2 ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server
4 (c)2001-2004 by Alexander Barton,
5 alex@barton.de, http://www.barton.de/
7 ngIRCd is free software and published under the
8 terms of the GNU General Public License.
14 I. Upgrade Information
15 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
17 Differences to version 0.8.x
19 - The maximum length of passwords has been raised to 20 characters (instead
20 of 8 characters). If your passwords are longer than 8 characters then they
21 are cut at an other position now.
23 Differences to version 0.6.x
25 - Some options of the configure script have been renamed:
26 --disable-syslog -> --without-syslog
27 --disable-zlib -> --without-zlib
28 Please call "./configure --help" to review the full list of options!
30 Differences to version 0.5.x
32 - Starting with version 0.6.0, other servers are identified using asynchronous
33 passwords: therefore the variable "Password" in [Server]-sections has been
34 replaced by "MyPassword" and "PeerPassword".
36 - New configuration variables, section [Global]: MaxConnections, MaxJoins
37 (see example configuration file "doc/sample-ngircd.conf"!).
40 II. Standard Installation
41 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
43 ngIRCd is developed for UNIX-based systems, which means that the installation
44 on modern UNIX-like systems that are supported by GNU autoconf and GNU
45 automake ("configure") should be no problem.
47 The normal installation procedure after getting (and expanding) the source
48 files (using a distribution archive or CVS) is as following:
50 1) ./autogen.sh [only necessary when using CVS]
55 (Please see details below!)
57 Now the newly compiled executable "ngircd" is installed in its standard
58 location, /usr/local/sbin/.
60 The next step is to configure and afterwards starting the daemon. Please
61 have a look at the ngircd(8) and ngircd.conf(5) manual pages for details
62 and all possible options.
64 If no previous version of the configuration file exists (the standard name
65 is /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf), a sample configuration file containing all
66 possible options will be installed there. You'll find its template in the
67 doc/ directory: sample-ngircd.conf.
72 The first step, autogen.sh, is only necessary if the configure-script isn't
73 already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in
74 tar.gz-archives, but when using CVS.
76 This step is therefore only interesting for developers.
78 autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure
79 script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need
80 GNU autoconf and GNU automake (use recent versions! autoconf 2.53 and
81 automake 1.6.1 are known to work).
83 Again: "end users" do not need this step!
88 The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies.
90 In the perfect case, configure should recognise all needed libraries, header
91 files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all
94 In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable
95 and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using
96 "./configure --help", too.
98 Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir
99 (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like:
100 CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...]
101 Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty).
106 The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the
112 Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on
113 the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this
114 step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be
117 This files will be installed by default:
119 - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server
120 - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present)
121 - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation
124 II. Useful make-targets
125 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127 The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful
130 - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker
133 - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles
134 next step: -> ./configure
136 - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files
137 next step: -> ./autogen.sh
140 III. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf
141 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
143 In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR
144 ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file.
146 The file is separated in four blocks: [Global], [Operator], [Server], and
149 In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server
150 name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. IRC operators
151 of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks. [Server] is the section
152 where server links are configured. And [Channel] blocks are used to
153 configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels.
155 The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the
156 "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in
157 /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one)
158 and in the "ngircd.conf" manual page.
161 IV. Command line options
162 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
164 These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd:
167 The daemon uses the file <file> as configuration file rather than
168 the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf.
171 ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process.
174 Server-links won't be automatically established.
177 Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted
178 by the server. Then exits.
180 Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters
181 the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version
182 number. In both cases the server exits after the output.
186 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.21 2005/02/10 08:20:09 alex Exp $