PowerfulAdmin - Best admin panel 1.3.0

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Manage players, permissions and plugins from inside the game
PowerfulAdmin is an admin panel you open inside Rust. Fifteen pages in the sidebar cover players, items, permissions, plugins, the live console, ConVars, a working server map and your own buttons. Four more tools work out in the world, on whatever you are looking at. Every page and every action has a permission of its own, so a junior moderator can use only what you grant. The panel is translated into seven languages

New in 1.3.0: six things this version adds

Items page

Hand out items without opening a player card. Search the whole list, filter by category, pin favorites, fill a cart and give it to one player or to several at once. The i button opens an item's reference card: shortname and ID, stack size, the crafting recipe with workbench and craft time, and what it breaks down into in the green, yellow and red recycler

Map clusters

Markers that sit close together merge into one icon with a count and split apart again as you zoom in. Any cluster opens a list of what is inside, vehicles, shops and events included. A row selects the player, opens the object menu or teleports you. If you want every marker on its own, the Clusters switch next to the zoom buttons turns merging off

Permissions page

Search by a plugin's name and you get all of its permissions. A click on a plugin block's header folds it away. Every group shows how many players are in it, and the count opens the member list

Seven languages

German, Spaninh, French, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese join English and Russian. With LangAPI installed, item names and descriptions follow each admin's game language too

Update check

A Check Updates button on the Plugins page runs the UpdateChecker plugin. A plugin with a newer version shows the old and new version on its card, and a click on the card opens the update link

Heal and Vanish

Heal has a Full mode: one click revives a wounded player, restores full health and refills food and water. Vanish has an optional switch that also turns noclip off when you leave Vanish

The sidebar: fifteen pages, plus add-on sections

The panel reopens on the page you left. Add-ons appear in the same sidebar, use the same permission system and follow the theme the admin picked

Your own sections can go here too, through the API described at the bottom of this page

Out in the world: tools that work on what you look at

A lot of moderation happens in front of a base, a player or a locked crate. Four tools work right there, and none of them needs anything installed on the admin's client

Vanish

Vanish takes you out of networking, colliders, entity queries and the game's own AI target list. NPCs stop shooting and forget you were standing there. Radiation, cold, wetness, hunger, thirst and drowning stop affecting you, and Vanish puts everything back as it was when you switch it off. A silhouette for other admins, auto vanish on connect, opening locks and turning noclip on with Vanish are all optional, and each has a permission. Another switch, Turn off noclip with vanish, turns noclip off when you leave Vanish

Admin hammer

Hold a hammer, look at anything, and the HUD reads out the owner, position, health, upkeep, power, who is authorized, the code lock codes and what is in the container. Hold E to pick an action from the radial menu, then Shift+LMB runs it: delete, delete with gibs, delete the whole linked structure, edit the container contents, or on a hackable crate unlock it now and set its timer to any value you type

Inspect

Look at a player and act on them without typing a name. E opens their inventory, RMB opens their full card. An on-screen hint shows which key does what

Server ESP

The server draws it with the engine's own debug draw and sends it only to admins who hold the permission. Players and sleepers carry their name, HP and held item. Loot, boxes, cupboards, bags, traps, stashes, NPCs, scientists, turrets and vehicles each get their own colour. You set the radius, the opacity and the text size, and enemy, team and admin are coloured apart

The player card: one card per player, awake or asleep

The Players page is a searchable, paginated list of everyone the server has seen. The card holds the SteamID, live status, current session and total playtime, total Rust hours from the Steam API, groups, first and last seen, the balance if you run an economy plugin, and the IP behind a permission of its own. The actions sit below

Heal Kill Strip Kick Ban Freeze Mute Teleport Inventory Spectate Give Blueprints Modifiers Vitals Permissions Notes Show on map

Each of these has its own permission.

