ircservices-5.1.24/docs/2.html

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<h1 align=center>IRC Services Manual</h1>

<h2 align=center>2. Installing and using Services</h2>

<br>2-1. <a href="#1">System and network requirements</a>
<br>2-2. <a href="#2">Installing Services from a binary distribution</a>
<br>2-3. <a href="#3">Installing Services from source code</a>
<br>2-4. <a href="#4">Configuring Services</a>
<br>2-5. <a href="#5">Configuring your IRC server</a>
<br>2-6. <a href="#6">Starting, stopping and controlling Services</a>

<p align=right><font size=-1><a href="1.html">Previous section: About IRC Services</a> |
<a href="index.html">Table of Contents</a> |
<a href="3.html">Next section: Overview of Services features</a></font>

<p><hr>

<a name=1></a>
<h3>2-1. System and network requirements</h3>

<p>In order to run Services, you will need the following:</p>

<p><ul>
<li><b>A POSIX-compliant operating system.</b>  Services is designed
for the Linux operating system, but should function on any POSIX-compliant
(or nearly so) operating system; it is known to work on FreeBSD, OpenBSD,
and Solaris, and has been reported to work on MacOS X and AmigaOS as well.
(On AmigaOS, you will need to increase the program stack size using the
CLI command <tt>STACK</tt>; a stack size of 512k, 524288 bytes, should be
sufficient.  Services is not supported on Windows, but some users have
reported success in running it; see <a href="faq.html#A3">FAQ A.3</a>.)

<p><li><b>A supported IRC server</b> (IRCD).  Services supports several
different types of IRC servers, as listed in Table 2-1 below.  Your IRC
network must be using one of these servers in order to use Services (the
"Services module" column indicates which protocol module is used with that
server; see <a href="#4">section 2-4</a> for details).
</ul>

<p>Additionally, if you plan to compile Services from the source code, you
will also need the following (note that these are not necessary if you
install from a binary package):</p>

<p><ul>
<li><b><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html">GCC</a>
<font size=-1>[<tt>www.gnu.org</tt>]</font> (the GNU C compiler),</b>
version 3.2 or later.  Services uses some extensions to the C language
provided by GCC, and is unlikely to compile on other compilers; Services
also takes advantage of recent additions to the C standard (often referred
to as "C99") which are not supported by older versions of GCC.

<p><i>Notice: (1)</i> Services will not work with the
<a href="http://www.trl.ibm.com/projects/security/ssp/">SSP (stack-smashing
protector)</a> <font size=-1>[<tt>www.trl.ibm.com</tt>]</font> patch to GCC,
due to a bug in SSP triggered by Services that causes crashes.  The
<tt>configure</tt> script (see below) will automatically detect the
presence of this patch and deactivate the stack-protection feature, or
refuse to compile if it cannot be deactivated.

<p><i>(2)</i> Versions of GCC before 3.4 have bugs which cause Services to
crash.  Services has workarounds for the Intel x86, SPARC, and PowerPC
platforms, but you will need to use GCC 3.4 or later on other systems.  See
<a href="faq.html#B1.5">FAQ B.1.5</a> for details.

<p><li><b><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/make/make.html">GNU
make</a> [<font size=-1><tt>www.gnu.org</tt></font>], version 3.79 or
later.</b>  Services uses complex Makefiles which may or may not work with
other "make" programs, and are known not to work with earlier versions of
GNU make.  Note that GNU make may be installed on your system as either
<tt>make</tt> or <tt>gmake</tt>; if you're not sure, type <tt>make -v</tt>
or <tt>gmake -v</tt> in your shell, and if you get output that looks like
"<tt>GNU Make version 3.79.1, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath</tt>",
then it's installed.

<p><li><b>The Bourne shell</b> or a compatible shell.  This is installed on
most Unix-like systems as <tt>/bin/sh</tt>.  If by any chance the
<tt>configure</tt> script fails (see <a href="#3">section 2-3</a>), try
installing <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html">Bash</a>
<font size=-1>[<tt>www.gnu.org</tt>]</font> and using it to run the
<tt>configure</tt> script.

