NAME

       ircd - 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(8)