ircd - ircd-hybrid: an advanced, lightweight Internet Relay Chat Daemon
Contents
Booting The Server
It is sufficient to type ircd at the command line to start ircd-hybrid into the background. If you wish
to run ircd in the foreground (perhaps for debugging purposes), use the -foreground parameter.
The ircd-hybrid package in your distribution may ship with an rc-script which handles this for you. In
Debian, it is /etc/init.d/ircd-hybrid.
Bugs
If you find a bug and you have a core file from ircd as a result, use a debugger like gdb(1) to process
the core file and send a backtrace to bugs@ircd-hybrid.org.
Copyright
(c) 1988,1989 University of Oulu, Computing Center, Finland,
(c) 1988,1989 Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Finland
(c) 1988-1991 Jarkko Oikarinen
(c) 1997-2025 ircd-hybrid development team
For full COPYRIGHT, see the COPYING file within the IRC source package.
Description
ircd 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) and other compatible programs with messages and
commands. All commands and user messages are passed directly to the ircd for processing and relaying to
other IRC servers.
This is ircd-hybrid, the highly modified (and hopefully improved) variant of the original ircd program by
Jarkko Oikarinen.
Example
# ircd -configfile /usr/share/ircd/ircd.conf -logfile /var/log/ircd.log
Starts ircd with the config file /usr/share/ircd/ircd.conf and with a log file /var/log/ircd.log. It
implicitly forks back to the console -- to prevent this, use -foreground.
Many of the above paths are hard-coded at compile time in the include/defaults.h file, so it may be
convenient to edit these to suit your needs before you compile the ircd.
Name
ircd - ircd-hybrid: an advanced, lightweight Internet Relay Chat Daemon
Options
-configfilefilename
Specifies the ircd.conf file to be used for this ircd. The option is used to override the default
ircd.conf given at compile time. By default, this is "etc/ircd.conf" within the prefix you
installed the ircd in.
-klinefilefilename-dlinefilefilename-xlinefilefilename-resvfilefilename
Specifies the database files to be used for D-lines (host bans), K-lines (hostmask bans), X-lines
(gecos bans) and RESVs (jupes) which by default are within the var/lib/ directory of your
installation prefix as dline.db, kline.db, xline.db and resv.db.
-logfilefilename
Specifies an alternative logfile to be used than that specified in include/defaults.h
-pidfilefilename
Specifies the file used by the ircd to store its process ID. The option is used to override the
default ircd.pid given at compile time.
-foreground
Makes ircd run in the foreground.
-version
Makes ircd print its version and exit.
-help Makes ircd print available options and exit.
Synopsis
ircd [-configfile filename] [-klinefile filename] [-dlinefile filename] [-xlinefile filename]
[-resvfile filename] [-logfile filename] [-pidfile filename] [-foreground] [-version] [-help]
Usage
If you plan to connect your IRC 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 IRC
servers. This file contains the hostnames, IP addresses and sometimes passwords for connections to other
ircds around the world.
The example reference.ircd.conf in the doc/ directory documents itself. Read it carefully or you may
expose a risk on your network simply by having your ircd running!
