How to Enable and Use RCON

How to turn RCON on for Minecraft, ARK, Palworld, CS2, Rust and Factorio, and how BattlEye RCON differs for Arma 3 and DayZ — with the settings and ports for each.

Tempest is a GUI RCON client for game servers. Add a Minecraft, ARK, Rust, Counter-Strike 2, Source-engine, Factorio, Arma 3, DayZ, or any other RCON-speaking server as a connection, and you get the same tabbed interface as your SSH hosts — only the channel is RCON instead of SSH.

If you've been juggling separate Minecraft Console apps, ARK admin tools, Source RCON tools and a BattlEye admin client per game, Tempest replaces all of them with one client.

Two protocols share the name "RCON"

Tempest speaks both, and you pick which one a host uses when you add it:

Protocol	Transport	Games
Source RCON (default)	TCP	Minecraft, Counter-Strike 2, Rust, ARK, Factorio, and anything else Source-engine derived
BattlEye RCON (BERCon)	UDP	Arma 2, Arma 3, DayZ, Arma Reforger

On a BattlEye server you will also see chat, the admin log, and kick and ban notices arrive on their own, printed above the prompt as they happen.

Hosts you saved before the protocol picker existed are Source RCON hosts — there is nothing to migrate.

Add an RCON server

1. Click + → RCON.

2. Choose the protocol: Source over TCP or BattlEye over UDP.

<figure><img src="../.gitbook/assets/CleanShot 2026-09-16 at 10.17.38 [e-mail]" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

1. Set host and port.

2. Set the RCON password (rcon.password in server.properties, RConPassword in BattlEye's BEServer.cfg, or your engine's equivalent).

3. Save and connect.

The tab opens with a command prompt. Type any RCON command supported by your server.

Ports

Server	Typical port
Minecraft Java	25575
Source engine / CS2	27015
BattlEye (Arma, DayZ)	whatever RConPort in BEServer.cfg says — commonly 2302

Switching protocol does not change the port for you. BattlEye has no standard port — it is whatever the server's own config sets — so check BEServer.cfg and type it in.

Common commands

Minecraft Java:

list                    # list online players
kick PlayerName Goodbye
ban PlayerName
op PlayerName
say Server restart in 5 min
stop                    # graceful shutdown

Source / CS2:

status
say Welcome
mp_restartgame 1
changelevel de_dust2

Factorio:

/players
/silent-command game.print("hello")

Arma 3 / DayZ (BattlEye):

players                 # list connected players
say -1 Server restart in 5 min
kick 3 Goodbye
#shutdown

Native Rust implementation

As of Tempest 3.6+, RCON is a native Rust implementation (no shell-out, no mcrcon binary required). Same client works identically on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Long replies come back in full, and a slow command — a plugin reload, a world save, paper version — is waited out instead of dropping the session.

Proxy support

RCON connections support the same proxy modes as SSH:

• HTTP CONNECT

• SOCKS5 (works for BattlEye hosts too)

• ProxyCommand

Use this if your game server is behind a corporate firewall or a VPN gateway you reach through cloudflared access or a Tailscale-like tunnel.

Test latency in the host list is available for Source RCON hosts only.

Why RCON in an SSH client?

Most homelab / indie hosting setups use the same machine for an SSH-managed Linux box and the Minecraft / ARK server it hosts. Tempest lets you keep them in adjacent tabs — type tail -f /var/log/whatever on the SSH side, run say Server restart in 5 min on the RCON side.

See also

• Connect to Telnet servers — same Rust networking layer

• Open Terminal Here — Folder Context Menu

• Tempest Push Notifications — alert when a player joins or a server crashes (via scripted snippets)

• RCON client for game servers — the product page for this feature