SYNOPSIS

       ircd   [  -abcioqst ] [ -f configfile ] [ -x debuglevel ] [ -h hostname
              ] [ -T tunefile ] [ -p mode ]

       ircd   -v


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) 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.

       ircd  will  reread its configuration file whenever it received a hangup
       signal, SIGHUP.

       Sending an interrupt signal to ircd process will cause it to restart.



OPTIONS

       -a     Instructs the server to automatically die off if  it  loses  all
              it's clients.

       -b     If  the  ircd.tune file is corrupted, by default the server will
              not start.  This option will make the server start anyways, with
              the default values (ignoring the corrupted file).

       -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.

       -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.

       -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:

              1413)   internally   to   attempt   to   authenticate   incoming
              connections.  No other authentication mechanism will be used.

       -t     Instructs the server to  direct  debugging  output  to  standard
              output.

       -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.

       -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 used as well).

       -h hostname
              Allows  the user to manually set the server name at startup. The
              default name is hostname.domainname.

       -p mode
              Specify whether the server should  enable  built-in  protections
              against various type of user abuse that is commonly found on big
              public networks.  Possible modes are strict  (default),  on  and
              off.   The strict option enables the protections, and refuses to
              establish a link to a server not running with this option.  This
              is useful to force all servers on an IRC network to enable them.

       -T tunefile
              Specifies the ircd.tune file to be used for this ircdaemon.  The
              option  is  used  to  override  the  default  ircd.tune given at
              compile time.

       -v     This option prevents the server from starting,  and  dumps  some
              information about the version instead.


       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 "ircd.conf" file is
              beyond  the  scope  of  this  document, please refer to the file
              INSTALL in the 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
              tolsun% ircd -v
              ircd 2.9.3 AaCDEfFHiIkMsu_V1
                      zlib not used
                      Tue Apr 1 1997 at 20:17:50 EDT #1

       This  indicates  that this binary is the version 2.9.3 of the software.
       AaCDEfFHiIkMsu_V1 are the compile time options which were  used.   This
       binary  does  not  support compression of server-server links (does not
       use zlib) and was compiled on April the 1st.


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

       iauth(8) irc(1) ircdwatch(8)


BUGS

       None...   ;-)  if  somebody  finds  one,  please  send  mail  to  ircd-
       bugs@irc.org


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.



                         $Date: 1999/04/08 22:12:19 $                  IRCD(8)

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