays secure, and what works with and without the companion plugin.

What you enter

Your server’s RCON host or IP, the RCON port (28016 by default), and your RCON password. That is the whole setup — nothing else about your machine is needed.

How WebRCON works

Our panel connects outbound to your server over WebRCON; your server never has to reach in to us. You don’t open any web ports on your box — you only allow-list our IP on your RCON firewall so it accepts the connection.

Your password is encrypted

The moment you save it, your RCON password is encrypted with AES before it ever touches our database, and it is never sent back to your browser. We store the encrypted form, not the password itself.

Test before you rely on it

Use the Test button in the connection form — or on any saved server card — to confirm the credentials reach your server and report its hostname before you commit.

Optional companion plugin

One Carbon C# file, installed by uploading it once, reports live player positions, team membership and tool-cupboard ownership, and applies the live gather/stack/smelt/craft rate multipliers, so the map is fully alive and rates go live. Skip it and the panel still handles moderation, chat, bans, decay control and analytics over vanilla RCON.

Add more than one server

Manage a whole fleet from a single command center. Add extra servers on the Servers page, switch between them from the top bar, and set a default — fleet overviews and shared bans span them all.

What works with zero plugins

Everything RCON exposes: the live player list, chat, kills, connections, bans, decay control, cheat analytics, player dossiers and the AI copilot. The companion plugin adds live player positions, teams, base ownership and the live gather/stack/smelt/craft rate multipliers on top.

Dashboard & Server Pulse

The first screen after you sign in — a live, at-a-glance home for your server. Player count, performance, a 7-day pulse and the AI’s latest insights all sit on one page.

Live server header

Your server’s name and current map up top, with a status dot that shows at a glance whether the panel is live, reconnecting or offline.

Live stat tiles

Online players out of max, server FPS, entity count and uptime — streaming in real time rather than on a slow poll.

7-day Server Pulse

Four insight cards: your peak login time, top fragger, new players and average daily active players over the last week. Tap any card to jump to the full report.

Trend sparklines

Compact charts of player count and server FPS over the recent window, so a dip or a spike is obvious without opening analytics.

AI Key Insights

The AI’s latest assessment and any recommended moderation actions sit right on the dashboard — Approve or Dismiss each one in place.

Online players & activity

A live table of who’s on — name, ping, time online, SteamID — beside a streaming activity feed of joins, leaves, kills and chat. Click a player to open their dossier.

Quick actions

Common controls live in the header, including a give-to-all handout and a scheduled restart, without leaving the home screen.

AI Command Center

The flagship feature — an AI copilot that watches your server and drafts the moderation actions for you. It only ever proposes; nothing runs until you approve it, and your permissions are re-checked before anything executes.

Hourly insights

Every hour the copilot reviews combat, chat and connections and flags what matters — an aimbot pattern, a ban-evasion match, a toxicity spike — summarised in plain English.

Ready-to-run actions

Each recommendation comes with the exact action attached, including a preview of the RCON command, so you can see precisely what will happen before you commit.

Approve or Dismiss

One tap runs the recommended action; Dismiss clears it. Severity filters let you triage the red (bans), amber (kicks and mutes) and low-risk suggestions separately.

Ask & command chat

Chat with the copilot about your server, or ask it to plan a multi-step action. It returns a reviewable plan where you tick the steps you want before running them.

Permissions re-checked

Approvals from your browser are never trusted on their own — the worker re-validates every action against your live role permissions at the moment it runs.

Kill-switch & daily cap

A master kill-switch turns the AI off entirely, and a daily limit caps how much it can do. Auto-recommend is strictly opt-in.

Full audit trail

Every AI run, recommendation and executed action is logged, so there’s always a clear record of what was suggested and what you approved.

Nothing auto-executes

By design the AI can only ever propose. No suggestion turns into a real ban, kick or mute until a human approves it.

Console, chat & commands

The raw admin console for when you want direct control — a live stream of console and chat, RCON commands at your fingertips, and a one-screen way to broadcast to everyone.

Live console stream

Console output and in-game chat stream in together in real time, colour-coded by type, with a live indicator and automatic reconnect if the link drops.

Run RCON commands

Type any RCON command and see the reply inline, exactly like RustAdmin. Access is permission-gated to the roles you choose.

