2 ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server
3 http://ngircd.barton.de/
5 (c)2001-2016 Alexander Barton and Contributors.
6 ngIRCd is free software and published under the
7 terms of the GNU General Public License.
12 I. Upgrade Information
13 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15 Differences to version 22.x
17 - The "NoticeAuth" ngircd.conf configuration variable has been renamed to
18 "NoticeBeforeRegistration". The old "NoticeAuth" variable still works but
21 - The default value of the SSL "CipherList" variable has been changed to
22 "HIGH:!aNULL:@STRENGTH:!SSLv3" (OpenSSL) and "SECURE128:-VERS-SSL3.0"
23 (GnuTLS) to disable the old SSLv3 protocol by default.
24 To enable connections of clients still requiring the weak SSLv3 protocol,
25 the "CipherList" must be set to its old value (not recommended!), which
26 was "HIGH:!aNULL:@STRENGTH" (OpenSSL) and "SECURE128" (GnuTLS), see below.
28 Differences to version 20.x
30 - Starting with ngIRCd 21, the ciphers used by SSL are configurable and
31 default to "HIGH:!aNULL:@STRENGTH" (OpenSSL) or "SECURE128" (GnuTLS).
32 Previous version were using the OpenSSL or GnuTLS defaults, "DEFAULT"
33 and "NORMAL" respectively.
35 - When adding GLINE's or KLINE's to ngIRCd 21 (or newer), all clients matching
36 the new mask will be KILL'ed. This was not the case with earlier versions
37 that only added the mask but didn't kill already connected users.
39 - The "PredefChannelsOnly" configuration variable has been superseded by the
40 new "AllowedChannelTypes" variable. It is still supported and translated to
41 the appropriate "AllowedChannelTypes" setting but is deprecated now.
43 Differences to version 19.x
45 - Starting with ngIRCd 20, users can "cloak" their hostname only when the
46 configuration variable "CloakHostModeX" (introduced in 19.2) is set.
47 Otherwise, only IRC operators, other servers, and services are allowed to
48 set mode +x. This prevents regular users from changing their hostmask to
49 the name of the IRC server itself, which confused quite a few people ;-)
51 Differences to version 17.x
53 - Support for ZeroConf/Bonjour/Rendezvous service registration has been
54 removed. The configuration option "NoZeroconf" is no longer available.
56 - The structure of ngircd.conf has been cleaned up and three new configuration
57 sections have been introduced: [Limits], [Options], and [SSL].
58 Lots of configuration variables stored in the [Global] section are now
59 deprecated there and should be stored in one of these new sections (but
60 still work in [Global]):
61 "AllowRemoteOper" -> [Options]
62 "ChrootDir" -> [Options]
63 "ConnectIPv4" -> [Options]
64 "ConnectIPv6" -> [Options]
65 "ConnectRetry" -> [Limits]
66 "MaxConnections" -> [Limits]
67 "MaxConnectionsIP" -> [Limits]
68 "MaxJoins" -> [Limits]
69 "MaxNickLength" -> [Limits]
70 "NoDNS" -> [Options], and renamed to "DNS"
71 "NoIdent" -> [Options], and renamed to "Ident"
72 "NoPAM" -> [Options], and renamed to "PAM"
73 "OperCanUseMode" -> [Options]
74 "OperServerMode" -> [Options]
75 "PingTimeout" -> [Limits]
76 "PongTimeout" -> [Limits]
77 "PredefChannelsOnly" -> [Options]
78 "SSLCertFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "CertFile"
79 "SSLDHFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "DHFile"
80 "SSLKeyFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "KeyFile"
81 "SSLKeyFilePassword" -> [SSL], and renamed to "KeyFilePassword"
82 "SSLPorts" -> [SSL], and renamed to "Ports"
83 "SyslogFacility" -> [Options]
84 "WebircPassword" -> [Options]
85 You should adjust your ngircd.conf and run "ngircd --configtest" to make
86 sure that your settings are correct and up to date!
88 Differences to version 16.x
90 - Changes to the "MotdFile" specified in ngircd.conf now require a ngircd
91 configuration reload to take effect (HUP signal, REHASH command).
93 Differences to version 0.9.x
95 - The option of the configure script to enable support for Zeroconf/Bonjour/
96 Rendezvous/WhateverItIsNamedToday has been renamed:
97 --with-rendezvous -> --with-zeroconf
99 Differences to version 0.8.x
101 - The maximum length of passwords has been raised to 20 characters (instead
102 of 8 characters). If your passwords are longer than 8 characters then they
103 are cut at an other position now.
105 Differences to version 0.6.x
107 - Some options of the configure script have been renamed:
108 --disable-syslog -> --without-syslog
109 --disable-zlib -> --without-zlib
110 Please call "./configure --help" to review the full list of options!
112 Differences to version 0.5.x
114 - Starting with version 0.6.0, other servers are identified using asynchronous
115 passwords: therefore the variable "Password" in [Server]-sections has been
116 replaced by "MyPassword" and "PeerPassword".
118 - New configuration variables, section [Global]: MaxConnections, MaxJoins
119 (see example configuration file "doc/sample-ngircd.conf"!).
122 II. Standard Installation
123 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
125 ngIRCd is developed for UNIX-based systems, which means that the installation
126 on modern UNIX-like systems that are supported by GNU autoconf and GNU
127 automake ("configure") should be no problem.
129 The normal installation procedure after getting (and expanding) the source
130 files (using a distribution archive or GIT) is as following:
132 0) Satisfy prerequisites
133 1) ./autogen.sh [only necessary when using GIT]
138 (Please see details below!)
