2 .\" ngircd(8) manual page template
4 .TH ngircd 8 "Sep 2023" ngIRCd "ngIRCd Manual"
6 ngIRCd \- the "next generation" IRC daemon
14 is a free, portable and lightweight Internet Relay Chat server for small
15 or private networks, developed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
17 The server is quite easy to configure, can handle dynamic IP addresses, and
18 optionally supports IDENT, IPv6 connections, SSL-protected links, and PAM for
19 user authentication as well as character set conversion for legacy clients. The
20 server has been written from scratch and is not based on the "forefather", the
24 .IR "next-generation IRC daemon",
25 which is a little bit exaggerated:
26 .IR "lightweight Internet Relay Chat server"
27 most probably would have been a better name :-)
29 Currently supported platforms include AIX, A/UX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Hurd, IRIX,
30 Linux, macOS, Minix, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and Windows with Cygwin.
31 As ngIRCd relies on UNIX standards and uses GNU automake and GNU autoconf
32 there are good chances that it also supports other UNIX-based operating
35 By default ngIRCd logs diagnostic and informational messages using the syslog
36 mechanism, or writes directly to the console when running in the foreground
39 The default behavior of
41 is to read its standard configuration file (see below), to detach from the
42 controlling terminal and to wait for clients.
44 You can use these options to modify this default:
46 \fB\-f\fR \fIfile\fR, \fB\-\-config\fR \fIfile\fR
49 as configuration file.
51 \fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-nodaemon\fR
52 Don't fork a child and don't detach from controlling terminal.
53 All log messages go to the console and you can use CTRL-C to
56 \fB\-p\fR, \fB\-\-passive\fR
57 Disable automatic connections to other servers. You can use the IRC command
58 CONNECT later on as IRC Operator to link this ngIRCd to other servers.
60 \fB\-y\fR, \fB\-\-syslog\fR
61 Write log messages to the syslog even when running in the foreground. This only
64 was given on the command line
68 The following options prevent ngIRCd from starting regularly, but perform a
69 specific action and then exit the daemon again:
71 \fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
72 Display a brief help text and exit.
74 \fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-configtest\fR
75 Read, validate and display the configuration; then exit.
77 \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
78 Output version information and exit.
80 .I :ETCDIR:/ngircd.conf
82 The system wide default configuration file.
84 .I :ETCDIR:/ngircd.motd
86 Default "message of the day" (MOTD).
89 The daemon understands the following signals:
92 Shut down all connections and terminate the daemon.
95 Shut down all listening sockets, re-read the configuration file and
96 re-initialize the daemon.
100 to use "ngircd \-\-configtest" to validate the configuration of ngIRCd after
101 making changes to the configuration files!
103 When ngIRCd is compiled with debug code, that is, its source code has
104 been ./configure'd with "\-\-enable\-debug" and/or "\-\-enable\-sniffer" (witch
105 enables debug mode automatically as well), you can use two more command
106 line options and two more signals to debug problems with the daemon itself
111 \fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-debug\fR
112 Enable debug mode and log extra messages.
114 \fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-sniffer\fR
115 Enable IRC protocol sniffer, which logs all sent and received IRC commands to
116 the console/syslog. This option requires that ngIRCd has been ./configure'd
117 with "\-\-enable\-sniffer" and enables debug mode automatically, too.
122 Toggle debug mode on and off during runtime.
125 Dump internal server state to the console/syslog when debug mode is on (use
126 command line option \-\-debug or signal USR1).
128 Alexander Barton, <alex@barton.de>
130 Florian Westphal, <fw@strlen.de>
132 Homepage: http://ngircd.barton.de/