Command history & bookmarks

Recall previous commands with the up and down arrows, and star the ones you use often so they’re one click away.

Filters & search

Highlight lines that match keywords you care about, filter the stream to just chat or just console, and search back through past activity.

Live chat & moderation

Watch player chat as it happens; toxic and rule-breaking messages feed the auto-moderation and mute tooling elsewhere in the panel.

Activity timeline

Switch to the activity tab for a clean timeline of joins, leaves, kills and moderation events — colour-dotted so it scans at a glance.

Announce to everyone

The Announce page broadcasts a message to every player on the server, with quick templates for restarts, wipes, rules and your Discord — and a confirm before it sends.

Live tactical map

Watch everyone on your server in real time on your actual map, then act on any player with a single tap.

Real terrain

Your actual procedural map — monuments, biomes and roads — rendered from RustMaps, not a blank grid.

Live players & trails

Player dots move in real time with fading movement trails, so you can see where everyone is and where they have been.

Teams & sleepers

Dots are coloured by team, and sleeping players are marked so you always know who is offline where.

Kill & activity heatmaps

Toggle a kill heatmap or an activity heatmap over any time window to see where the fights and the action really are.

Base ownership

With the optional companion plugin, tool-cupboard (TC) base ownership shows up on the map alongside players and kill markers.

Click to act

Tap any player to open their full dossier, teleport them, or moderate — straight from the map, without leaving the view.

Players & dossiers

Open any player for one screen with everything you need to make a call — and every moderation action a tap away.

Threat score & reasons

A 0–100 threat ring shows how risky a player looks, with the exact reasons behind the score spelled out beneath it.

Alts & IP history

Shared-IP alt detection surfaces likely alternate accounts, alongside full name and connection history (permission-gated for IPs).

Combat, strikes & sessions

See K/D combat stats, kick/ban/mute strike counts, and a complete session timeline of when the player has connected.

Live inventory viewer

Pull a read-only snapshot of a player’s belt, worn and main inventory on demand — item counts and condition included.

Steam enrichment

Account age, VAC and game bans, Steam level and Rust hours are pulled in automatically, flagging fresh or previously-banned accounts.

Act instantly

Kick, ban (1 day / 7 days / permanent / by IP / across all servers), mute, teleport, give, or add a note — right there, with keyboard shortcuts.

Moderation & bans

Everything you need to keep a busy server clean lives in one place — a triage-first report queue, layered bans that can span your whole network, and auto-mod that handles the routine stuff so you don’t live in the console.

Report triage queue

In-game F7 reports land in a queue bucketed by type — cheating, abuse, griefing — with the reporter, the target and the surrounding context, so you triage instead of hunting through chat.

Bans, every flavor

Ban for a day, a week, a set duration or permanently — by SteamID, by IP, or by network to catch shared accounts. Full ban history with edit and reversal is always a click away.

One-click Global Ban

Ban a known cheater across every enabled server at once. Share bans across your own fleet, or opt into a wider network so bad actors never get a foothold.

Real chat mute

Vanilla mute barely works in Rust, so RustSatellite runs its own — a real chat mute with optional timed auto-unmute that lifts on its own when the timer runs out.

Watch-list & alerts

Flag any player and get a Discord ping the moment they reconnect. Death alerts and moderation events post to Discord too, each deep-linking straight back to the player’s dossier.

Kick, notes & markers

Kick a player instantly, leave private moderator notes that follow them, and drop map markers on a spot worth remembering — all from the dossier or the map.

Bad-language auto-mod

Slurs and rule-breaks escalate automatically — warn, then mute, then kick, then ban — by strike count, using a keyword list you control. It runs quietly in the background so you don’t have to.

Everything reversible

Every action is a signal you can review and reverse. Bans can be edited or lifted, mutes cleared, and the audit log records who did what and when.

Anti-cheat & combat

Catch cheaters with data instead of guesswork — gate who gets in, score combat for the tell-tale signs, and rewind any fight on the map. Every indicator is a signal to review, never a reason to blind-ban.

Connect gates

Screen every join before they load in: VAC and game bans, a recent-ban window, account age, Steam level, Rust hours played and private profiles. Tune each one to your server’s tolerance.

