2 ngIRCd - Next Generation IRC Server
3 http://ngircd.barton.de/
5 (c)2001-2014 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 20.x
17 - Starting with ngIRCd 21, the ciphers used by SSL are configurable and
18 default to HIGH:!aNULL:@STRENGTH (OpenSSL) or SECURE128 (GnuTLS).
19 Previous version were using the OpenSSL or GnuTLS defaults, DEFAULT
20 and NORMAL respectively.
22 - When adding GLINE's or KLINE's to ngIRCd 21 (or newer), all clients matching
23 the new mask will be KILL'ed. This was not the case with earlier versions
24 that only added the mask but didn't kill already connected users.
26 Differences to version 19.x
28 - Starting with ngIRCd 20, users can "cloak" their hostname only when the
29 configuration variable "CloakHostModeX" (introduced in 19.2) is set.
30 Otherwise, only IRC operators, other servers, and services are allowed to
31 set mode +x. This prevents regular users from changing their hostmask to
32 the name of the IRC server itself, which confused quite a few people ;-)
34 Differences to version 17
36 - Support for ZeroConf/Bonjour/Rendezvous service registration has been
37 removed. The configuration option "NoZeroconf" is no longer available.
39 - The structure of ngircd.conf has been cleaned up and three new configuration
40 sections have been introduced: [Limits], [Options], and [SSL].
41 Lots of configuration variables stored in the [Global] section are now
42 deprecated there and should be stored in one of these new sections (but
43 still work in [Global]):
44 "AllowRemoteOper" -> [Options]
45 "ChrootDir" -> [Options]
46 "ConnectIPv4" -> [Options]
47 "ConnectIPv6" -> [Options]
48 "ConnectRetry" -> [Limits]
49 "MaxConnections" -> [Limits]
50 "MaxConnectionsIP" -> [Limits]
51 "MaxJoins" -> [Limits]
52 "MaxNickLength" -> [Limits]
53 "NoDNS" -> [Options], and renamed to "DNS"
54 "NoIdent" -> [Options], and renamed to "Ident"
55 "NoPAM" -> [Options], and renamed to "PAM"
56 "OperCanUseMode" -> [Options]
57 "OperServerMode" -> [Options]
58 "PingTimeout" -> [Limits]
59 "PongTimeout" -> [Limits]
60 "PredefChannelsOnly" -> [Options]
61 "SSLCertFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "CertFile"
62 "SSLDHFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "DHFile"
63 "SSLKeyFile" -> [SSL], and renamed to "KeyFile"
64 "SSLKeyFilePassword" -> [SSL], and renamed to "KeyFilePassword"
65 "SSLPorts" -> [SSL], and renamed to "Ports"
66 "SyslogFacility" -> [Options]
67 "WebircPassword" -> [Options]
68 You should adjust your ngircd.conf and run "ngircd --configtest" to make
69 sure that your settings are correct and up to date!
71 Differences to version 16
73 - Changes to the "MotdFile" specified in ngircd.conf now require a ngircd
74 configuration reload to take effect (HUP signal, REHASH command).
76 Differences to version 0.9.x
78 - The option of the configure script to enable support for Zeroconf/Bonjour/
79 Rendezvous/WhateverItIsNamedToday has been renamed:
80 --with-rendezvous -> --with-zeroconf
82 Differences to version 0.8.x
84 - The maximum length of passwords has been raised to 20 characters (instead
85 of 8 characters). If your passwords are longer than 8 characters then they
86 are cut at an other position now.
88 Differences to version 0.6.x
90 - Some options of the configure script have been renamed:
91 --disable-syslog -> --without-syslog
92 --disable-zlib -> --without-zlib
93 Please call "./configure --help" to review the full list of options!
95 Differences to version 0.5.x
97 - Starting with version 0.6.0, other servers are identified using asynchronous
98 passwords: therefore the variable "Password" in [Server]-sections has been
99 replaced by "MyPassword" and "PeerPassword".