<p><li><b><a href="http://www.perl.com/">Perl</a>
<font size=-1>[<tt>www.perl.com</tt>]</font></b> may also be needed if you
modify certain files (the language data files in particular).
</ul>

<div align=center>
<a name=table1></a>
<b>Table 2-1.</b>  Supported IRC server types<br><br>
<table border=1>
<tr><th>IRC server (IRCD) name<th>Services module
<tr><td><a href="http://bahamut.dal.net/">Bahamut</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>bahamut.dal.net</tt>]</font> 1.8.0 and later
        <font color=red>(*)</font>
    <td align=center><tt>bahamut</tt>
<tr><td>Chunky Monkey IRCD 1.0 and later
    <td align=center><tt>monkey</tt>
<tr><td>DALnet (ircd.dal) 4.4.13 and earlier
    <td align=center><tt>dalnet</tt>
<tr><td>DALnet (ircd.dal) 4.4.15 and latre
    <td align=center><tt>dreamforge</tt>
<tr><td>Dreamforge (ircd.dal 4.6.x)
    <td align=center><tt>dreamforge</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.inspircd.org/">InspIRCd</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>www.inspircd.org</tt>]</font> 1.1 and later
    <td align=center><tt>inspircd</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://ircd-hybrid.com/">IRCD-Hybrid</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>ircd-hybrid.com</tt>]</font> 7.0 and later
        <font color=red>(**)</font>
    <td align=center><tt>hybrid</tt>
<tr><td>ircd-2.8.x
    <td align=center><tt>rfc1459</tt>
<tr><td>ircd-2.8.x+TS8
    <td align=center><tt>ts8</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://coder-com.undernet.org/">ircu (Undernet)</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>coder-com.undernet.org</tt>]</font> 2.9.x
    <td align=center><tt>undernet-p9</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.ptlink.net/Coders/">PTlink IRCd</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>www.ptlink.net</tt>]</font> 6.10.0 and later
    <td align=center><tt>ptlink</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.ircd-ratbox.org/">ircd-ratbox</a>
        <font size=-2>[<tt>www.ircd-ratbox.org</tt>]</font>2.1.x and later
        <font color=red>(***)</font>
    <td align=center><tt>ratbox</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.solid-ircd.com/">solid-ircd</a>
        <font size=-2>[<tt>www.solid-ircd.com</tt>]</font>, all versions
        <font color=red>(*)</font>
    <td align=center><tt>ratbox</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://tr-ircd.sourceforge.net/">tr-ircd</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>tr-ircd.sourceforge.net</tt>]</font> 5.7 and
        later<br>
    <td align=center><tt>trircd</tt>
<tr><td><i>UltimateIRCD 2.8.1</i>
    <td align=center><tt>dreamforge</tt>
<tr><td><i>UltimateIRCD 3.0.0</i>
    <td align=center><tt>bahamut</tt>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.unrealircd.com/">UnrealIRCd</a>
        <font size=-1>[<tt>www.unrealircd.com</tt>]</font> 3.1.1 and later
    <td align=center><tt>unreal</tt>
</table>
(servers listed in <i>italics</i> are listed based on user reports, but are <b>not supported</b>)
</div>

<p><font color=red>(*)</font> When using Bahamut or solid-ircd, <b>do
not</b> configure your server as a "services hub" ("<tt>servtype
serviceshub</tt>" in the <tt>ircd.conf</tt> file); this setting causes
Bahamut and solid-ircd to not send certain information needed by Services
to work correctly.  If Services detects that your server is configured as a
services hub, it will log a message to that effect and abort.

<p><font color=red>(**)</font> To use Hybrid with Services, you must load
the <tt>m_tburst.so</tt> module in your server's configuration.  In recent
versions of Hybrid (at least 7.2.3), this module is compiled automatically;
in earlier versions, you may need to locate and compile it yourself.  If
the module is not loaded, Services will refuse to connect to the server.

