2 ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server
3 http://ngircd.barton.de/
5 (c)2001-2012 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 17
17 - Support for ZeroConf/Bonjour/Rendezvous service registration has been
18 removed. The configuration option "NoZeroconf" is no longer available.
20 - The structure of ngircd.conf has been cleaned up and three new configuration
21 sections have been introduced: [Limits], [Options], and [SSL].
22 Lots of configuration variables stored in the [Global] section are now
23 deprecated there and should be stored in one of these new sections (but
24 still work in [Global]):
25 "AllowRemoteOper" -> [Options]
26 "ChrootDir" -> [Options]
27 "ConnectIPv4" -> [Options]
28 "ConnectIPv6" -> [Options]
29 "ConnectRetry" -> [Limits]
30 "MaxConnections" -> [Limits]
31 "MaxConnectionsIP" -> [Limits]
32 "MaxJoins" -> [Limits]
33 "MaxNickLength" -> [Limits]
34 "NoDNS" -> [Options], and renamed to "DNS"
35 "NoIdent" -> [Options], and renamed to "Ident"
36 "NoPAM" -> [Options], and renamed to "PAM"
37 "OperCanUseMode" -> [Options]
38 "OperServerMode" -> [Options]
39 "PingTimeout" -> [Limits]
40 "PongTimeout" -> [Limits]
41 "PredefChannelsOnly" -> [Options]
42 "SSLCertFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "CertFile"
43 "SSLDHFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "DHFile"
44 "SSLKeyFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "KeyFile"
45 "SSLKeyFilePassword" -> [SSL], and renamed to "KeyFilePassword"
46 "SSLPorts" -> [SSL], and renamed to "Ports"
47 "SyslogFacility" -> [Options]
48 "WebircPassword" -> [Options]
49 You should adjust your ngircd.conf and run "ngircd --configtest" to make
50 sure that your settings are correct and up to date!
52 Differences to version 16
54 - Changes to the "MotdFile" specified in ngircd.conf now require a ngircd
55 configuration reload to take effect (HUP signal, REHASH command).
57 Differences to version 0.9.x
59 - The option of the configure script to enable support for Zeroconf/Bonjour/
60 Rendezvous/WhateverItIsNamedToday has been renamed:
61 --with-rendezvous -> --with-zeroconf
63 Differences to version 0.8.x
65 - The maximum length of passwords has been raised to 20 characters (instead
66 of 8 characters). If your passwords are longer than 8 characters then they
67 are cut at an other position now.
69 Differences to version 0.6.x
71 - Some options of the configure script have been renamed:
72 --disable-syslog -> --without-syslog
73 --disable-zlib -> --without-zlib
74 Please call "./configure --help" to review the full list of options!
76 Differences to version 0.5.x
78 - Starting with version 0.6.0, other servers are identified using asynchronous
79 passwords: therefore the variable "Password" in [Server]-sections has been
80 replaced by "MyPassword" and "PeerPassword".
82 - New configuration variables, section [Global]: MaxConnections, MaxJoins
83 (see example configuration file "doc/sample-ngircd.conf"!).
86 II. Standard Installation
87 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
89 ngIRCd is developed for UNIX-based systems, which means that the installation
90 on modern UNIX-like systems that are supported by GNU autoconf and GNU
91 automake ("configure") should be no problem.
93 The normal installation procedure after getting (and expanding) the source
94 files (using a distribution archive or GIT) is as following:
96 0) Satisfy prerequisites
97 1) ./autogen.sh [only necessary when using GIT]
102 (Please see details below!)
104 Now the newly compiled executable "ngircd" is installed in its standard
105 location, /usr/local/sbin/.
107 The next step is to configure and afterwards starting the daemon. Please
108 have a look at the ngircd(8) and ngircd.conf(5) manual pages for details
109 and all possible options -- and don't forget to run "ngircd --configtest"
110 to validate your configuration file!
112 If no previous version of the configuration file exists (the standard name
113 is /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf), a sample configuration file containing all
114 possible options will be installed there. You'll find its template in the
115 doc/ directory: sample-ngircd.conf.
118 0): Satisfy prerequisites
120 When building from source, you'll need some other software to build ngIRCd:
121 for example a working C compiler, make tool, GNU automake and autoconf (only
122 when not using a distribution archive), and a few libraries depending on the
123 features you want to compile in (like IDENT support, SSL, and PAM).