101 - New configuration variables, section [Global]: MaxConnections, MaxJoins
102 (see example configuration file "doc/sample-ngircd.conf"!).
105 II. Standard Installation
106 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
108 ngIRCd is developed for UNIX-based systems, which means that the installation
109 on modern UNIX-like systems that are supported by GNU autoconf and GNU
110 automake ("configure") should be no problem.
112 The normal installation procedure after getting (and expanding) the source
113 files (using a distribution archive or GIT) is as following:
115 0) Satisfy prerequisites
116 1) ./autogen.sh [only necessary when using GIT]
121 (Please see details below!)
123 Now the newly compiled executable "ngircd" is installed in its standard
124 location, /usr/local/sbin/.
126 The next step is to configure and afterwards starting the daemon. Please
127 have a look at the ngircd(8) and ngircd.conf(5) manual pages for details
128 and all possible options -- and don't forget to run "ngircd --configtest"
129 to validate your configuration file!
131 If no previous version of the configuration file exists (the standard name
132 is /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf), a sample configuration file containing all
133 possible options will be installed there. You'll find its template in the
134 doc/ directory: sample-ngircd.conf.
137 0): Satisfy prerequisites
139 When building from source, you'll need some other software to build ngIRCd:
140 for example a working C compiler, make tool, GNU automake and autoconf (only
141 when not using a distribution archive), and a few libraries depending on the
142 features you want to compile in (like IDENT support, SSL, and PAM).
144 If you are using one of the "big" operating systems or Linux distributions,
145 you can use the following commands to install all the required packages to
146 build the sources including all optional features and to run the test suite:
148 * RedHat / Fedora based distributions:
151 autoconf automake expect gcc glibc-devel gnutls-devel \
152 libident-devel make pam-devel tcp_wrappers-devel telnet zlib-devel
154 * Debian / Ubuntu based distributions:
157 autoconf automake build-essential expect libgnutls-dev \
158 libident-dev libpam-dev libwrap0-dev libz-dev telnet
163 The first step, autogen.sh, is only necessary if the configure-script isn't
164 already generated. This never happens in official ("stable") releases in
165 tar.gz-archives, but when using GIT.
167 This step is therefore only interesting for developers.
169 autogen.sh produces the Makefile.in's, which are necessary for the configure
170 script itself, and some more files for make. To run autogen.sh you'll need
171 GNU autoconf and GNU automake: at least autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.10 are
172 requird, newer is better. But don't use automake 1.12 or newer for creating
173 distribution archives: it will work but lack "de-ANSI-fication" support in the
174 generated Makefile's! Stick with automake 1.11.x for this purpose ...
175 So automake 1.11.x and autoconf 2.67+ is recommended.
177 Again: "end users" do not need this step and neither need GNU autoconf nor GNU
183 The configure-script is used to detect local system dependencies.
185 In the perfect case, configure should recognize all needed libraries, header
186 files and so on. If this shouldn't work, "./configure --help" shows all
189 In addition, you can pass some command line options to "configure" to enable
190 and/or disable some features of ngIRCd. All these options are shown using
191 "./configure --help", too.
193 Compiling a static binary will avoid you the hassle of feeding a chroot dir
194 (if you want use the chroot feature). Just do something like:
195 CFLAGS=-static ./configure [--your-options ...]
196 Then you can use a void directory as ChrootDir (like OpenSSH's /var/empty).
201 The make command uses the Makefiles produced by configure and compiles the
207 Use "make install" to install the server and a sample configuration file on
208 the local system. Normally, root privileges are necessary to complete this
209 step. If there is already an older configuration file present, it won't be
212 These files and folders will be installed by default:
214 - /usr/local/sbin/ngircd: executable server
215 - /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf: sample configuration (if not already present)
216 - /usr/local/share/doc/ngircd/: documentation
217 - /usr/local/share/man/: manual pages
220 III. Additional features
221 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
223 The following optional features can be compiled into the daemon by passing
224 options to the "configure" script. Most options can handle a <path> argument
225 which will be used to search for the required libraries and header files in
226 the given paths ("<path>/lib/...", "<path>/include/...") in addition to the
229 * Syslog Logging (autodetected by default):
230 --with-syslog[=<path>] / --without-syslog
232 Enable (disable) support for logging to "syslog", which should be
233 available on most modern UNIX-like operating systems by default.