<p><font color=red>(***)</font> When using ircd-ratbox, make sure to
include the "<tt>topicburst</tt>" server flag in the <tt>connect</tt> block
for Services on the remote server; if topic burst support is not enabled,
Services will refuse to connect to the server.  Also, forced nickname
changing will be unavailable unless all servers are compiled with the
"<tt>--enable-services</tt>" option.

<p align=right><font size="-1"><a href="#top">Back to top</a></font>

<p><hr>

<a name=2></a>
<h3>2-2. Installing Services from a binary distribution</h3>

<p>Binary distributions of Services are provided for Linux systems in the
popular RPM and .deb formats.  See the <a href="1.html#3">Services home
page</a> to download the latest binary distribution, then install or
upgrade it the same way you would for any other package.

<p>Note that executable files in the binary distributions are compiled
statically; this means that they will work on any modern system regardless
of version, at the cost of requiring slightly more disk space and runtime
memory, and requiring an upgrade (or recompile from source) if a bug is
found in any of the system libraries used by Services.

<p align=right><font size="-1"><a href="#top">Back to top</a></font>

<p><hr>

<a name=3></a>
<h3>2-3. Installing Services from the source code</h3>

<p>If no binary distribution is available for your platform or you prefer to
compile Services yourself, you will need to install from the source code.
Once you have <a href="1.html#3">downloaded the source</a>, you need to:

<p><ol>
   <li><b>Run the <tt>configure</tt> script.</b>  This script checks what
type of system you are running and determines what adjustments to the base
source code are necessary in order to compile.  Certain compile-time
settings can be set by passing command-line options to the script; the most
common ones are:
<ul><li><tt>-ignore-cache</tt> (ignore the results of any previous
        configuration; use this if your system configuration has changed)
    <li><tt>-prefix <i>pathname</i></tt> (set default installation location)
    <li><tt>-use-static-modules</tt> (compile using statically-linked
        modules, even if dynamic linking is available)
    <li><tt>-[no-]sorted-lists</tt> (select between sorted nickname/channel
        lists and unsorted ones; <tt>-sorted-lists</tt> is the default, but
        on large networks, keeping the lists sorted can slow down Services
        significantly)
</ul>
See Table 2-2 below for a full list of options, which can also be obtained
with <tt>./configure -help</tt>.  (If you prefer the GNU autoconf
"<tt>--<i>option</i>[=<i>value</i>]</tt>" format, <tt>configure</tt> will
accept that as well, <i>e.g.</i> "<tt>--prefix=/usr</tt>".)  Note that
<tt>configure</tt> will ignore environment variables like <tt>CC</tt> and
<tt>CFLAGS</tt>; use the appropriate command-line options instead if you
need to set these yourself.

<p><b>Note on using alternate C compilers:</b> If you specify a particular
C compiler using the <tt>-cc</tt> option, or if GCC is not installed on
your system, you will also need to specify any necessary options using the
<tt>-cflags</tt> option.  In particular, Services uses a feature of C known
as "pointer aliasing", which is technically forbidden by the C standard but
necessary for clean programming.  Some compilers attempt to optimize based
on the assumption that pointer aliasing is not used; if your compiler does
this, you will need to tell it not to.

<a name="table2-2"></a>
<div align=center>
<b>Table 2-2.</b>  Options to the <tt>configure</tt> script<br><br>
<table border=1>
<tr><th>Option<th>Description

<tr><th colspan=2>Controlling the <tt>configure</tt> script
<tr><td><tt>-help</tt>
    <td>Displays a list of command-line options and their meanings, then
        exits.
<tr><td><tt>-ignore-cache</tt>
    <td>Prevents the cache file from being read.  (The cache file,
        <tt>config.cache</tt>, is created the first time you run the
        <tt>configure</tt> script, and saves the results of configuration
        to speed up the script the next time you run it.)