125 If you are using one of the "big" operating systems or Linux distributions,
126 you can use the following commands to install all the required packages to
127 build the sources including all optional features and to run the test suite:
129 * RedHat / Fedora based distributions:
132 autoconf automake expect gcc glibc-devel gnutls-devel \
133 libident-devel make pam-devel tcp_wrappers-devel telnet zlib-devel
135 * Debian / Ubuntu based distributions:
138 autoconf automake build-essential expect libgnutls-dev \
139 libident-dev libpam-dev libwrap0-dev libz-dev telnet
144 The first step, autogen.sh, is only necessary if the configure-script isn't
145 already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in
146 tar.gz-archives, but when using GIT.
148 This step is therefore only interesting for developers.
150 autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure
151 script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need
152 GNU autoconf and GNU automake (use recent versions! autoconf 2.53 and
153 automake 1.6.1 are known to work).
155 Again: "end users" do not need this step!
160 The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies.
162 In the perfect case, configure should recognize all needed libraries, header
163 files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all
166 In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable
167 and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using
168 "./configure --help", too.
170 Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir
171 (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like:
172 CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...]
173 Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty).
178 The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the
184 Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on
185 the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this
186 step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be
189 These files and folders will be installed by default:
191 - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server
192 - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present)
193 - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation
194 - /usr/local/share/man/: manual pages
197 III. Additional features
198 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
200 The following optional features can be compiled into the daemon by passing
201 options to the "configure" script. Most options can handle a <path> argument
202 which will be used to search for the required libraries and header files in
203 the given paths ("<path>/lib/...", "<path>/include/...") in addition to the
206 * Syslog Logging (autodetected by default):
207 --with-syslog[=<path>] / --without-syslog
209 Enable (disable) support for logging to "syslog", which should be
210 available on most modern UNIX-like operating systems by default.
212 * ZLib Compression (autodetected by default):
213 --with-zlib[=<path>] / --without-zlib
215 Enable (disable) support for compressed server-server links.
216 The Z compression library ("libz") is required for this option.
218 * IO Backend (autodetected by default):
219 --with-select[=<path>] / --without-select
220 --with-poll[=<path>] / --without-poll
221 --with-devpoll[=<path>] / --without-devpoll
222 --with-epoll[=<path>] / --without-epoll
223 --with-kqueue[=<path>] / --without-kqueue
225 ngIRCd can use different IO "backends": the "old school" select() and poll()
226 API which should be supported by most UNIX-like operating systems, or the
227 more efficient and flexible epoll() (Linux >=2.6), kqueue() (BSD) and
229 By default the IO backend is autodetected, but you can use "--without-xxx"
230 to disable a more enhanced API.
231 When using the epoll() API, support for select() is compiled in as well by
232 default to enable the binary to run on older Linux kernels (<2.6), too.
235 --with-ident[=<path>]
237 Include support for IDENT ("AUTH") lookups. The "ident" library is
238 required for this option.
241 --with-tcp-wrappers[=<path>]
243 Include support for Wietse Venemas "TCP Wrappers" to limit client access
244 to the daemon, for example by using "/etc/hosts.{allow|deny}".
245 The "libwrap" is required for this option.
250 Enable support for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules library.
251 See doc/PAM.txt for details.
254 --with-openssl[=<path>]
255 --with-gnutls[=<path>]
257 Enable support for SSL/TLS using OpenSSL or gnutls libraries.
258 See doc/SSL.txt for details.
263 Adds support for version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
266 IV. Useful make-targets
267 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
269 The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful
272 - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker
275 - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles
276 next step: -> ./configure
278 - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files
279 next step: -> ./autogen.sh
282 V. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf
283 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
285 In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR
286 ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file.
288 The file is separated in five blocks: [Global], [Features], [Operator],
289 [Server], and [Channel].
291 In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server
292 name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. Options in
293 the [Features] section enable or disable functionality in the daemon.
294 IRC operators of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks, remote
295 servers are configured in [Server] sections, and [Channel] blocks are
296 used to configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels.
298 The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the
299 "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in
300 /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one)
301 and in the ngircd.conf(5) manual page.
304 VI. Command line options
305 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
307 These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd:
310 The daemon uses the file <file> as configuration file rather than
311 the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf.
314 ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process.
317 Server-links won't be automatically established.
320 Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted
321 by the server. Then exits.
323 Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters
324 the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version
325 number. In both cases the server exits after the output.
327 Please see the ngircd(8) manual page for complete details!