235 * ZLib Compression (autodetected by default):
236 --with-zlib[=<path>] / --without-zlib
238 Enable (disable) support for compressed server-server links.
239 The Z compression library ("libz") is required for this option.
241 * IO Backend (autodetected by default):
242 --with-select[=<path>] / --without-select
243 --with-poll[=<path>] / --without-poll
244 --with-devpoll[=<path>] / --without-devpoll
245 --with-epoll[=<path>] / --without-epoll
246 --with-kqueue[=<path>] / --without-kqueue
248 ngIRCd can use different IO "backends": the "old school" select() and poll()
249 API which should be supported by most UNIX-like operating systems, or the
250 more efficient and flexible epoll() (Linux >=2.6), kqueue() (BSD) and
252 By default the IO backend is autodetected, but you can use "--without-xxx"
253 to disable a more enhanced API.
254 When using the epoll() API, support for select() is compiled in as well by
255 default to enable the binary to run on older Linux kernels (<2.6), too.
258 --with-ident[=<path>]
260 Include support for IDENT ("AUTH") lookups. The "ident" library is
261 required for this option.
264 --with-tcp-wrappers[=<path>]
266 Include support for Wietse Venemas "TCP Wrappers" to limit client access
267 to the daemon, for example by using "/etc/hosts.{allow|deny}".
268 The "libwrap" is required for this option.
273 Enable support for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules library.
274 See doc/PAM.txt for details.
277 --with-openssl[=<path>]
278 --with-gnutls[=<path>]
280 Enable support for SSL/TLS using OpenSSL or gnutls libraries.
281 See doc/SSL.txt for details.
286 Adds support for version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
289 IV. Useful make-targets
290 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
292 The Makefile produced by the configure-script contains always these useful
295 - clean: delete every product from the compiler/linker
298 - distclean: the above plus erase all generated Makefiles
299 next step: -> ./configure
301 - maintainer-clean: erase all automatic generated files
302 next step: -> ./autogen.sh
305 V. Sample configuration file ngircd.conf
306 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
308 In the sample configuration file, there are comments beginning with "#" OR
309 ";" -- this is only for the better understanding of the file.
311 The file is separated in five blocks: [Global], [Features], [Operator],
312 [Server], and [Channel].
314 In the [Global] section, there is the main configuration like the server
315 name and the ports, on which the server should be listening. Options in
316 the [Features] section enable or disable functionality in the daemon.
317 IRC operators of this server are defined in [Operator] blocks, remote
318 servers are configured in [Server] sections, and [Channel] blocks are
319 used to configure pre-defined ("persistent") IRC channels.
321 The meaning of the variables in the configuration file is explained in the
322 "doc/sample-ngircd.conf", which is used as sample configuration file in
323 /usr/local/etc after running "make install" (if you don't already have one)
324 and in the ngircd.conf(5) manual page.
327 VI. Command line options
328 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
330 These parameters could be passed to the ngIRCd:
333 The daemon uses the file <file> as configuration file rather than
334 the standard configuration /usr/local/etc/ngircd.conf.
337 ngIRCd should be running as a foreground process.
340 Server-links won't be automatically established.
343 Reads, validates and dumps the configuration file as interpreted
344 by the server. Then exits.
346 Use "--help" to see a short help text describing all available parameters
347 the server understands, with "--version" the ngIRCd shows its version
348 number. In both cases the server exits after the output.
350 Please see the ngircd(8) manual page for complete details!