<tr><th colspan=2>Controlling compilation
<tr><td><tt>-cc <i>PROGRAM</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies the C compiler to use, such as <tt>cc</tt> or <tt>gcc</tt>.
        If this option is given, the ordinary check for a compiler is
        skipped, and the given compiler is used.  This option also causes
        the cached values of <tt>CFLAGS</tt> (compiler options) and
        <tt>LFLAGS</tt> (linker options) to be ignored; these options will
        revert to the defaults, unless the <tt>-cflags</tt> or
        <tt>-lflags</tt> options are also given.
<tr><td><tt>-cflags <i>CFLAGS</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies command-line options to pass to the compiler when
        compiling source files.  The default depends on the compiler, but
        typically includes standard optimization flags, such as <tt>-O2</tt>
        for GCC.
<tr><td><tt>-lflags <i>LFLAGS</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies command-line options to pass to the compiler when linking
        executable files.  The default is no flags.
<tr><td><tt>-libs <i>LIBS</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies any extra libraries to be used when linking the main
        Services executable, using the linker library options <tt>-L</tt>
        and <tt>-l</tt>.  Normally there is no need to use this option.
<tr><td><tt>-os2</tt>
    <td>Specifies that the system on which Services is being compiled is
        an OS/2 system.  On such systems, Services may not compile
        correctly without this switch.

<tr><th colspan=2>Controlling installation
<tr><td><tt>-program <i>NAME</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies the name to be used for the executable file (default:
        <tt>ircservices</tt>).  The configuration file
        <tt>ircservices.conf</tt> and the <tt>ircservices-chk</tt> script (see
        <a href="#6-ircservices-chk">section 2-6</a>) will also be renamed
        to <tt><i>NAME</i>.conf</tt> and <tt><i>NAME</i>-chk</tt>; the
        installation directories selected by the <tt>-prefix</tt> option
        (see below) will be changed to match; and the example configuration
        files will use the given name in the default log, PID, and MOTD
        files.
<tr><td><tt>-bindest <i>DIR</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies the directory to be used for program file installation.
        The main <tt>ircservices</tt> executable file and the
        <tt>ircservices-chk</tt> script will be installed in this directory.
<tr><td><tt>-datdest <i>DIR</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies the directory to be used for data file installation.  All
        Services files and subdirectories except the two program files
        listed above will be installed in this directory.
<tr><td><tt>-prefix <i>DIR</i></tt>
    <td>Specifies the directory to be used for installation as a GNU-style
        installation prefix.  Program files will be installed in
        <tt><i>DIR</i>/sbin</tt>, and data files will be installed in
        <tt><i>DIR</i>/lib/ircservices</tt> (or
        <tt><i>DIR</i>/lib/<i>NAME</i></tt>, where <tt><i>NAME</i></tt> is
        the executable name given to the <tt>-program</tt> option).  If
        this option is given, the <tt>-bindest</tt> and <tt>-datdest</tt>
        options are ignored.

<tr><th colspan=2>Controlling Services features (use <tt>-no-<i>option</i></tt>
        to disable)
<tr><td><tt>-use-local-funcs</tt>
    <td>Forces the use of compatibility functions over system library
        functions.  Normally, Services will use all system library
        functions available, except when a bug is detected in one of the
        functions; if this option is given, Services will instead make use
        of its own versions of these functions.  This can be useful when
        debugging Services, or if you suspect a bug in the system libraries.
<tr><td><tt>-use-static-modules</tt>
    <td>Forces modules to be compiled statically, even if dynamic modules
        could be used.  Using static modules results in a larger executable
        file and more memory usage than using dynamic modules, but may be
        marginally faster.  On some systems, dynamic modules are not
        supported, and modules will be compiled statically even if
        <tt>-no-use-static-modules</tt> is given.
<tr><td><tt>-sorted-lists</tt>
    <td>Causes Services to keep the nickname and channel lists sorted; this
        can cause a performance penalty on large networks.  <b>Enabled by
        default</b> (use <tt>-no-sorted-lists</tt> to disable).
<tr><td><tt>-clean-compile</tt>
    <td>Attempts to compile Services with no compiler warnings; this may
        cause a slight performance penalty.  <b>Enabled by default</b> (use
        <tt>-no-clean-compile</tt> to disable).
<tr><td><tt>-memchecks</tt>
    <td>Performs extra checks on memory allocation.  This option is
        intended for debugging only, and causes a significant performance
        penalty.
<tr><td><tt>-showallocs</tt>
    <td>Causes all memory allocation activity to be logged to the Services
        logfile.  This option is intended for debugging only, and will
        generate extremely large log files.  This option is ignored unless
        <tt>-memchecks</tt> is enabled.
<tr><td><tt>-dumpcore</tt>
    <td>Causes Services to attempt to write a core file if it crashes.
        This option can be useful in obtaining a backtrace to aid
        debugging; however, it prevents Services from shutting down
        cleanly, so you will not see a "shutting down" notice from Services
        when it detects a crash.

