NAME

       ircd-ircu - 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-IRCU(8)