2 ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server
3 http://ngircd.barton.de/
5 (c)2001-2011 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 1) ./autogen.sh [only necessary when using GIT]
101 (Please see details below!)
103 Now the newly compiled executable "ngircd" is installed in its standard
104 location, /usr/local/sbin/.
106 The next step is to configure and afterwards starting the daemon. Please
107 have a look at the ngircd(8) and ngircd.conf(5) manual pages for details
108 and all possible options -- and don't forget to run "ngircd --configtest"
109 to validate your configuration file!
111 If no previous version of the configuration file exists (the standard name
112 is /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf), a sample configuration file containing all
113 possible options will be installed there. You'll find its template in the
114 doc/ directory: sample-ngircd.conf.
119 The first step, autogen.sh, is only necessary if the configure-script isn't
120 already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in
121 tar.gz-archives, but when using GIT.
123 This step is therefore only interesting for developers.
125 autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure
126 script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need
127 GNU autoconf and GNU automake (use recent versions! autoconf 2.53 and
128 automake 1.6.1 are known to work).
130 Again: "end users" do not need this step!
135 The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies.
137 In the perfect case, configure should recognize all needed libraries, header
138 files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all
141 In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable
142 and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using
143 "./configure --help", too.
145 Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir
146 (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like:
147 CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...]
148 Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty).
153 The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the
159 Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on
160 the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this
161 step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be
164 These files and folders will be installed by default:
166 - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server
167 - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present)
168 - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation
169 - /usr/local/share/man/: manual pages
172 III. Additional features
173 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
175 The following optional features can be compiled into the daemon by passing
176 options to the "configure" script. Most options can handle a <path> argument
177 which will be used to search for the required libraries and header files in
178 the given paths ("<path>/lib/...", "<path>/include/...") in addition to the
181 * Syslog Logging (autodetected by default):
182 --with-syslog[=<path>] / --without-syslog
184 Enable (disable) support for logging to "syslog", which should be
185 available on most modern UNIX-like operating systems by default.
187 * ZLib Compression (autodetected by default):
188 --with-zlib[=<path>] / --without-zlib
190 Enable (disable) support for compressed server-server links.
191 The Z compression library ("libz") is required for this option.
193 * IO Backend (autodetected by default):
194 --with-select[=<path>] / --without-select
195 --with-poll[=<path>] / --without-poll
196 --with-devpoll[=<path>] / --without-devpoll
197 --with-epoll[=<path>] / --without-epoll
198 --with-kqueue[=<path>] / --without-kqueue
200 ngIRCd can use different IO "backends": the "old school" select() and poll()
201 API which should be supported by most UNIX-like operating systems, or the
202 more efficient and flexible epoll() (Linux >=2.6), kqueue() (BSD) and
204 By default the IO backend is autodetected, but you can use "--without-xxx"
205 to disable a more enhanced API.
206 When using the epoll() API, support for select() is compiled in as well by
207 default to enable the binary to run on older Linux kernels (<2.6), too.
210 --with-ident[=<path>]
212 Include support for IDENT ("AUTH") lookups. The "ident" library is
213 required for this option.
216 --with-tcp-wrappers[=<path>]
218 Include support for Wietse Venemas "TCP Wrappers" to limit client access
219 to the daemon, for example by using "/etc/hosts.{allow|deny}".
220 The "libwrap" is required for this option.
225 Enable support for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules library.
226 See doc/PAM.txt for details.
229 --with-openssl[=<path>]
230 --with-gnutls[=<path>]
232 Enable support for SSL/TLS using OpenSSL or gnutls libraries.
233 See doc/SSL.txt for details.
238 Adds support for version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
241 IV. Useful make-targets
242 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
244 The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful
247 - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker
250 - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles
251 next step: -> ./configure
253 - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files
254 next step: -> ./autogen.sh
257 V. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf
258 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
260 In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR
261 ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file.
263 The file is separated in five blocks: [Global], [Features], [Operator],
264 [Server], and [Channel].
266 In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server
267 name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. Options in
268 the [Features] section enable or disable functionality in the daemon.
269 IRC operators of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks, remote
270 servers are configured in [Server] sections, and [Channel] blocks are
271 used to configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels.
273 The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the
274 "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in
275 /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one)
276 and in the ngircd.conf(5) manual page.
279 VI. Command line options
280 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
282 These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd:
285 The daemon uses the file <file> as configuration file rather than
286 the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf.
289 ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process.
292 Server-links won't be automatically established.
295 Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted
296 by the server. Then exits.
298 Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters
299 the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version
300 number. In both cases the server exits after the output.
302 Please see the ngircd(8) manual page for complete details!