Rust server owners vs moderators: roles and per-server access

Running a Rust server with friends or a community means handing out some control without handing out all of it. rustd.xyz has two panel roles, Admin and Moderator. A moderator's access is granted per server, one tick box at a time. This guide explains what each role can do and how to grant and revoke access. It also covers how panel roles differ from Rust's in-game ownerid and moderatorid, which share their names but are a different thing.

The two panel roles

Every person who signs in to rustd.xyz is a user in exactly one account. The account is your community: it owns your servers, your SSH credentials and your plan.

• Admin (the server owner). An admin holds every server in the account automatically, including servers added later. Admins add and remove servers, edit connection details, RCON passwords and SSH credentials, invite and remove users, and do anything a moderator can. An account always keeps at least one active admin. The panel will not let you demote or disable the last one.
• Moderator. A moderator sees only the servers an admin has granted them. Everything else in the account doesn't exist as far as they can tell. On a granted server a moderator can see everything (live map, players, chat, logs, reports, stats) and can kick, ban, unban and send chat. A moderator can never add or remove servers, manage users, or see or change RCON passwords and SSH credentials.

Per-server access

A moderator's access is a list of grants, one per server. Each grant has its own extra permissions, all off by default:

• May wipe and modify server files: run wipes, restore and delete snapshots, and install or remove the Oxide plugin framework.
• May set convars: change server settings live over RCON.
• May manage plugins: install, update and remove plugins.
• May give items: spawn items into a player's inventory.
• May teleport, heal, kill: act directly on a player.

Because the permissions live on the grant, one person can be a full moderator with wipe rights on your weekly server and a kick-and-ban-only moderator on your monthly one. Controls a moderator isn't allowed to use don't appear for them, and the server refuses the action even if someone calls it directly.

How to invite a moderator

1. Sign in as an admin and open Users in the sidebar.
2. Under Invite a user, enter their email, set the role to Moderator, and press Send invite. They get a sign-in link by email. There's no password to share.
3. In their row, press Manage access.
4. Tick Access for each server they should see, plus any of the extra permissions you want on that server, then press Save access.

Moderators are part of the Community plan and up. On a Solo plan the Moderator role is not offered in the invite form.

How to change or revoke access

• Take away one server: open Manage access for the user, untick that server's Access box, and save. It takes effect on their next page load. Access is checked on every request, not only at sign-in.
• Take away one permission: same page, untick just that column.
• Remove someone entirely: press Disable on their row. Their sessions stop working immediately. Their grants are kept, so Enable restores exactly the access they had.
• Promote or demote: change the role dropdown on their row. An admin needs no grants. A moderator sees only the servers ticked on their access page.

What the demo user sees

The live demo signs you in as a shared Moderator with a grant on one real Rust server. That's the moderator experience exactly: the live map, players, chat and logs for that server, and nothing else. The demo can't see the RCON password, SSH credentials, other servers, or the Users page, and its grant starts with every extra permission off. Once a moderator is in, moderating players walks through kicking, banning, muting and player reports.

Panel roles vs in-game ownerid and moderatorid

Rust has its own, separate admin system inside the game. ownerid (auth level 2) and moderatorid (auth level 1) are granted to a SteamID and stored in the server's users.cfg. They control what a player can do in game: the F1 console, admin commands, noclip and so on.

Panel roles are granted to an email address and control what someone can do in rustd.xyz. The two are independent:

• A panel moderator doesn't get in-game admin, and doesn't need it to kick or ban from the panel.
• A player with ownerid in game has no access to your panel unless you invite them.

The panel can manage the in-game lists for you as well. Each server's Moderators page shows the current owners and moderators from users.cfg. Admins also get Make owner, Make moderator and revoke buttons there. Panel moderators can view the lists but not change them, because in-game owner is more power than a moderator grant gives. New grants take effect the next time the player connects. Removals apply immediately.

Summary

• Admin: every server in the account, plus servers, credentials and users.
• Moderator: only granted servers, with wipe, convars, plugins, items and player actions switched on per server.
• In-game owner/moderator: a SteamID's powers inside Rust, separate from the panel, managed by admins from each server's Moderators page.