Wipe a Rust server.
The exact files.

Where the files are

Everything a wipe touches lives in server/<identity>/, where the identity is your server.identity convar. Many hosts set it to rust or my_server_identity. This is what that folder held on our test server after one boot, on a 3000-size procedural map:

proceduralmap.3000.48211.289.map
proceduralmap.3000.48211.289.navmesh
proceduralmap.3000.48211.289.sav
proceduralmap.3000.48211.289_occlusion_3.dat
sv.files.289.db               sv.files.289.db-wal
clans.289.db                  clans.289.db-wal
relationship.289.db           relationship.289.db-wal
player.blueprints.18.db       player.blueprints.18.db-wal
player.deaths.18.db           player.deaths.18.db-wal
player.identities.18.db       player.identities.18.db-wal
player.states.289.db          player.states.289.db-wal
player.tokens.db              player.tokens.db-wal
cfg/  command_history/  serveremoji/

Map files are named proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<save version>. After the server has run a while, .sav.1 and .sav.2 appear next to the .sav: these are rolling backups of the world save.

Map wipe: 6 files

A map wipe removes the world and keeps everyone’s blueprints. Delete every file that starts with proceduralmap.:

proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<version>.map
proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<version>.navmesh
proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<version>.sav
proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<version>.sav.1
proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<version>.sav.2
proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<version>_occlusion_3.dat

What happened when we did it: with the server stopped, we deleted all six and started it again. It was back up and listed in about 80 seconds, the map and occlusion files were regenerated from the seed, and player.blueprints.18.db was untouched. A genuine map-only wipe.

Blueprint wipe: 2 files

player.blueprints.<schema>.db
player.blueprints.<schema>.db-wal

What happened when we did it: we deleted both with the server stopped. All the proceduralmap. files survived, so the map was untouched. For a map and blueprint wipe together, delete all eight files.

Why a wipe sometimes doesn’t wipe

1. The pattern matched .sav and missed .sav.1 and .sav.2

A delete pattern ending in .sav, such as proceduralmap.*.*.*.sav, does not match .sav.1 or .sav.2. The older copies of the world stay on disk. You announce a fresh map and are left trusting the server not to fall back to a save you meant to delete. Match on the proceduralmap. prefix and the backups go with the rest.

2. The .db went but its -wal stayed

Every database in that folder is SQLite with a -wal (write-ahead log) beside it. A pattern like player.blueprints.*.db does not match player.blueprints.18.db-wal. SQLite’s own documentation lists separating a database from its journal as a way to corrupt it. Always delete the .db, -wal and -shm together, with the server stopped.

3. The server was still running

Rust holds these files open and saves on shutdown. Delete while it’s running, or while it is still stopping, and the save can write them straight back. Wait for offline.

What neither wipe touches

• Clans and teams. clans.<version>.db and relationship.<version>.db survived both wipe types on our test. If you want clans gone on a wipe, you have to delete them too.
• Player identities, deaths, state and tokens. The other player.* databases survive a map wipe and a blueprint wipe.
• Your config. cfg/, including server.cfg, users.cfg and bans, is not part of any wipe.

A full wipe (map, blueprints, player state, clans) has not been tested on our servers yet. This page will cover it once we have run one and checked what comes back.

The whole procedure

1. Stop the server. Stop the server and wait until it shows offline, not just until the stop was accepted.
2. Take a backup. Back up the server folder so a wrong delete can be undone.
3. Open the save folder. Open server/<identity>/, where <identity> is your server.identity (often rust or my_server_identity).
4. Delete the map files. For a map wipe, delete every file whose name starts with proceduralmap.: the .map, .navmesh, .sav, .sav.1, .sav.2 and _occlusion_3.dat.
5. Delete the blueprint files. For a blueprint wipe, delete player.blueprints.<n>.db together with its -wal file (and -shm if there is one).
6. Start the server. Start the server. The map is regenerated from your seed and size.

A seed or size change gives you a new map with new file names, but the old map files stay on disk. On our test, the navmesh and occlusion files alone came to about 77 MB per 3000-size map. Delete the old set anyway.