140 Now the newly compiled executable "ngircd" is installed in its standard
141 location, /usr/local/sbin/.
143 The next step is to configure and afterwards starting the daemon. Please
144 have a look at the ngircd(8) and ngircd.conf(5) manual pages for details
145 and all possible options -- and don't forget to run "ngircd --configtest"
146 to validate your configuration file!
148 If no previous version of the configuration file exists (the standard name
149 is /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf), a sample configuration file containing all
150 possible options will be installed there. You'll find its template in the
151 doc/ directory: sample-ngircd.conf.
154 0): Satisfy prerequisites
156 When building from source, you'll need some other software to build ngIRCd:
157 for example a working C compiler, make tool, GNU automake and autoconf (only
158 when not using a distribution archive), and a few libraries depending on the
159 features you want to compile in (like IDENT support, SSL, and PAM).
161 If you are using one of the "big" operating systems or Linux distributions,
162 you can use the following commands to install all the required packages to
163 build the sources including all optional features and to run the test suite:
165 * Red Hat / Fedora based distributions:
168 autoconf automake expect gcc glibc-devel gnutls-devel \
169 libident-devel make pam-devel tcp_wrappers-devel telnet zlib-devel
171 * Debian / Ubuntu based distributions:
174 autoconf automake build-essential expect libgnutls-dev \
175 libident-dev libpam-dev libwrap0-dev libz-dev telnet
180 The first step, autogen.sh, is only necessary if the configure-script isn't
181 already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in
182 tar.gz-archives, but when using GIT.
184 This step is therefore only interesting for developers.
186 autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure
187 script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need
188 GNU autoconf and GNU automake: at least autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.10 are
189 required, newer is better. But don't use automake 1.12 or newer for creating
190 distribution archives: it will work but lack "de-ANSI-fication" support in the
191 generated Makefile's! Stick with automake 1.11.x for this purpose ...
192 So automake 1.11.x and autoconf 2.67+ is recommended.
194 Again: "end users" do not need this step and neither need GNU autoconf nor GNU
200 The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies.
202 In the perfect case, configure should recognize all needed libraries, header
203 files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all
206 In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable
207 and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using
208 "./configure --help", too.
210 Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir
211 (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like:
212 CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...]
213 Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty).
218 The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the
224 Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on
225 the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this
226 step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be
229 These files and folders will be installed by default:
231 - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server
232 - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present)
233 - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation
234 - /usr/local/share/man/: manual pages
237 III. Additional features
238 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
240 The following optional features can be compiled into the daemon by passing
241 options to the "configure" script. Most options can handle a <path> argument
242 which will be used to search for the required libraries and header files in
243 the given paths ("<path>/lib/...", "<path>/include/...") in addition to the
246 * Syslog Logging (autodetected by default):
247 --with-syslog[=<path>] / --without-syslog
249 Enable (disable) support for logging to "syslog", which should be
250 available on most modern UNIX-like operating systems by default.
252 * ZLib Compression (autodetected by default):
253 --with-zlib[=<path>] / --without-zlib
255 Enable (disable) support for compressed server-server links.
256 The Z compression library ("libz") is required for this option.
258 * IO Backend (autodetected by default):
259 --with-select[=<path>] / --without-select
260 --with-poll[=<path>] / --without-poll
261 --with-devpoll[=<path>] / --without-devpoll
262 --with-epoll[=<path>] / --without-epoll
263 --with-kqueue[=<path>] / --without-kqueue
265 ngIRCd can use different IO "backends": the "old school" select() and poll()
266 API which should be supported by most UNIX-like operating systems, or the
267 more efficient and flexible epoll() (Linux >=2.6), kqueue() (BSD) and
269 By default the IO backend is autodetected, but you can use "--without-xxx"
270 to disable a more enhanced API.
271 When using the epoll() API, support for select() is compiled in as well by
272 default to enable the binary to run on older Linux kernels (<2.6), too.
275 --with-ident[=<path>]
277 Include support for IDENT ("AUTH") lookups. The "ident" library is
278 required for this option.
281 --with-tcp-wrappers[=<path>]
283 Include support for Wietse Venemas "TCP Wrappers" to limit client access
284 to the daemon, for example by using "/etc/hosts.{allow|deny}".
285 The "libwrap" is required for this option.
290 Enable support for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules library.
291 See doc/PAM.txt for details.
294 --with-openssl[=<path>]
295 --with-gnutls[=<path>]
297 Enable support for SSL/TLS using OpenSSL or gnutls libraries.
298 See doc/SSL.txt for details.
303 Adds support for version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
306 IV. Useful make-targets
307 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
309 The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful
312 - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker
315 - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles
316 next step: -> ./configure
318 - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files
319 next step: -> ./autogen.sh
322 V. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf
323 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
325 In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR
326 ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file.
328 The file is separated in five blocks: [Global], [Features], [Operator],
329 [Server], and [Channel].
331 In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server
332 name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. Options in
333 the [Features] section enable or disable functionality in the daemon.
334 IRC operators of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks, remote
335 servers are configured in [Server] sections, and [Channel] blocks are
336 used to configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels.
338 The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the
339 "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in
340 /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one)
341 and in the ngircd.conf(5) manual page.
344 VI. Command line options
345 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
347 These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd:
350 The daemon uses the file <file> as configuration file rather than
351 the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf.
354 ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process.
357 Server-links won't be automatically established.
360 Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted
361 by the server. Then exits.
363 Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters
364 the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version
365 number. In both cases the server exits after the output.
367 Please see the ngircd(8) manual page for complete details!