Rust Console Admin Commands That Work Over RCON: A No-F1-Console Cheat Sheet

Why there is no F1 console (and what replaces it)

There is no developer console to open on Rust Console. You never type raw commands into a pop-up window with a controller. Admin work happens over RCON instead, the remote console channel every Rust server exposes. Feed it commands from a bot or a host panel and the server runs them exactly as if they came from the console you do not have.

To connect over WebRCON you need three things: your server IP, the RCON port, and the RCON password. The RCON port is not the port players connect through. Players join on the game port (server.port, 28015, over UDP). RCON listens on its own TCP/WebSocket port, commonly 28016, and some hosts need rcon.web set to 1 before it answers at all. Get one of those wrong and nothing connects. The RCON port versus the game port is the single most common first-day mixup, and where to find your IP, port, and password depends on whether you rent from G-Portal or Nitrado.

One thing before any command: you actually have to be an admin. Roles are set by gamertag as OwnerID, AdminID, or ModeratorID, and you must reconnect for a new role to take effect. Gamertags with spaces need quotes. If you are not sure you hold the right tier, make yourself an admin first, then come back to this list.

Event commands: spawn a heli, airdrop, or cargo

These are the commands owners run most, usually to give a quiet server something to do. Each one triggers a live event the moment you send it.

event_helicopter spawns the patrol helicopter. It flies in, patrols, and engages anyone who fires on it or lingers at a monument it is passing. This is the real answer to how you spawn a heli on your Rust Console server. There is no way to force where it goes, only to start it.

event_airdrop drops a single supply crate under a red parachute at a random point on the map. It is a fast prime-time reward, or bait for a fight over the loot.

event_cargoheli sends the Chinook, the twin-rotor helicopter that flies in and drops a locked crate players have to unlock and hold. event_cargoship spawns the Cargo Ship offshore, the naval event that circles the map with locked crates on deck.

Timing is the whole game with these. Fire them when population is high, the first night after a wipe or your daily prime hours, not at 4am to an empty server. A short wave of events during peak is one of the cheapest ways to keep people logged in.

banid: remove a player with a reason and a duration

When someone has to go, banid is the command. The shape is: banid "<gamertag>" "<reason>" <duration>. Wrap a gamertag with spaces in quotes or the server reads it as separate arguments and the ban misses.

The reason is stored with the ban, so write it plainly. Future-you, or a moderator, will thank you. The duration lets you set a timed ban instead of a permanent one, which is the fair call for a first offense. Leave the duration off and the ban stands until you lift it.

To reverse a ban, use the matching unban command with the same id. Keep a short record of who you banned and why, because a month later a "why am I banned" ticket is far easier to close when the reason is one clear word in the command you ran. Reach for a plain kick when you only need someone gone for now, not gone for good.

printpos and teleportpos: find and move players

printpos "<gamertag>" prints that player's exact x, y, z position. Use it to check where a suspected cheater is sitting, to locate a friend who is lost, or to read a coordinate you want to reuse.

teleportpos moves to a set of coordinates. Pair it with printpos: read a player's position, then drop straight onto it. Moderators can also teleport directly to a gamertag, which is the quick way to spectate a report while it is still happening.

Server admins get the rest of the toolkit in-game rather than over RCON: NoClip to fly through terrain, God mode, and permanent daylight for building or investigating. Those are controller-side powers that ride along with the AdminID tier, separate from the commands you send through the bot.

Control the time of day and talk to the server

The time command sets the in-game clock. time 12 forces noon, time 0 forces midnight. Handy for events, for clean screenshots, or to end a night that is dragging.

The say command broadcasts a message to everyone as a server announcement. Warn people about a restart, call out an event you just started, or post the rules. A short "heli inbound" right after event_helicopter turns a spawn into a moment instead of a surprise.

Remember that these are live commands. They change the server right now, for exactly as long as it stays up. Which leads straight to the mistake that catches almost everyone.

The trap: live commands do not survive a restart

Here is the part no one warns you about. A convar you set live over RCON, a gather rate, a decay value, a PvE toggle, applies instantly but is not saved. The moment the server restarts, it snaps back to whatever is written in the config.

To make a setting stick it has to be written to the server config, either with server.writecfg after you set it, or by putting the value in the config file directly. Event spawns and bans are one-off actions and need no saving. Convars, the settings that tune how the server actually plays, do.

This bites hardest on G-Portal, which auto-updates and reboots your server whenever Facepunch ships a patch. That reboot reloads the config, drops anything you only set live, and knocks any connected bot offline until it reconnects. If your settings keep resetting, this is almost always why.

Turn the cheat sheet into buttons

Typing these by hand works, but it does not scale. You will not be awake to spawn a heli at peak, and you do not want to hunt down a gamertag every time someone needs a ban.

A WebRCON bot turns the whole list into one-tap actions and schedules. Put events on a timer so cargo and heli fire during prime hours on their own. Ban straight from the killfeed instead of copying a gamertag by hand. Schedule restarts and wipes so the config reloads cleanly every time. Vantic runs this full set of commands from Discord and a web dashboard, and reconnects itself after a G-Portal patch so your automation does not quietly stop.

If you want the complete reference, the full Rust Console bot command list covers every command the bot exposes, grouped by what you are actually trying to do.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

the full Rust Console bot command list · why your admin commands reset after a restart · how to make yourself admin on Rust Console · the RCON port vs the game server port · raid and admin alerts