How to restart your Rust server on a schedule

A new Rust server has no daily restart. Build one on the Quick Tasks page: take Send Restart from Default tasks, choose Schedule…, and set a time each day. Wipes and Facepunch's updates already restart the server for you, so a daily restart is optional.

Why restart on a schedule

Oxide and Carbon are fetched again at every start, and Steam is asked for a game update at every start when Auto Update is on. A restart picks both up, and it gives the game a fresh start. Many owners restart once a day, at a quiet hour.

What is restarted for you

• The ready-made wipe schedules stop and start the server: How to set up automatic wipes on your Rust server.
• On update day the panel restarts running servers onto the new build, with a warning in the game: How to update your Rust server.

Build a daily restart

1. Open your server in the panel and click Quick Tasks in the left menu.
2. Under All tasks, open Default tasks and find Send Restart.
3. Open its menu and choose Schedule….
4. Give the schedule a Name, for example Daily restart, then click Next step.
5. Choose Repeats, set How often to Every day, and set the time under At. The window says what time it is where you are.
6. Keep Enabled on and click Schedule.

The new schedule appears under Schedules. Send Restart stops the server cleanly, which saves the world, and starts it again. Players are disconnected for a short while.

Warn your players

This schedule does not tell players in the game. Warn them yourself before the time, with say and your message in the Console tab, for example say The server restarts in 5 minutes.

Switch it off, test it or delete it

1. On Quick Tasks, find your schedule under Schedules.

2. Use its switch to turn it off or on.
3. Open the ... menu on the schedule and choose Run now to test it. This restarts the server right away. Choose Delete schedule to remove it.

The Quick Tasks page cannot change the time of a schedule that exists. For another time, build a new schedule and switch the old one off.

If you do not want a restart while people are playing, open the schedule and switch on Skip while players are online. A list appears under it, When players are online:

• Skip that run: a run that comes while anyone is playing is skipped, and the next one is tried at its own time.
• A wait such as Wait up to 2 hours for the server to empty, from 15 minutes to 12 hours: the panel looks again every 5 minutes, restarts as soon as the game reports nobody on, and restarts anyway when the wait is over.

If the server cannot report its players, the schedule runs. Run now always runs.

Ideas

• A backup before the restart: schedule Backup Server a few minutes earlier, as its own schedule.
• A quieter hour: pick an hour when nobody plays.

See How to schedule tasks and automatic backups for every part of the page.