<tr><th colspan=2>Other options
<tr><td><tt>-check</tt>
    <td>Checks whether this script has already been run and whether the
        cache is up-to-date.  Exits with status 0 if up-to-date, 1 if not.
        This option is used by the Makefile to ensure that the
        <tt>configure</tt> script is run before compilation.

</table>
</div>

<p>When the script starts up, it will first determine the directories in
which Services should be installed.  These can be specified either through
the <tt>-bindest</tt>/<tt>-datdest</tt> options or the <tt>-prefix</tt>
option; if none of these are present, the script will use the same
directories as when you last ran the script (if you have not run the script
before or you use the <tt>-ignore-cache</tt> option, the defaults are
<tt>/usr/local/sbin</tt> for the executable program and
<tt>/usr/local/lib/ircservices</tt> for the data files).

<p>After setting the installation directories, <tt>configure</tt> will
check your system and print out status messages as it proceeds.  At the
end, if no errors occur, it will print out a message telling you to
proceed with compilation.

<p><li><b>Edit <tt>defs.h</tt> and the <tt>Makefile</tt>, if necessary</b>.
There are a few settings at the top of these files which can be changed as
needed.  Usually, however, there is no need to change them, and you can
proceed directly to compilation.

<p>One case in which you may want to modify a setting is if you run a
regional network which uses a language other than English as its primary
language; in this case, you can change the <tt>DEF_LANGUAGE</tt> setting in
<tt>defs.h</tt> to your local langauge.

<p><li><b>Compile the program.</b>  Run the command <tt>make</tt> (or
<tt>gmake</tt>, depending on your system) from the top-level directory.
Compilation time will vary depending on your system; on the author's system
(Athlon64X2 4400+, 2GB RAM), compiling the entire program takes
approximately one minute.  If you have a multiple-processor system, you can
use <tt>make -j<i>N</i></tt> (or <tt>gmake -j<i>N</i></tt>) to compile in
parallel using <tt><i>N</i></tt> threads, which will significantly reduce
compilation time.  Parallel compilation is also useful if your system has
slow I/O (such as disk access), since it lets one compilation run while
another is waiting for a disk access to complete.

<p><li><b>Install the program and data files.</b>  Run the command <tt>make
install</tt> (or <tt>gmake install</tt>) and the program and data files
will be copied to their destinations.  The program file is installed as
<tt>ircservices</tt> in the program installation directory; the data
installation directory will contain sample configuration files (see
<a href="#4">section 2-4</a>), language data files, the
<a href="5.html#3"><tt>convert-db</tt></a> utility, and (if you compiled
modules with dynamic linking, which is the default on systems which support
it) module files.

<p>Note that if you are compiling the program as the same user you will
install as, you can just use the single command <tt>make install</tt> to
compile and install in one step.

<p>If you need to install Services to a separate subtree, for example when
setting up Services in a chroot'd environment, set the
<tt>INSTALL_PREFIX</tt> variable on the <tt>make</tt> command line.  For
example, if the installation prefix is set as <tt>/usr/local</tt>, then:
<br><tt>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;make install INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/chroot/</tt>
<br>will install files into <tt>/usr/local/chroot/usr/local/bin</tt> and
<tt>/usr/local/chroot/usr/local/lib/ircservices</tt>.  (The path given <i>must</i> include a trailing slash.)