Ping, VPN & names

Block abnormally high ping, turn on anti-VPN with country allow or deny lists, and reject names that match a bad-name pattern — cutting down disruptive connections before they start.

Whitelist mode

Flip your server to whitelist-only when you want it, so only approved players can connect — ideal for private wipes, events or a locked-down community.

Combat suspicion scoring

RustSatellite watches every hit and builds a suspicion profile from headshot rate, accuracy, long-range headshots and shot clustering, ranking players on a 0-100 leaderboard so the outliers float to the top.

Clear indicators

Each flag is spelled out in plain terms — extreme headshot rate, improbable accuracy, long-range headshots, head clustering — with the numbers behind it, so you know exactly why a player stands out.

Movement & combat Replay

Rewind recent movement and kills on a 2D map — scrub, play, pause and change speed to see how a fight or a raid actually unfolded. It is fully read-only.

Signals, not verdicts

None of this bans anyone on its own. High scores and flags are leads to investigate — spectate, check the dossier and review before you act.

Feeds the AI copilot

These same combat and connection signals feed the hourly AI copilot, which surfaces the strongest cases and drafts the action for you to approve or dismiss.

Analytics & leaderboards

See when your server is busy, who is carrying it, and whether players come back — the trends behind the numbers, not just raw counts.

Leaderboards

Rank top players by kills, K/D, playtime or longest session over 7 days, 30 days or all time. Each row links straight to that player’s dossier.

Population heatmap

A day-of-week by hour heatmap of logins, drawn in your own timezone. Find the exact window your players are online and schedule events and wipes around it.

New vs returning

Daily active players split into new and returning, so you can read retention at a glance instead of guessing from a single headline number.

Engagement trends

Retention, stickiness and playtime distribution tracked over time — the signals that tell you whether the server is growing or fading.

Player stats

Per-player combat and activity stats, plus overall server totals, all in one place so you always know who your standout players are.

Sessions timeline

A full history of connect and disconnect sessions, so you can see play patterns and how long people actually stay each visit.

Map heatmaps

Toggle a kill heatmap or an activity heatmap over any time window on your real map to see where the fights and the action really happen.

Server control

Change how your server feels in seconds — rates, economy, decay, kits and teleports — all from the panel, with no config files and no restart.

Live rates

Tune gather, stack, smelt and craft with one-click 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x or 10x presets, or dial in an exact rate. Changes apply live over RCON the moment you hit apply.

No config, no restart

Everything applies to the running server. No SSH, no editing server.cfg, no downtime — just move a slider and it takes effect.

Decay control

Slow or fully disable structure decay so bases last longer. Decay is a vanilla setting that works on any server, no plugin required.

Crafting rules

Flip on no-blueprints or craft-anywhere with a single toggle when you want a lighter, faster progression for your server.

Claimable Kits

Define kits players can claim in-game, so you can hand out starter gear or event loadouts without building them by hand each time.

Teleport

Move players around the map from the panel — send someone to another player, a grid square or a set point in a couple of taps.

Companion for full rates

Gather, stack, smelt and craft are applied by one optional Carbon companion plugin; decay works over plain RCON either way.

Automation

Let the server run itself — react to what happens in-game automatically, and put routine commands on a timer so you never have to remember them.

Event triggers

Build simple event-to-action rules: when something happens in-game, run an RCON command in response. No scripting, just pick an event and a command.

React to chat

Match a chat pattern and fire a command back — for example, greet a keyword or run an action when a player says something specific.

Population & performance rules

Trigger on population crossing a threshold up or down, or on an FPS drop, so the server can respond to load and busy hours on its own.

Connect & kill events

Fire commands on player connect, disconnect or kill events to automate welcomes, announcements or in-game reactions.

Scheduler

Put recurring commands on a timer — repeat every few minutes or hours, run once, or run daily at a set time in your timezone.

Restart & wipe reminders

Schedule server saves, nightly restart warnings, wipe notices and rules broadcasts, so the essentials happen on time without you watching the clock.

Ready-made templates

One-click starting points pre-fill common jobs like periodic saves and restart notices. Each template just fills the form so you can review and tweak before it goes live.

Run now, pause, export

Run any scheduled command immediately without shifting its next run, pause a rule when you need to, and export or import your schedule as a file.

