NAME
ircd - The Undernet Internet Relay Chat Daemon
SYNOPSIS
ircd [-t] [-d directory] [-f configfile] [-x debuglevel] [-h
hostname]
DESCRIPTION
ircd is the Undernet Internet Relay Chat daemon. 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
ircd for processing and relaying to other servers. irc(1) depends upon
there being an ircd server running somewhere for it to connect to and
thus allow the user to begin talking to other users.
There are many common clients including ircII, EPIC, and BitchX for
UNIX, mIRC and pIRCh for Windows, and IRCle and Homer for the
Macintosh.
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.
-t Instructs the server run in the foreground and to direct
debugging output to standard output.
-x# Defines the debug level for ircd. The higher the debug level,
the more messages get directed to debugging file (or standard
output if the -t option is used).
-w interface
This option is deprecated. Outgoing connections are bound to
the interface specified in the M: line, and incoming connections
are accepted only on interfaces specified in the P: lines.
-f filename
Specifies the ircd.conf file to be used for this server. 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 isn’t 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.
-h hostname
Allows the user to manually set the server name at startup. The
default name is hostname.domainname.
-p portname
This is deprecated in favor of specifying server ports in P:
lines.
CONFIGURATION
If you plan to connect your ircd server to an existing IRC network, you
will need to alter your local ircd configuration file (typically named
ircd.conf) so that it will accept and make connections to other IRC
servers. This file contains the hostnames, network addresses, and
passwords for connections to other IRC servers around the world.
Because the description of the ircd.conf file is beyond the scope of
this document, please refer to the INSTALL file in the ircd
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 ALSO
irc(1)
BUGS
See the file ’BUGS’ included in the distribution.
AUTHOR
The current authors of the undernet IRC daemon are coder-
com@undernet.org, the original author was Jarkko Oikarinen.
10 July 2000 IRCD(8)