.\" @(#)$Id ircd.8 2.0 (beta version) 29 Mar 1989 $ .TH IRCD 8 "$Date: 2006/04/26 20:26:07 $" .SH NAME ircd \- The Internet Relay Chat Program Server .SH SYNOPSIS .hy 0 .IP \fBircd\fP [ .B \-abciqst ] [ .BI \-f " configfile" ] [ .BI \-x " debuglevel" ] [ .BI \-h " hostname" ] [ .BI \-T [ tunefile ] ] [ .BI \-p " mode" ] .IP \fBircd\fP .B \-v .SH DESCRIPTION .LP \fIircd\fP is the server (daemon) program for the Internet Relay Chat Program. The \fIircd\fP is a server in that its function is to "serve" the client program \fIirc(1)\fP with messages and commands. All commands and user messages are passed directly to the \fIircd\fP for processing and relaying to other ircd sites. The \fIirc(1)\fP program depends upon there being an \fIircd\fP server running somewhere (either on your local UNIX site or a remote ircd site) so that it will have somewhere to connect to and thus allow the user to begin talking to other users. \fIircd\fP will reread its configuration file whenever it received a hangup signal, SIGHUP. Sending an interrupt signal to \fIircd\fP process will cause it to restart. .SH OPTIONS .TP .B \-a Instructs the server to automatically die off if it loses all it's clients. .TP .B \-b If the ircd.tune file is corrupted, by default the server will not start. This option will make the server start anyways, with the default values (ignoring the corrupted file). .TP .B \-c This flag must be given if you are running ircd from \fI/dev/console\fP or any other situation where fd 0 isnt a tty and you want the server to fork off and run in the background. This needs to be given if you are starting \fIircd\fP from an \fIrc\fP (such as \fI/etc/rc.local\fP) file. .TP .B \-i The server was started by inetd and it should start accepting connections from standard input. The following inetd.conf-line could be used to start up ircd automatically when needed: .TP .B ircd stream tcp wait irc /etc/ircd ircd \-i allows inetd to start up ircd on request. .TP .B \-q Using this option stops the server from doing DNS lookups on all the servers in your \fIircd.conf\fP file when it boots. This can take a lengthy amount of time if you have a large number of servers and they are not all close by. .TP .B \-s When this option is specified, \fIiauth\fP will not be started. This means that the IRC daemon will perform "ident lookups" (RFC 1413) internally to attempt to authenticate incoming connections. No other authentication mechanism will be used. .TP .B \-t Instructs the server to direct debugging output to standard output and to not fork nor detach from terminal. .TP .BI \-f " filename" Specifies the ircd.conf file to be used for this ircdaemon. The option is used to override the default ircd.conf given at compile time. .TP .BI \-x " #" Defines the debuglevel for ircd. The higher the debuglevel, the more stuff gets directed to debugging file (or standard output if \-t option was used as well). .TP .BI \-h " hostname" Allows the user to manually set the server name at startup. The default name is hostname.domainname. .TP .BI \-p " mode" Specify whether the server should enable built-in protections against various type of user abuse that is commonly found on big public networks. Possible modes are .BR strict " (default)," .BR on " and" .BR off " and" .BR standalone . The .B strict option enables the protections, and refuses to establish a link to a server not running with this option. This is useful to force all servers on an IRC network to enable them. The .B standalone option removes split checks and disallows any server to connect. .TP .BI \-T " tunefile" Specifies the ircd.tune file to be used for this ircdaemon. The option is used to override the default ircd.tune given at compile time. If no tune file is given, reading and writing of tune file is disabled. .TP .B \-v This option prevents the server from starting, and dumps some information about the version instead. .TP .SH If you plan to connect your \fIircd\fP server to an existing Irc-Network, you will need to alter your local IRC CONFIGURATION FILE (typically named "ircd.conf") so that it will accept and make connections to other \fIircd\fP servers. This file contains the hostnames, Network Addresses, and sometimes passwords for connections to other ircds around the world. Because description of the actual file format of the "ircd.conf" file is beyond the scope of this document, please refer to the file INSTALL in the IRC source files documentation directory. .LP BOOTING THE SERVER: The \fIircd\fP server can be started as part of the UNIX boot procedure or just by placing the server into Unix Background. Keep in mind that if it is *not* part of your UNIXES Boot-up procedure then you will have to manually start the \fIircd\fP server each time your UNIX is rebooted. This means if your UNIX is prone to crashing or going for for repairs a lot it would make sense to start the \fIircd\fP server as part of your UNIX bootup procedure. In some cases the \fIirc(1)\fP will automatically attempt to boot the \fIircd\fP server if the user is on the SAME UNIX that the \fIircd\fP is supposed to be running on. If the \fIirc(1)\fP cannot connect to the \fIircd\fP server it will try to start the server on it's own and will then try to reconnect to the newly booted \fIircd\fP server. .SH EXAMPLE .RS .nf tolsun% \fBircd\fP .fi .RE .LP Places \fIircd\fP into UNIX Background and starts up the server for use. Note: You do not have to add the "&" to this command, the program will automatically detach itself from tty. .LP .RS .nf tolsun% \fBircd \-v\fP ircd 2.9.3 AaCDEfFHiIkMsu_V1 zlib not used Tue Apr 1 1997 at 20:17:50 EDT #1 .fi .RE .LP This indicates that this binary is the version 2.9.3 of the software. AaCDEfFHiIkMsu_V1 are the compile time options which were used. This binary does not support compression of server\-server links (does not use zlib) and was compiled on April the 1st. .SH COPYRIGHT (c) 1988,1989 University of Oulu, Computing Center, Finland, .LP (c) 1988,1989 Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Finland .LP (c) 1988,1989,1990,1991 Jarkko Oikarinen .LP For full COPYRIGHT see LICENSE file with IRC package. .LP .RE .SH FILES "ircd.conf" .SH "SEE ALSO" iauth(8) irc(1) ircdwatch(8) .SH BUGS None... ;-) if somebody finds one, please send mail to ircd-bugs@irc.org .SH AUTHOR Jarkko Oikarinen, currently jto@tolsun.oulu.fi, manual page written by Jeff Trim, jtrim@orion.cair.du.edu, later modified by jto@tolsun.oulu.fi.