Fleet & multi-server

Run one server or a whole network from a single command center, with a live view of every server and controls that reach all of them at once. The Community plan covers up to 10 servers.

Fleet overview

A live grid of every server you manage — player count, connection status, FPS, entities and uptime, all polled in real time so you can triage the whole fleet at a glance.

Quick server switcher

Tap any server card to make it the active one and jump straight to its Dashboard. Everything you moderate, tune or view then points at that server until you switch again.

Run on all servers

Broadcast a chat message or run one RCON command across every connected server at once, with safe presets for the common cases like a fleet-wide announce or saving all worlds.

Fleet-wide bans

Ban a cheater across all of your servers in one action so they can’t just hop to your next one. You can also opt into a wider ban network so known offenders never get a foothold.

Health at a glance

Each card shows whether the server is online, offline or disabled, whether RCON is connected, and whether the companion plugin is active — so problems surface without digging.

Up to 10 servers

The Community plan lets you plug in and manage up to 10 servers from one account, all under a single login and one set of moderators.

Mobile-first anywhere

The whole fleet fits on your phone — the panel is built mobile-first, so you can check on any server or moderate your network from wherever you are.

Plugins & files

Install and manage our in-house Carbon plugin suite from the panel over FTP, and browse or edit your server’s files without a separate FTP client.

In-house plugin suite

A bundled set of RustSatellite Carbon plugins — the companion plus Vanish, Remove, Kits, Bases, Welcome, AdminTweaks, Mute, Zombies and Loot — each installable from the panel with one click.

The companion plugin

One optional Carbon file that unlocks live player positions, teams and tool-cupboard ownership on the map. Install it from the panel; everything else still works over plain RCON without it.

Install over FTP

Once your server’s FTP or SFTP details are set, the panel writes each plugin straight to your server and Carbon hot-loads it — no manual file copying required.

No FTP? Download instead

Every in-house plugin can also be downloaded as a .cs file so you can install it via your own SSH or SFTP, so you’re never blocked if FTP isn’t configured.

Reload & unload

See every loaded plugin with its version and author, then reload one to pick up changes or unload it entirely — with a confirmation before anything is removed.

Upload your own plugin

Paste or pick any .cs plugin file and upload it over FTP. The panel checks the filename before sending so a malformed name is caught early.

Built-in file browser

Browse your server’s folders, open a file in the built-in editor and save changes over FTP or SFTP — including a one-tap shortcut to edit server.cfg — with no separate FTP app.

Team & roles

Add your moderators, give each of them exactly the access they need, and keep a full record of who did what.

Invite your team

Create an account for each moderator with their own email and password, so your staff sign in as themselves rather than sharing one login.

Roles that fit

Assign a role — owner, admin, moderator or viewer. Owners and admins hold every permission; moderators and viewers get only what you grant them.

Granular permissions

For moderators and viewers, tick exactly which capabilities they get — console, bans, notes, triggers, scheduling, files, settings and more — so nobody has more reach than they need.

Permission-gated pages

The panel hides what a user can’t use: a moderator without the bans permission never sees the ban tools, and every write is re-checked on the server, not just in the browser.

Safe by default

New moderators start with no extra permissions until you grant them, and passwords must be at least eight characters — so access is deliberate, not accidental.

Full audit log

Every moderator action is recorded with who did it, what they did, the player involved and the time — a clear accountability trail separate from the live console feed.

Filter & export

Filter the audit log by moderator, action type or time window to find exactly what happened, then export the results to CSV for your own records.

Settings & preferences

Settings is where you shape how RustSatellite runs for your server — connection, alerts, anti-cheat gates and AI limits. Every account keeps its own isolated settings, so nothing you set here touches anyone else’s server.

Server identity

Set your hostname, description, website URL, header image and max group size from the panel, applied live over RCON — no config files or restart.

Discord notifications

Paste a Discord webhook and tick exactly which events post: bans, kicks, reports, deaths, server-down, FPS drops and more. An optional admin-keyword ping alerts you when a player types your chosen phrase in chat.

Auto-ban gates

Screen players as they join by VAC and game bans, account age, a recent-ban window, Steam level, Rust hours, high ping and private profiles. You choose which gates are on; each one is off at zero.

Bad-language auto-mod

Keep your own comma-separated word list and pick the action — warn, mute, kick or ban — that escalates by strike count. Toggle it off entirely whenever you like.

