Use the Zone Manager Plugin on Rust

Zone Manager lets an admin mark out areas of the map, such as a spawn, an arena or a safe market, and attach rules to them with flags. Other plugins, TruePVE included, read those zones to behave differently inside them. This guide covers installing it, creating and editing a zone, and the settings and permissions you will meet.

Checked against Zone Manager 3.1.14 by k1lly0u on uMod (released 2 September 2026, release note "Compile fix for September update"), October 2026.

Install it

1. Open the Plugins tab, search the Store for Zone Manager and press Install. How to install Oxide/uMod plugins on your Rust server has the steps, including adding Oxide to a plain server.
2. On Oxide, a plugin installed onto a running server stays unloaded until you Restart the server or type oxide.load ZoneManager in the Console. On Carbon it loads by itself. Its permissions only exist after it has loaded.
3. The Console prints a Loaded plugin Zone Manager line when it works. The first load writes oxide/config/ZoneManager.json (carbon/configs/ZoneManager.json on Carbon), and your zones are stored in oxide/data/ZoneManager/zone_data.json (under carbon/data on Carbon).

Who can use the commands

Every zone command needs the permission zonemanager.zone. Server owners and moderators pass the check without it, because the plugin treats any admin level above 0 as allowed. To let a trusted player build zones, grant it from the Console:

oxide.grant user 76561198000000001 zonemanager.zone

On Carbon the command is c.grant user 76561198000000001 zonemanager.zone.

Make a zone

1. Join the server and stand in the middle of the area.
2. Type /zone_add. The plugin creates a zone at your position with a radius of 20 and a random ID, and replies "You have successfully created a new zone with ID". Note the ID.
3. Type /zone_edit <zone ID> to start editing it. The plugin draws the zone for 30 seconds so you can see its edges.
4. Type /zone on its own to see the zone's settings, or set them in pairs of option and value:

/zone name Arena radius 50 pvpgod true nobuild true

The options include name, radius, size "x y z", location here, rotation, enter_message, leave_message, enabled and parentid, plus climate settings (comfort, temperature, radiation) and safezone. Any other word is treated as a flag name, followed by true or false. A value with spaces needs quotes.

For a full list of flags, type /zone flags, or /zone_flags, which opens an in-game editor. The plugin defines 69 flags, including NoBuild, NoDeploy, NoTp, PvpGod, PveGod, NoGather and Eject.

Other commands

From the panel Console there is a version of the edit command that needs no character:

zone <zone ID> <option> <value>

Let someone ignore a flag

Each flag has a matching permission, zonemanager.ignoreflag. followed by the flag name in lower case, such as zonemanager.ignoreflag.nobuild. Grant one to a player or group and that flag does not apply to them. Run oxide.show perms in the Console to see them all (c.show perms on Carbon).

The plugin's own settings

Press Config on Zone Manager under Installed. The file holds:

• Autolight Options: when lights turn on (18) and off (6), and whether they need fuel (true).
• Notification Options: the chat prefix ([Zone Manager] :), its color (#d85540) and whether to use PopupNotifications (false).
• NPC players can deal player damage in zones with PvpGod flag (false) and Allow decay damage in zones with Undestr flag (false).

Press Save, then Reload plugin.

Common problems

1. "You don't have access to this command". Grant zonemanager.zone, or make the player a moderator.
2. A rule isn't applied. Check the zone is enabled, and that you spelled the flag name right: a wrong name answers "Invalid zone flag".
3. Your zones are all gone. /zone_wipe deletes every zone except the temporary ones other plugins create. Restore a backup from the Backups tab.