</ol>

<p align=right><font size="-1"><a href="#top">Back to top</a></font>

<p><hr>

<a name=4></a>
<h3>2-4. Configuring Services</h3>

<p>Once Services has been installed, it must be configured for your
network.  Services uses two text files to control its behavior:
<tt>ircservices.conf</tt> and <tt>modules.conf</tt>.  (If Services is
configured with a different program name, the first file's name will
change to <tt><i>program-name</i>.conf</tt> as well; however, in this
manual, the default of <tt>ircservices.conf</tt> is assumed.)
<tt>ircservices.conf</tt> contains settings that affect Services as a
whole, such as the remote server to connect to; <tt>modules.conf</tt>
contains settings that apply to individual modules, such as NickServ and
ChanServ.  These files are stored in the Services data directory (the
directory you gave when running the <tt>configure</tt> script; this is
<tt>/var/opt/ircservices</tt> for the binary distributions).

<p>When Services is installed, two sample files,
<tt>example-ircservices.conf</tt> and <tt>example-modules.conf</tt>, are
installed in the data directory.  If you are installing Services for the
first time, you should start out by copying or renaming these files to
<tt>ircservices.conf</tt> and <tt>modules.conf</tt> respectively.  Each file
contains detailed information about all possible settings, which can also
be found in <a href=a.html>Appendix A</a>.  When setting up Services for
the first time, you should at least check these settings:

<div align=center>
<b>Table 2-3.</b>  Commonly used configuration directives<br><br>
<table border=1>
<tr><th>File<th>Setting and syntax<th>Description
<tr><td><tt>ircservices.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>RemoteServer <i>host</i>[:<i>port</i>] <i>password</i></tt>
    <td>Sets the server to which Services connects and the password used to
        connect.
<tr><td><tt>ircservices.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>ServerName <i>name</i></tt>
    <td>Sets the server name Services will use on the IRC network.
<tr><td><tt>ircservices.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>ServerDesc <i>description</i></tt>
    <td>Sets the server description provided by Services.
<tr><td><tt>ircservices.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>ServiceUser <i>user</i>@<i>host</i></tt>
    <td>Sets the username and hostname used by Services clients.  You may
        want to set this to an E-mail address at which users can ask
        questions about Services or your IRC network.
<tr><td><tt>ircservices.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>LoadModule <i>module-name</i></tt>
    <td>Loads the specified module.  The example configuration file lists
        all of the possible modules; select which ones you want to load or
        not load.  In particular, make sure you select the correct protocol
        module and enter its name in the line which reads
        "<tt>LoadModule protocol/(insert protocol name here)</tt>"
        or Services will not be able to start.
<tr><td height=3>
<tr><td><tt>modules.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>Module protocol/<i>protocol-name</i></tt>
    <td>Change this line (the first <tt>Module</tt> line in the file) so it
        contains the same protocol module you specified in
        <tt>ircservices.conf</tt>.
<tr><td><tt>modules.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>FromAddress <i>user</i>@<i>host</i></tt>
    <td><tt>mail/main</tt> module:  Sets the E-mail address used as the
        sender on outgoing mail.  Set this to an address at which users can
        contact you with questions about Services.
<tr><td><tt>modules.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>FromName "<i>name</i>"</tt>
    <td><tt>mail/main</tt> module:  Set this to the "name" you want to use
        as the sender on outgoing mail.  If you don't want a name (just the
        E-mail address), leave this setting commented out.
<tr><td><tt>modules.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>ServicesRoot <i>nick</i></tt>
    <td><tt>operserv/main</tt> module:  Set this to the nickname which
        should be granted Services root (super-user) privileges.
<tr><td><tt>modules.conf</tt>
    <td><tt>ListenTo <i>address</i>:<i>port</i></tt>
    <td><tt>httpd/main</tt> module:  Sets the ports to which the Services
        HTTP server will listen.  See <a href="3.html#6">section 3-6</a>
        for details.
</table>
</div>

<p align=right><font size="-1"><a href="#top">Back to top</a></font>

<p><hr>

<a name=5></a>
<h3>2-5. Configuring your IRC server</h3>

<p>The IRC server to which Services will connect must be configured to
allow Services to connect as a server.  For traditional irc2-based servers,
this involves adding appropriate <tt>C:</tt> and <tt>N:</tt> lines to the
server's configuration file; consult your IRC server program's
documentation for details.

