2 ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server
3 http://ngircd.barton.de/
5 (c)2001-2019 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39 - The "PredefChannelsOnly" configuration variable has been superseded by the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, and a few libraries depending on
158 the feature set you want to enable at compile time (like IDENT, SSL, and PAM).
160 And if you aren't using a distribution archive ("tar.gz" file), but cloned the
161 plain source archive, you need a few additional tools to generate the build
162 system itself: GNU automake and autoconf, as well as pkg-config.
164 If you are using one of the "big" operating systems or Linux distributions,
165 you can use the following commands to install all the required packages to
166 build the sources including all optional features and to run the test suite:
168 * Red Hat / Fedora based distributions:
171 autoconf automake expect gcc glibc-devel gnutls-devel \
172 libident-devel make pam-devel pkg-config tcp_wrappers-devel telnet zlib-devel
174 * Debian / Ubuntu based distributions:
177 autoconf automake build-essential expect libgnutls28-dev \
178 libident-dev libpam-dev pkg-config libwrap0-dev libz-dev telnet
183 The first step, autogen.sh, is ONLY necessary if the "configure" script itself
184 isn't already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in
185 "tar.gz" archives, but when cloning the source code repository using Git.
187 This step is therefore only interesting for developers.
189 autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure
190 script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need
191 GNU autoconf, GNU automake and pkg-config: at least autoconf 2.61 and automake
192 1.10 are required, newer is better. But don't use automake 1.12 or newer for
193 creating distribution archives: it will work but lack "de-ANSI-fication" support
194 in the generated Makefile's! Stick with automake 1.11.x for this purpose ...
195 So automake 1.11.x and autoconf 2.67+ is recommended.
197 Again: "end users" do not need this step and neither need GNU autoconf nor GNU
203 The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies.
205 In the perfect case, configure should recognize all needed libraries, header
206 files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all
209 In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable
210 and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using
211 "./configure --help", too.
213 Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir
214 (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like:
215 CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...]
216 Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty).
221 The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the
227 Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on
228 the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this
229 step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be
232 These files and folders will be installed by default:
234 - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server
235 - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present)
236 - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation
237 - /usr/local/share/man/: manual pages
240 III. Additional features
241 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
243 The following optional features can be compiled into the daemon by passing
244 options to the "configure" script. Most options can handle a <path> argument
245 which will be used to search for the required libraries and header files in
246 the given paths ("<path>/lib/...", "<path>/include/...") in addition to the
249 * Syslog Logging (autodetected by default):
250 --with-syslog[=<path>] / --without-syslog
252 Enable (disable) support for logging to "syslog", which should be
253 available on most modern UNIX-like operating systems by default.
255 * ZLib Compression (autodetected by default):
256 --with-zlib[=<path>] / --without-zlib
258 Enable (disable) support for compressed server-server links.
259 The Z compression library ("libz") is required for this option.
261 * IO Backend (autodetected by default):
262 --with-select[=<path>] / --without-select
263 --with-poll[=<path>] / --without-poll
264 --with-devpoll[=<path>] / --without-devpoll
265 --with-epoll[=<path>] / --without-epoll
266 --with-kqueue[=<path>] / --without-kqueue
268 ngIRCd can use different IO "backends": the "old school" select() and poll()
269 API which should be supported by most UNIX-like operating systems, or the
270 more efficient and flexible epoll() (Linux >=2.6), kqueue() (BSD) and
272 By default the IO backend is autodetected, but you can use "--without-xxx"
273 to disable a more enhanced API.
274 When using the epoll() API, support for select() is compiled in as well by
275 default to enable the binary to run on older Linux kernels (<2.6), too.
278 --with-ident[=<path>]
280 Include support for IDENT ("AUTH") lookups. The "ident" library is
281 required for this option.
284 --with-tcp-wrappers[=<path>]
286 Include support for Wietse Venemas "TCP Wrappers" to limit client access
287 to the daemon, for example by using "/etc/hosts.{allow|deny}".
288 The "libwrap" is required for this option.
293 Enable support for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules library.
294 See doc/PAM.txt for details.
297 --with-openssl[=<path>]
298 --with-gnutls[=<path>]
300 Enable support for SSL/TLS using OpenSSL or gnutls libraries.
301 See doc/SSL.txt for details.
306 Adds support for version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
309 IV. Useful make-targets
310 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
312 The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful
315 - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker
318 - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles
319 next step: -> ./configure
321 - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files
322 next step: -> ./autogen.sh
325 V. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf
326 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
328 In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR
329 ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file.
331 The file is separated in five blocks: [Global], [Features], [Operator],
332 [Server], and [Channel].
334 In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server
335 name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. Options in
336 the [Features] section enable or disable functionality in the daemon.
337 IRC operators of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks, remote
338 servers are configured in [Server] sections, and [Channel] blocks are
339 used to configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels.
341 The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the
342 "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in
343 /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one)
344 and in the ngircd.conf(5) manual page.
347 VI. Command line options
348 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
350 These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd:
353 The daemon uses the file <file> as configuration file rather than
354 the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf.
357 ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process.
360 Server-links won't be automatically established.
363 Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted
364 by the server. Then exits.
366 Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters
367 the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version
368 number. In both cases the server exits after the output.
370 Please see the ngircd(8) manual page for complete details!