AI copilot controls

Enable or disable the AI copilot and set a daily request cap, with a live read-out of usage today, tokens and the model in use. The copilot only advises — it never acts on its own.

Network & country rules

Add an anti-VPN gate, blacklist or whitelist countries, or switch to whitelist-only mode. An anti-cheat whitelist exempts trusted SteamIDs from the automated gates.

Data retention

Set how many days chat, console and position history are kept, then reset stats or history on demand. Your data, your call.

Personal preferences

Choose your date format, font size and panel language independently of the server config — these are per-user and don’t change anyone else’s view.

Billing & plans

Simple, honest pricing with a real free trial. No card to start, and you’re never locked in.

7-day free trial

Every account starts with a 7-day free trial of the full product — no card required. Nothing is charged automatically when it ends; you pick a plan only when you’re ready.

Solo — $4.99/mo

For running a single server. Full moderation, live map, cheat analytics, AI copilot and everything else, scoped to one server.

Community — $9.99/mo

For up to 10 servers, plus the fleet command center for network-wide overview, run-on-all commands and shared bans.

Pay through PayPal

Subscribing hands you to PayPal to approve securely — RustSatellite never sees your card details. Your plan only activates once PayPal confirms the payment.

Cancel anytime

Cancel whenever you like and keep access to the end of the period you’ve already paid for. No cancellation fees and no lock-in.

Change plans freely

Upgrade or downgrade between Solo and Community from the billing page; a downgrade warns you before it lowers your server cap.

Referrals program

Every account gets its own referral code and link. When someone you refer subscribes, you earn recurring credit — your earnings show up in your account.

Invoice history

Your billing page lists every charge and any refunds, so you always have a clear record of what you’ve paid.

Safety & security

Connecting your server to a service you’ve just met is a fair thing to be cautious about. Here is exactly how RustSatellite is built so that trust is earned, in plain terms.

Password encrypted, never shown

Your RCON password is encrypted with AES before it ever touches our database, and it is never sent back to your browser — not even to you. We store only the encrypted form.

You open no ports

The panel dials outbound to your server; your server never reaches in to us. You expose no web ports — you only allow-list our IP on your RCON firewall, and you can revoke that access at any time.

Validated connections

Connection details and webhook URLs are validated before they’re saved — a Discord webhook, for instance, must be a proper https address — so misconfigured or unsafe endpoints are caught early.

Optional 2FA

Turn on two-factor authentication to protect your account login with an authenticator app on top of your password.

Role-based access

Invite moderators and give each a role. Every action is permission-checked, so a moderator only sees and does what you allow — and every action is written to an audit log.

We only touch your game server

RCON is a remote console for your Rust server and nothing else. We have no access to your host machine, your files or your Steam account — we can only send the admin commands you’d send yourself, and you can cut us off any time.

Frequently asked questions

The questions server owners ask us most before they connect.

Is my RCON access safe?
Yes. We hold only RCON — the same admin channel RustAdmin uses — which you allow-list and can revoke at any time. Your RCON password is encrypted with AES and never shown back to you, and we have no access to your host, files or Steam account.
Do I need to install a plugin?
No. We connect over WebRCON, which is built into Rust, and moderation, chat, bans, decay control and analytics all work over plain RCON. One optional Carbon companion plugin unlocks live player positions, teams, base ownership and the live gather/stack/smelt/craft rate multipliers on the map.
Does it work with any host?
If your server exposes WebRCON — which virtually every Rust host and self-host does — RustSatellite connects. You just enter your RCON host, port and password and allow-list our IP; there’s no host-specific integration to buy.
Is there a free trial?
Yes — every account starts with a 7-day free trial of the full product, with no card required. When it ends nothing is charged automatically; you choose a plan only when you’re ready.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Cancel whenever you like and keep access until the end of the period you’ve already paid for. There are no cancellation fees and no lock-in.
Does it replace RustAdmin?
It goes well beyond it. You get the same players, chat, console and ban management, but hosted in the cloud with no 24/7 PC, mobile-first, plus an AI copilot, live map, cheat analytics and deep player dossiers RustAdmin doesn’t have.

Still have questions?

We’re happy to walk you through any of this before you connect a thing. Email us and a real person replies.