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ngIRCd - Quick Start
This Quick Start document explains how to configure ngIRCd, the lightweight Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server, using some "real world" scenarios.
Introduction
The ngIRCd daemon can be run without any configuration file using built-in defaults. These defaults are probably sufficient for very simple single-node setups, but most probably need further tweaking for more "advanced" setups.
You can check the current settings by running ngircd --configtest. This
command not only shows the settings, it shows error, warning and hits, if it
detects any.
Therefore it is definitely best practice to always run this check after making any changes to the configuration file(s) and double-check that everything was parsed as expected!
Configuration File and Drop-in Directory
The ngircd --configtest command shows the name of the default configuration
file, too. For example /etc/ngircd/ngircd.conf.
In addition, ngIRCd supports further configuration file snippets in a "drop-in"
directory which is configured with the IncludeDir variable in the [Options]
section and has a built-in default value (like /etc/ngircd/ngircd.conf.d/).
All configuration files must match *.conf.
It is a good idea to not edit a default ngircd.conf file but to create one
ore more new files in this include directory, overriding the defaults as
needed. This way you don't get any clashes when updating ngIRCd to newer
releases.
Configuration File Syntax
The configuration consists of sections and parameters.
A section begins with the name of the section in square brackets (like
[Example]) and continues until the next section begins. Sections contain
parameters of the form name = value.
Section and parameter names are not case sensitive.
Please see the ngircd.conf(5) manual page for an in-depth description of the
configuration file, its syntax and all supported configuration options.
Simple Single-Instance Server
A good starting point is to configure a valid (and unique!) IRC server name (which is not related to a host name, it is purely a unique server ID that must contain at least one dot ".").
This looks like this:
[Global]
Name = my.irc.server
This results in the following warning in the logs when starting the daemon:
No administrative information configured but required by RFC! -- which works,
but is a bit ugly. So let's fix that by adding some admin info:
[Global]
Name = irc.example.net
AdminInfo1 = Example IRC Server
AdminInfo2 = Anywhere On Earth
AdminEMail = admin@irc.example.net
Please Note: The server Name looks like a DNS host name, but it is not: in
fact it is not related to your server's fully qualified domain name (FQDN) in
any way and can be an arbitrary string -- but it must contain at least
one dot (".") character!
Add a Local IRC Operator
Some IRC commands, like REHASH which reloads the server configuration on the
fly, require the user to authenticate to the daemon to become an IRC
Operator first.
So let's configure an Operator account in the configuration file (in addition to what we configured above):
[Operator]
# ID of the operator (may be different of the nickname)
Name = BigOp
# Password of the IRC operator
Password = secret
# Optional Mask from which /OPER will be accepted
;Mask = *!ident@somewhere.example.com
Now you can use the IRC command OPER BigOp secret to get IRC Operator
status on that server.
Please choose a sensible password, and keep in mind that the name is not related to the nickname used by the user at all!
We don't make use of the Mask setting in the example above (commented out
with the ; character), but it is a good idea to enable it whenever possible!
And you can have as many Operator blocks as you like, configuring multiple different IRC Operators.