Install on Pterodactyl

import { Steps } from ‘@astrojs/starlight/components’;

If your server runs on Pterodactyl — or Pelican, Pyrodactyl or another panel in that family — there is a CerebRUST edition of the Rust egg that does the whole of Install the plugin for you. The plugin is installed for you, your ingest token becomes a field on the server’s Startup tab, and Cerebrust.cs is refreshed on every boot the same way Oxide itself is.

You need panel admin

Importing an egg is an administrator action. If you rent a slot from a Rust host and only have the client panel, you cannot import this — use the normal install instead, or ask your host to add the egg. Editing an egg’s startup command is admin-only too.

Import it

1. Download the egg

   Download egg-rust-cerebrust.json.

2. Import it into your panel

   Admin → Nests → Import Egg, pick the file, and choose a nest to put it in (whichever one holds your other game eggs is fine).

   It lands as a new egg called Rust (CerebRUST), alongside the stock Rust egg. It does not replace or modify the stock one, and servers already running on the stock egg are untouched.

3. Create a server on it, or move an existing one

   For a new server, pick Rust (CerebRUST) as the egg and carry on as normal.

   To move an existing Rust server across: Admin → the server → Startup → Egg, choose Rust (CerebRUST), and save. You do not need to reinstall — the install script is identical steamcmd, and the server files are already there. Do the reinstall only if you want the plugin dropped in for you; otherwise install it by hand once, or set Auto-update the CerebRUST plugin to 1 and restart.

4. Paste in your token

   On the server’s Startup tab there is now a CerebRUST Ingest Token field. Paste the token from your dashboard into it and restart.

   That is the whole install. There is no file to edit.

What the egg changes

The command line carries only what the panel owns: the ports it assigned you, RCON so the panel’s console works, and the server identity. Six arguments, and nothing else.

Everything else — name, description, world size, seed, player limit, save interval — lives in server.cfg and is set from Rust server file in CerebRUST.

	Stock Rust egg	Rust (CerebRUST)
Name, description, URL, images	Startup arguments	server.cfg
World size, seed, level	Startup arguments	server.cfg
Max players, save interval	Startup arguments	server.cfg
Ports, RCON, identity	Startup arguments	Startup arguments
Modding framework	Your choice	Locked to Oxide
CerebRUST plugin	—	Installed, refreshed every boot
Ingest token	—	A field on the Startup tab

Why it works this way

A setting passed as a startup argument overrides server.cfg when the server boots. So any setting the egg passes is one the dashboard can change while the server is running and then lose on the next restart. The only way to genuinely hand a setting to CerebRUST is to stop passing it — which is what this egg does.

The modding framework is locked to Oxide because the CerebRUST plugin is an Oxide plugin; on a vanilla or Carbon server there is nothing to load it.

Your first boot uses Facepunch’s defaults

A new server has no server.cfg, and CerebRUST cannot configure a server it has not heard from. So a new server boots once on the defaults, you configure it, and you restart. See the order to do things in.

Upgrading from an earlier version of this egg will regenerate your map

Version 1 passed world size and seed as startup arguments; version 2 does not. If your server.cfg does not set them, Rust falls back to its own defaults and generates a new world on the next restart.

Set world size and seed in CerebRUST before importing version 2.

The token now lives in the panel

Once a server is on this egg, the CerebRUST Ingest Token field is written into oxide/config/Cerebrust.json every time the server starts.

The panel field wins

If you already had a token in oxide/config/Cerebrust.json and you move onto this egg without filling in the panel field, the file is overwritten with a blank token on the next start and telemetry stops. Put your token in the panel field before you restart.

Editing IngestToken in the file by hand no longer sticks. That is the point — one place to look — but it is a change from how the plugin is installed everywhere else.

Everything else in that config file is left alone, including the settings the plugin manages itself.

Keeping the plugin up to date

Auto-update the CerebRUST plugin (CEREBRUST_PLUGIN_UPDATE) is on by default. When it is 1, the current Cerebrust.cs is downloaded before the server starts — exactly how the image already keeps Oxide current. A failed or corrupt download is discarded rather than written over a working plugin, and never blocks the server from starting.

Set it to 0 to pin whatever is in oxide/plugins/ and update it yourself from Updating the plugin.

Updating the egg itself

When a new version of the egg ships, download it again and import it onto the existing egg rather than as a new one: Admin → Nests → your nest → Rust (CerebRUST), then the import option on that page. Your servers keep their settings.

Importing from the Nests page again instead would create a second copy of the egg — the panel has no update-from-URL feature, so the egg never updates itself.