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Set the Message of the Day on Rust

Set the server description, greet players on spawn with Welcomer and repeat chat announcements with Advert Messages on Rust.

Updated 4 min read
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A message of the day on a Rust server comes from three places: the server description players read before they join, a greeting sent when they spawn in, and announcements repeated in chat. Only the first needs no plugin. Checked against Facepunch's Rust wiki and Rust server build 2635, plus Welcomer 2.1.0 (released November 2022) and Advert Messages 3.0.2 (released March 2019) on uMod, October 2026. Both plugins are old, so check their uMod pages for newer versions after each monthly Rust update.

The server description

Facepunch's wiki describes the description as the text "shown on server connection window", and our Server Description field on the Startup tab sets it. Our field's help text says it is the text under your server's title in the server list, that most servers put their rules, wipe schedule and Discord invite there, and that \n starts a new line.

  1. Open the Startup tab and edit Server Description, for example Weekly wipe, Thursday 7pm.\nRules: no cheating, no toxicity.
  2. Press Save, then Restart.

Set it in one place only. When we tested, a server.description line in server/rust/cfg/server.cfg beat the Server Description from the Startup tab after a restart, which matches Facepunch's wiki saying the file "takes priority over anything set on the command line". If your Startup text doesn't appear, look for that line in server.cfg.

A greeting when players spawn in: Welcomer

Welcomer needs Oxide or Carbon: see How to install Oxide/uMod plugins on your Rust server. Install Welcomer from the Plugins tab. On Oxide, a newly installed plugin stays unloaded until the server restarts: restart, or type oxide.load Welcomer in the Console. On Carbon it loads by itself, and c.load Welcomer or c.reload Welcomer do it by hand.

Once a player has finished waking up in the world, it sends them a welcome message in chat and in their F1 console. The default text is "There are currently {0} active players, {1} joining, {2} sleepers, and {3} in the queue". It also announces joins and leaves to everyone, such as "{0} joined from {1}", with the player's name and country.

To use your own text, open the File Manager, go to oxide/lang/en (on Carbon, carbon/lang/en) and edit Welcomer.json. Change the values of Welcome.Chat and Welcome.Console. The numbers in braces are the counts above, and you can leave them out. Save, then reload the plugin from the Console with oxide.reload Welcomer on Oxide or c.reload Welcomer on Carbon.

The settings are in Plugins, Installed, Config. The main switches are below, and the config also holds Chat Avatar (0) and Show Player Avatar (false). The switches are all true except where marked: Enable Chat Welcome Message, Enable Console Welcome Message, Enable Join Message, Enable Newcomer Join Message, Enable Leave Message, Enable Rage Quit Message (false), Clear Data On Wipe and Log To Console. Players with the welcomer.bypass permission get no join or leave announcement.

Warning

To work out a player's country, Welcomer sends their IP address to the website ip-api.com. It skips this for players holding welcomer.bypass and for players whose country it has already stored. To stop it for everyone, grant welcomer.bypass to the default group with oxide.grant group default welcomer.bypass on Oxide or c.grant group default welcomer.bypass on Carbon. That also turns off the join and leave lines.

Repeating announcements: Advert Messages

Install Advert Messages the same way, then load it with oxide.load AdvertMessages on Oxide if you don't restart (Carbon loads it by itself). It broadcasts one of your messages to chat on a timer. Open its Config and edit:

  • Messages, a list. The default holds three lines, "Welcome to our server, have fun!", "Please treat everybody respectfully." and a cheating warning.
  • Advert Interval (in Minutes), 10 by default.
  • Choose Message at Random (true/false), false by default, so messages go in order.
  • Broadcast to Console (true/false), true by default.

Press Save and Reload plugin. The Console prints "Advert Messages is showing adverts every 10 minutes" when it starts.

Common problems

  1. The message didn't change. Description changes need a Restart. Lang file and config changes need oxide.reload (c.reload on Carbon) or Reload plugin.
  2. Messages vanish from the config. A plugin drops names it doesn't recognise when it reloads. Check your spelling.
  3. A plugin won't load after a Rust update. The Console shows a red error. Look for a newer version or pick another plugin.

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