The map, drawn inside the panel

The map covers the island and the Deep Sea, with zoom. Each layer has its own switch, so the map shows only what you turn on

Layers

The layers are players, sleepers, cupboards, bags, stashes, cars, horses, air, shops, events and map notes. Cars, boats, submarines, trains, horses and player helicopters each have their own icon and an arrow showing where they are heading. The cargo ship, the cargo plane and the chinook are on the map with the rest

Clusters

Markers that sit close together merge into one icon with a count badge, so a crowded base or a busy spawn is not a pile of overlapping dots. Players, sleepers, notes, cupboards, bags, stashes, vehicles, shops and events all cluster, and the groups split apart as you zoom in. A click on any cluster opens a list of up to ten rows plus an "and N more" line. A row selects the player, opens the object menu or teleports you to the note. Rows for cars, horses, air, shops and events show the layer, the prefab or shop name, the owner if there is one and the grid square. With the map teleport permission a click on such a row takes you there. Without it the panel dims those rows. The badge gets an accent outline when the player you picked, their teammate or something that player owns is inside. Every clickable marker has a click area of at least 28 by 28 pixels, however small the icon. The Clusters switch next to the zoom buttons turns merging off and draws every marker on its own. It is on by default, and each admin's choice is saved

Click an object

Cupboards, bags and stashes open a menu that names the owners and shows their Steam avatars. From there you can teleport to it, open its inventory from where you are standing, or destroy it behind a confirmation. Each of the three actions has a separate permission, so a moderator can be allowed to look without being allowed to delete

Heat

PVP and raid heat build up from real kills and from explosive damage that landed, over a time window you set. The map shows where players are fighting and raiding right now

Side panel

Next to the map there is a player search and a card for whoever you picked, with the same actions as the full player card. Hold Shift and place a map note to teleport straight to it

Server control: console, permissions, plugins, ConVars and logs

Live console

The console shows server output as it happens, filtered by category, with a command line and history. It can be switched off entirely for everyone in Settings

Permissions

The page lists every permission on the server, grouped under the plugin that owns it. Toggle per user or per group, create and delete groups, set a parent group, and search across thousands of entries. Search by a plugin's name to get all of its permissions, and fold any plugin block away with a click on its header. Each group shows how many players are in it. The count opens the member list with avatars, online status and a name filter, where a click on a member opens their card and the cross takes them out of the group. PowerfulAdmin's own permissions can be locked so nobody edits them from inside the panel

Plugins

Load, unload and reload anything on the server, then open its config and language files as a form and edit them without touching the filesystem. Editing is a separate permission from reloading, so an admin can restart a plugin without being able to rewrite it. With the UpdateChecker plugin installed, Check Updates puts the old and new version on the card of every plugin that has an update, and a click on that card opens the link to copy

ConVars

Edit server ConVars, grouped and searchable. The panel keeps them in its own cfg file and applies them again on boot, so your values survive a restart

Logs

The log records commands, chat, joins, leaves, errors and warnings, colour coded and capped at a number you choose. Companion plugins write into the same log through the API.

Make it yours: buttons, binds, themes, storage and Discord

Quick buttons

Quick buttons turn your own console commands into buttons, each with an icon, a colour, an optional confirmation and a permission of its own. You decide where a button shows up: the player card, the map, the dashboard or the floating widget

Binds

The Binds page has ready bind lines for the panel, Vanish, god mode, noclip, ESP, the hammer, inspect and the map. Type the key you want, select the generated line, Ctrl+C, paste into F1. One key toggles both ways

Appearance

Each admin picks one of three themes: Rust, Midnight or Plum. Fonts are picked per slot, the window can be dragged, and the ESP text size is adjustable. Fonts without Cyrillic are marked in the picker

Notifications

Panel messages go through Notify or NCP if you have either installed, or through chat, or you can turn them off. You pick the provider in Settings and the add-ons follow it

Storage

SQLite is the default and needs no setup. MySQL is there for networks that share data between servers, JSON for people who prefer files. Moving between them is one click in Settings and the data comes along

Discord

An optional companion plugin ships in the same archive. It has a two way chat relay, feeds for bans, actions and errors, a bot with a live status line, and roles that decide who may run commands from Discord. You set it up in game, without editing a config file

Permissions: twenty eight for pages and features

You can give a trial moderator only Vanish and the player card, and give a head admin all of them. The panel greys out what an admin cannot reach instead of hiding it, so nobody has to guess why a page is missing

