IRCD(8)IRCD(8)NAMEircd - The Internet Relay Chat Program Server
SYNOPSISircd [-a] [-c] [-i] [-o] [-q] [-t] [-d directory] [-f
configfile] [-x debuglevel] [-h hostname] [-p
portnum] [-s]
DESCRIPTIONircd is the server (daemon) program for the Internet Relay
Chat Program. The ircd is a server in that its function
is to "serve" the client program irc(1) with messages and
commands. All commands and user messages are passed
directly to the ircd for processing and relaying to other
ircd sites. The irc(1) program depends upon there being
an ircd 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.
OPTIONS-d directory
This option tells the server to change to that
directory and use that as a reference point when
opening ircd.conf and other startup files.
-o Starts up a local ircdaemon. Standard input can be
used to send IRC commands to the daemon. The user
logging in from standard input will be given
operator privileges on this local ircd. If ircd is
a setuid program, it will call setuid(getuid())
before going to local mode. This option can be used
in inetd.conf to allow users to open their own irc
clients by simply connecting their clients to the
correct ports. For example:
irc stream tcp nowait irc /etc/ircd ircd \-f/etc/ircd.conf
\-o
allows users connecting to irc port (specified in
/etc/services) to start up their own ircdaemon. The
configuration file should be used to check from
which hosts these connections are allowed from.
This option also turns on the autodie option -a.
-a Instructs the server to automatically die off if it
loses all it's clients.
-t Instructs the server to direct debugging output to
standard output.
-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
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used as well).
-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:
ircd stream tcp wait irc /etc/ircd ircd-i
allows inetd to start up ircd on request.
-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.
-c This flag must be given if you are running ircd
from /dev/console 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 ircd from an rc (such as
/etc/rc.local) file.
-q Using the -q option stops the server from doing DNS
lookups on all the servers in your ircd.conf 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.
-h hostname
Allows the user to manually set the server name at
startup. The default name is hostname.domainname.
-p portname
Specifies the port where the daemon should start
waiting for connections. This overrides the
default which is given at compile time.
-s Send debugging output to stderr and don't fork.
Exteremely useful when IRCD runs and immediately
exits.
If you plan to connect your ircd 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 ircd 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
"ircs.conf" file is beyond the scope of this
document, please refer to the file INSTALL in the
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IRC source files documentation directory.
BOOTING THE SERVER: The ircd 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 ircd 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 ircd server as part of your UNIX bootup
procedure. In some cases the irc(1) will automatically
attempt to boot the ircd server if the user is on the SAME
UNIX that the ircd is supposed to be running on. If the
irc(1) cannot connect to the ircd server it will try to
start the server on it's own and will then try to
reconnect to the newly booted ircd server.
EXAMPLE
tolsun% ircd
Places ircd 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.
COPYRIGHT
(c) 1988,1989 University of Oulu, Computing Center,
Finland,
(c) 1988,1989 Department of Information Processing
Science, University of Oulu, Finland
(c) 1988,1989,1990,1991 Jarkko Oikarinen
For full COPYRIGHT see LICENSE file with IRC package.
FILES
/etc/utmp
"ircd.conf"
SEE ALSOirc(1)BUGS
None... ;-) if somebody finds one, please inform author
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.
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