NAME

       ngIRCd - the "next generation" IRC daemon

SYNOPSIS

       ngircd [ Options ]

DESCRIPTION

       ngIRCd  is  a  free,  portable  and lightweight Internet Relay Chat server for small or private networks,
       developed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).  It is easy to configure, can cope with dynamic  IP
       addresses, and supports IPv6, SSL-protected connections as well as PAM for authentication.  It is written
       from scratch and not based on the original IRCd.

       The name ngIRCd means next generation IRC daemon, which is a little bit exaggerated: lightweight Internet
       Relay Chat server most probably would have been a better name :-)

       Currently  supported  platforms  include  AIX,  A/UX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Hurd, IRIX, Linux, Mac OS X, Minix,
       NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and Windows with Cygwin.  As ngIRCd relies  on  UNIX  standards  and  uses  GNU
       automake and GNU autoconf there are good chances that it also supports other UNIX-based operating systems
       as well.

       By default ngIRCd logs diagnostic and informational  messages  using  the  syslog  mechanism,  or  writes
       directly to the console when running in the foreground (see below).

OPTIONS

       The default behavior of ngircd is to read its standard configuration file (see below), to detach from the
       controlling terminal and to wait for clients.

       You can use these options to modify this default:

       -f file, --config file
              Use file as configuration file.

       -n, --nodaemon
              Don't fork a child and don't detach from controlling terminal.  All log messages go to the console
              and you can use CTRL-C to terminate the server.

       -p, --passive
              Disable  automatic  connections  to other servers. You can use the IRC command CONNECT later on as
              IRC Operator to link this ngIRCd to other servers.

       -t, --configtest
              Read, validate and display the configuration; then exit.

       -V, --version
              Output version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display a brief help text and exit.

FILES

       /etc/ngircd/ngircd.conf
              The system wide default configuration file.
       /etc/ngircd/ngircd.motd
              Default "message of the day" (MOTD).

SIGNALS

       The daemon understands the following signals:

       TERM   Shut down all connections and terminate the daemon.

       HUP    Shut down all listening sockets, re-read the configuration file and re-initialize the daemon.

HINTS

       It's wise to use "ngircd --configtest" to validate the configuration file after changing it.

DEBUGGING

       When ngIRCd is compiled  with  debug  code,  that  is,  its  source  code  has  been  ./configure'd  with
       "--enable-debug"  and/or "--enable-sniffer" (witch enables debug mode automatically as well), you can use
       two more command line options and two more signals to debug  problems  with  the  daemon  itself  or  IRC
       clients:

       Options:

       -d, --debug
              Enable debug mode and log extra messages.

       -s, --sniffer
              Enable  IRC protocol sniffer, which logs all sent and received IRC commands to the console/syslog.
              This option requires that ngIRCd has been ./configure'd with "--enable-sniffer" and enables  debug
              mode automatically, too.

       Signals:

       USR1   Toggle debug mode on and off during runtime.

       USR2   Dump  internal  server  state to the console/syslog when debug mode is on (use command line option
              --debug or signal USR1).

AUTHORS

       Alexander Barton, <alex@barton.de>
       Florian Westphal, <fw@strlen.de>

       Homepage: http://ngircd.barton.de/

SEE ALSO

       ngircd.conf(5), ircd(8)