Rust Forced Wipe Schedule

What a forced wipe is

A forced wipe is the monthly reset that every Rust server goes through, official and community alike. It is not a separate event: it comes with the monthly update. The new build does not carry over the previous month's world, so every server that installs it starts on a fresh map.

You can see this in the file names. On our test server the world save is called proceduralmap.4000.1420068679.289.sav: map type, world size (4000), seed (1420068679), and a version number (289). The same 289 appears on other files tied to the world, such as player.states.289.db. The blueprint database is player.blueprints.18.db, with its own, separate number.

When it happens, in your time zone

Facepunch's own wiki states the forced wipe as the first Thursday of every month at 19:00 London time. London is on GMT (UTC+0) from late October to late March and on BST (UTC+1) for the rest of the year, so the UTC time moves: 18:00 UTC in summer, 19:00 UTC in winter. A fixed conversion like "19:00 UTC every month" is wrong for seven months of the year.

• US Eastern: 2:00 PM on most forced wipe days. The exception is a November forced wipe that comes before the first Sunday of November: the UK is back on GMT but the US is still on daylight time, so it is 3:00 PM EDT. The next one is November 4, 2027.
• Central Europe: always 20:00, because the EU changes its clocks on the same days as the UK.

This is when the update is released, not when your server is back up. Downloading the build and generating a new map take time. Facepunch occasionally announces a different time for a specific update; when it does, the announcement wins over this table.

What a forced wipe resets

The map, every month. The world save (.sav) and the generated map (.map) for the old version are no longer used. Bases, loot, and everything placed in the world are gone.

Blueprints, only when Facepunch says so. A blueprint wipe is forced only when that month's update post announces it. For example, the "Pivot Or Die" update of 6 November 2025 wiped all blueprints on all servers. Facepunch wrote at the time that monthly blueprint wipes were a "Maybe. We're not committing to anything yet." Read the update post each month before you tell players whether blueprints stay.

Player identities, your admin list in cfg/users.cfg, bans in cfg/bans.cfg and your server.cfg are not part of a wipe and should survive it.

What server owners must do on forced wipe day

1. Announce it. Tell players the time in their time zone, and say whether blueprints are wiped this month.
2. Wait for the new build. Do not wipe before Facepunch releases it, or you wipe twice.
3. Save and stop the server. Run server.save over RCON, then stop the process. Never delete save files while RustDedicated is running.
4. Update with SteamCMD. steamcmd +force_install_dir /path/to/server +login anonymous +app_update 258550 validate +quit
5. Update Oxide or Carbon. Oxide replaces some of the game's own files, and the update puts the originals back, so install Oxide again. An old Carbon build may not work with the new game, so install the Carbon release built for it. See the Oxide on Linux guide or the Carbon on Linux guide.
6. Wipe. In server/<identity>/, delete the .map and .sav files, including rollback copies like .sav.1 and .sav.2. For a blueprint wipe, also delete player.blueprints.*.db and its -wal and -shm files.
7. Set the seed. Put a positive server.seed in server.cfg. Keep it for the same map, or change it for a new one.
8. Start and check. Map generation takes minutes. Then confirm in the console that your framework and plugins loaded.

Common mistakes

• Using the wrong hour. Converting 19:00 as if it were always UTC puts you an hour late from late March to late October.
• Forgetting the framework. After the update an Oxide server starts without Oxide, and an outdated Carbon build may fail to load. Either way no plugin runs. Players notice before you do.
• Deleting the whole identity folder. That also deletes users.cfg with your admins and moderators, bans.cfg, and server.cfg. Delete only the wipe files.
• Seed 0. With seed 0 the server picks a random map, which can change on a restart. Always use a positive number, so the map only changes when you decide.
• Two wipes in one week. A weekly wipe on the Monday before forced wipe day gives players two fresh maps three days apart. Skip the regular wipe when force day is close.
• No backup. Take one before you delete anything. It is the only way back if you wiped the wrong server.

How Panelra automates forced wipe day

Panelra knows the forced wipe calendar above. On the first Thursday it checks Steam for a new public Rust build every 90 seconds from 16:00 UTC until the build appears, then runs the whole sequence on every server that has a forced wipe schedule:

1. An optional backup first (the wipe waits up to 10 minutes for it).
2. A 5 minute chat countdown with warnings at 5, 2 and 1 minutes and 30 seconds, and a save.
3. Stop, SteamCMD update, then delete the map and save files, plus blueprints if you chose that.
4. Apply the seed you picked: keep it, a new random seed, a custom seed, or a custom map URL.
5. Start the server again.

It wipes once per month, so a hotfix later the same evening does not trigger a second wipe. Your regular schedules can skip a wipe when the forced wipe is only a few days away. With framework auto-update on, Panelra checks for new Oxide and Carbon releases every 5 minutes and installs them. Servers on the staging branch are left out, since staging follows its own update schedule.

See all options on the Rust wipe scheduling page. Free during the open beta. Pricing will be announced before the beta ends.