<p>Some IRC server programs, including traditional irc2-based ones, do not
allow servers to introduce other servers, <i>i.e.</i> act as hubs, without
a special configuration setting (an <tt>H:</tt> line in irc2-based
servers).  If this setting is missing from any server in your network,
Services may be disconnected when you use the
<a href="4.html#oper.jupe"><tt>JUPE</tt></a> command.

<p>In addition, some server programs support a "U-line" or similar concept,
allowing servers named in a <tt>U:</tt> line or other configuration
directive to override normal privilege checks (and consequently preventing
other servers from overriding those checks).  If your server program has
such an option, ensure that it is set on all servers in your network, or
you may encounter problems such as ChanServ being unable to change channel
modes.

<p>Also see the notes in <a href="#table1">table 2-1</a> above for special
considerations when configuring particular types of IRC servers.

<p><hr>

<a name=6></a>
<h3>2-6. Starting, stopping and controlling Services</h3>

<p>Services can be started by simply running the <tt>ircservices</tt>
program from a shell prompt.  Upon starting, Services will parse its
command-line arguments and the <tt>ircservices.conf</tt> file, then open
the log file; if there are no errors, it will then print a short message to
the terminal, put itself in the background and return control to the shell.
If an error does occur, Services will print an error message and exit.

<p>Several command-line options can be used to modify Services' behavior or
override settings in the <tt>ircservices.conf</tt> configuration file; these
are summarized in table 2-4 below.  The command-line option <tt>-help</tt>
can be used to get a list of all available options.

<div align=center>
<b>Table 2-4.</b>  <tt>ircservices</tt> command-line options<br><br>
<table border=1>
<tr><th>Option<th>Meaning
<tr><td><tt>-help</tt>
    <td>Prints a list of available options.
<tr><td><tt>-dir=<i>pathname</i></tt>
    <td>Uses <tt><i>pathname</i></tt> as the data directory instead of the
        compiled-in default.
<tr><td><tt>-remote=<i>host</i>[:<i>port</i>]</tt>
    <td>Connects to the specified server, overriding the
        <tt>RemoteServer</tt> setting in <tt>ircservices.conf</tt>.
<tr><td><tt>-log=<i>filename</i></tt>
    <td>Writes logging information to <tt><i>filename</i></tt>, overriding
        the <tt>LogFilename</tt> setting in <tt>ircservices.conf</tt>.
<tr><td><tt>-debug</tt>
    <td>Starts Services in debug mode; using this option multiple times
        will produce more debugging output.
<tr><td><tt>-readonly</tt>
    <td>Starts Services in read-only mode; database and log files will not
        be written to, and online data modification will be limited to
        Services administrators.
<tr><td><tt>-nofork</tt>
    <td>Prevents Services from forking (going into the background) after
        initialization, and causes log messages to be written to the
        terminal as well as the log file.
<tr><td><tt>-noexpire</tt>
    <td>Disables expiration of database entries (nicknames, channels,
        autokills, and so on).
<tr><td><tt>-noakill</tt>
    <td>Disables autokill checking.  (However, the autokill list itself can
        still be modified.)
<tr><td><tt>-forceload</tt>
    <td>When using the <tt>database/version4</tt> module, attempts to load
        as much data from corrupted databases as possible, rather than
        aborting when an error is found.
<tr><td><tt>-encrypt-all</tt>
    <td>Re-encrypts all passwords on startup using the encryption type
        selected in <tt>ircservices.conf</tt>.  (Passwords encrypted with
        one type generally cannot be re-encrypted with a different type, so
        this is generally useful only to ensure that no passwords are left
        unencrypted after activating encryption.)
<tr><td><tt>-import=<i>filename</i></tt>
    <td>Imports data into Services' databases (see <a href="5.html#2">section
        5-2</a>).
</table>
</div>

<p>Once in the background, Services will load language files and modules,
then try to connect to the remote server specified in <tt>ircservices.conf</tt>
(or on the command line).  If any errors occur during these steps, an error
message will be printed to the log file and Services will terminate.  If
Services appears to start up correctly but does not connect to your IRC
network, check the log file for any errors that may have occurred.

