ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server (c)2001-2010 Alexander Barton, alex@barton.de, http://www.barton.de/ ngIRCd is free software and published under the terms of the GNU General Public License. -- INSTALL -- I. Upgrade Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Differences to version 16 - Changes to the "MotdFile" specified in ngircd.conf now require a ngircd configuration reload to take effect (HUP signal, REHASH command). Differences to version 0.9.x - The option of the configure script to enable support for Zeroconf/Bonjour/ Rendezvous/WhateverItIsNamedToday has been renamed: --with-rendezvous -> --with-zeroconf Differences to version 0.8.x - The maximum length of passwords has been raised to 20 characters (instead of 8 characters). If your passwords are longer than 8 characters then they are cut at an other position now. Differences to version 0.6.x - Some options of the configure script have been renamed: --disable-syslog -> --without-syslog --disable-zlib -> --without-zlib Please call "./configure --help" to review the full list of options! Differences to version 0.5.x - Starting with version 0.6.0, other servers are identified using asynchronous passwords: therefore the variable "Password" in [Server]-sections has been replaced by "MyPassword" and "PeerPassword". - New configuration variables, section [Global]: MaxConnections, MaxJoins (see example configuration file "doc/sample-ngircd.conf"!). II. Standard Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ngIRCd is developed for UNIX-based systems, which means that the installation on modern UNIX-like systems that are supported by GNU autoconf and GNU automake ("configure") should be no problem. The normal installation procedure after getting (and expanding) the source files (using a distribution archive or GIT) is as following: 1) ./autogen.sh [only necessary when using GIT] 2) ./configure 3) make 4) make install (Please see details below!) Now the newly compiled executable "ngircd" is installed in its standard location, /usr/local/sbin/. The next step is to configure and afterwards starting the daemon. Please have a look at the ngircd(8) and ngircd.conf(5) manual pages for details and all possible options. If no previous version of the configuration file exists (the standard name is /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf), a sample configuration file containing all possible options will be installed there. You'll find its template in the doc/ directory: sample-ngircd.conf. 1): "autogen.sh" The first step, autogen.sh, is only necessary if the configure-script isn't already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in tar.gz-archives, but when using GIT. This step is therefore only interesting for developers. autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need GNU autoconf and GNU automake (use recent versions! autoconf 2.53 and automake 1.6.1 are known to work). Again: "end users" do not need this step! 2): "./configure" The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies. In the perfect case, configure should recognise all needed libraries, header files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all possible options. In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using "./configure --help", too. Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like: CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...] Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty). 3): "make" The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the ngIRCd daemon. 4): "make install" Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be overwritten. This files will be installed by default: - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present) - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation III. Additional features ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following optional features can be compiled into the daemon by passing options to the "configure" script. Most options can handle a argument which will be used to search for the required libraries and header files in the given paths ("/lib/...", "/include/...") in addition to the standard locations. * Syslog Logging (autodetected by default): --with-syslog[=] / --without-syslog Enable (disable) support for logging to "syslog", which should be available on most modern UNIX-like operating systems by default. * ZLib Compression (autodetected by default): --with-zlib[=] / --without-zlib Enable (disable) support for compressed server-server links. The Z compression library ("libz") is required for this option. * IO Backend (autodetected by default): --with-select[=] / --without-select --with-poll[=] / --without-poll --with-devpoll[=] / --without-devpoll --with-epoll[=] / --without-epoll --with-kqueue[=] / --without-kqueue ngIRCd can use different IO "backends": the "old school" select() and poll() API which should be supported by most UNIX-like operating systems, or the more efficient and flexible epoll() (Linux >=2.6), kqueue() (BSD) and /dev/poll APIs. By default the IO backend is autodetected, but you can use "--without-xxx" to disable a more enhanced API. When using the epoll() API, support for select() is compiled in as well by default to enable the binary to run on older Linux kernels (<2.6), too. * IDENT-Support: --with-ident[=] Include support for IDENT ("AUTH") lookups. The "ident" library is required for this option. * ZeroConf Support: --with-zeroconf[=] Compile ngIRCd with support for ZeroConf multicast DNS service registration. Either the Apple ZeroConf implementation (e. g. Mac OS X) or the Howl library is required. Which one is available is autodetected. * TCP-Wrappers: --with-tcp-wrappers[=] Include support for Wietse Venemas "TCP Wrappers" to limit client access to the daemon, for example by using "/etc/hosts.{allow|deny}". The "libwrap" is required for this option. * PAM: --with-pam[=] Enable support for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules library. See doc/PAM.txt for details. * SSL: --with-openssl[=] --with-gnutls[=] Enable support for SSL/TLS using OpenSSL or gnutls libraries. See doc/SSL.txt for details. * IPv6: --enable-ipv6 Adds support for version 6 of the Internet Protocol. IV. Useful make-targets ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful targets: - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker next step: -> make - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles next step: -> ./configure - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files next step: -> ./autogen.sh V. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file. The file is separated in four blocks: [Global], [Operator], [Server], and [Channel]. In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. IRC operators of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks. [Server] is the section where server links are configured. And [Channel] blocks are used to configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels. The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one) and in the "ngircd.conf" manual page. VI. Command line options ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd: -f, --config The daemon uses the file as configuration file rather than the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf. -n, --nodaemon ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process. -p, --passive Server-links won't be automatically established. -t, --configtest Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted by the server. Then exits. Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version number. In both cases the server exits after the output.