Commands: one in chat, three in console

These four are the only commands, and the console ones are mainly there for key binds

Install

1. Put the plugin into your plugins folder. It loads and writes a clean config on its own. Oxide and Carbon both work
2. Run pa.setup with your name or steamid once in the server console
3. Type /padmin in game to open the panel
4. Optional, later, in Settings: switch to MySQL, connect Discord, add a Steam API key for Rust hours, and copy your binds out of the Binds page
5. Optional, any time: install LangAPI for item names in each admin's game language, or UpdateChecker for the Check Updates button. The panel finds them on its own. Without LangAPI item names stay in English, and without UpdateChecker the button tells you it is missing

Add-ons: Bans, Buttons, Freeze and Whitelist, sold separately

Three companion plugins drop into the sidebar and share the card, the permissions and the storage backend

PowerfulBans

It keeps timed and permanent bans in its own database, with reason templates, per role duration caps, ban history and login enforcement. It also runs on its own, without the panel.

PowerfulFreeze

Freeze a player where they stand while you talk to them, from the card, the map or the world, with live countdowns and three freeze modes.

PowerfulWhitelist

Whitelisting for closed servers, with JSON, SQLite or MySQL storage and standalone commands of its own.

Before you buy: common questions

Will it lag my server?

It is designed to keep the load low. Objects are pooled and buffers reused, only the element that changed repaints instead of the whole panel, saves are debounced, state is cached behind signatures, and ESP, inspect and the map run on intervals you can tune. None of it runs for an admin who is not using it

Can a junior moderator abuse it?

Only within the permissions you give them. Every page has a permission, every action in the player card has one, every quick button you make has one, and the plugin's own permissions can be locked so they cannot be edited from inside the panel

Do I need a database?

No. SQLite is the default and needs no configuration. MySQL is there for networks that want shared data, JSON for people who like plain files, and moving between them is one click in Settings

Do I have to set up Discord or a Steam API key?

Neither. Discord is optional and configured in game when you want it. The Steam key only fills in the total Rust hours figure on player cards. Without it that one line reads n/a and nothing else changes

Can I manage players who are offline?

Yes. Teleport to a sleeper, heal them, strip them, edit the inventory, mute, change permissions. Only the actions that need a live connection are disabled while a player is away

What language does it speak?

Seven: English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese. Each admin sees the panel in their own game language. Every string lives in a language file, so adding another locale is a translation rather than a code change, and you can do it from inside the panel. With LangAPI installed, item names follow the admin's language as well

I write plugins. Can I hook into it?

Yes, and the section below shows how

For developers: your plugin, inside the panel

Any plugin can register its own sidebar section and draw inside the panel, in the player's language and in whichever theme the admin picked. Bans, Freeze and Whitelist are built on this same public API, so every release of those add-ons uses it

[PluginReference] private Plugin PowerfulAdmin;
 
var definition = new Dictionary<string, object>
{
    ["id"]             = "mystats",
    ["icon"]           = "assets/icons/star.png",
    ["category"]       = "nav.cat.tools",
    ["permission"]     = "myplugin.view",
    ["title"]          = (Func<BasePlayer, string>)(p => "My Stats"),
    ["hint"]           = (Func<BasePlayer, string>)(p => "Kills, deaths, playtime"),
    ["open"]           = (Action<BasePlayer>)OpenSection,
    ["cardRows"]       = (Func<string, List<string[]>>)CardRows,
    ["settings"]       = (Action<BasePlayer, CuiElementContainer, string, int>)DrawSettings,
    ["settingsHeight"] = (Func<BasePlayer, int>)(p => 180),
    ["popupActions"]   = new Dictionary<string, Action<BasePlayer, ulong, string>>
    {
        ["ban"] = OnBan
    }
};
 
PowerfulAdmin.Call("API_AddSection", definition);

Only id is required. Every other key is optional, and the permission is registered for you if no plugin has claimed it yet. Read API_SectionContext on every render to get the parent layer, the body size, the padding, the player's language and the full theme palette, because the admin can switch themes while your page is open

Support, updates and feature requests

Send bug reports and feature requests to the LR Development Discord