<p>Once Services successfully connects to your IRC network, it will
continue running until either:
<ul><li>the remote server closes the connection (for example, because of a
        <tt>/SQUIT</tt> command);
    <li>an OperServ <a href="4.html#oper.restart"><tt>RESTART</tt></a>,
        <a href="4.html#oper.shutdown"><tt>SHUTDOWN</tt></a>, or
        <a href="4.html#oper.quit"><tt>QUIT</tt></a> command is received; or
    <li>a termination signal (<tt>SIGINT</tt> [<tt>^C</tt>],
        <tt>SIGQUIT</tt>, <tt>SIGTERM</tt>, or <tt>SIGKILL</tt>, as well as
        fatal program errors) is received.
</ul>
In any of these cases (except in the case of a <tt>SIGKILL</tt> signal,
which Services cannot detect), an appropriate message will be written to
the log file describing why Services terminated.

<p>The debug output level and read-only setting can be modified while
Services is running using the OperServ
<a href="4.html#oper.set"><tt>SET</tt></a> command as needed, and other
OperServ commands can be used to monitor the status of Services or (as
mentioned above) shut down or restart Services.

<p>While it is running, Services will periodically save modified data
(newly registered nicknames and channels, modified settings, and so on) to
disk.  This is done in such a way that even if Services crashes while
writing the data, the previous contents of the databases will remain intact.
However, should the database files become corrupt (whether because of a bug
in Services or as the result of hardware failure or tampering), the
<tt>-forceload</tt> command-line option can be used to recover as much data
as possible from the corrupted data file.  It is also <b>strongly
recommended</b> that you make regular backups of your data files, to reduce
potential damage from such problems.

<p>If the contents of the <tt>ircservices.conf</tt> or <tt>modules.conf</tt>
configuration files are changed, Services can be instructed to reread the
files with either the OperServ
<a href="4.html#oper.rehash"><tt>REHASH</tt></a> command or the
<tt>SIGHUP</tt> signal.  If no errors are found in the configuration files,
Services' settings will be updated with the new configuration file
contents.  Modules can also be loaded and unloaded this way without
restarting Services by adding or removing <tt>LoadModule</tt> directives in
<tt>ircservices.conf</tt>; however, modules will not be able to be unloaded
if other loaded modules depend on them.  (For example, since the ChanServ
module depends on NickServ being available, you cannot remove the NickServ
module while leaving the ChanServ module loaded.  You can, however, unload
both of them at once.)

<a name="6-ircservices-chk"></a>
<p>If the system Services runs on supports periodic execution of programs,
such as via the <tt>cron</tt> utility, you can use the supplied script
<tt>ircservices-chk</tt>, installed in the same directory as the
<tt>ircservices</tt> executable, to ensure that Services comes back up
quickly if it should crash or otherwise terminate unexpectedly.  (Of
course, you will need to disable this check if you ever shut down Services
intentionally!)  On a typical Unix system, the following line, when added
using the <tt>crontab</tt> utility, will cause the <tt>ircservices-chk</tt>
script to be run once every five minutes (here,
<tt>/path/to/ircservices-chk</tt> represents the full path to the
<tt>ircservices-chk</tt> script):

<div align=center>
<blockquote>
<tt>0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;/path/to/ircservices-chk</tt>
</blockquote>
</div>

<p>If you need to pass options to the <tt>ircservices</tt> executable,
simply add them after <tt>ircservices-chk</tt> in the line above.  You can
also prevent the script from generating output (which would be sent to you
by mail) by adding the <tt>-q</tt> option after <tt>ircservices-chk</tt>
and before any other options.

<p align=right><font size="-1"><a href="#top">Back to top</a></font>

<p><hr>

<p align=right><font size=-1><a href="1.html">Previous section: About IRC Services</a> |
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