Many people these days are wanting to start thier own IRC Servers, but don't really have info on how to start, run, and control one. This section is a brief overlook of starting your own IRC Server. It includes info about what type of Computer is needed, requirements, what software you need, and how to run/setup your IRC Server. As time goes by, this section will grow into a much more complexed look at starting your own IRC Server.

Step 1: Get your computer ready. Almost all of the free IRC servers (more commonly known as irc daemons, or ircd's) are for UNIX or Linux. If you don't have UNIX or Linux on your machine, and your computer is IBM-compatible, I'd suggest putting Slackware Linux (available at cdrom.com) on a partition of your hard drive. Although Linux provides the option of running on an MS-DOS partition, that is definitely not the best setup for running an IRC server. Even for small servers, you need a fast machine -- sodre.dal.net, which isn't exactly the biggest server, is a Pentium 166 -- and a high-speed connection to the Net. Most large servers need a T3, and a medium-sized server can do with an ISDN or 56k modem. If you're just going to have a couple friends over, however, most any computer will do.

Step 2: Download and uncompress the server software. You can get DALnet's server software from the servers section of their FTP site, which is often congested. The current version at the time of writing is 4.4.8. To uncompress the .tgz file, then open your shell and use gunzip by typing at the $ prompt:

gunzip (filename).tgz

and, if necessary, use tar:

tar -xf (filename).tar

and then remove the .tar file:

rm (filename).tar

Now, you should have another directory, with a name like ircd-4-4-8. Use ls to find the exact name of the file.

Step 3: Alter any needed code and compile. This is already outlined in the README file, but repetition can't hurt -- my advice is to not listen to me, just read the README's :). It'll be much safer that way. Anyway, there are some settings in Makefile and the .h files that need to be changed, and there's even some code that someone with fairly good knowledge of C could alter. To compile, type "make" (under some UNIXes, "Makefile" would be the command) and do what it says (i.e., if it says run config, run config).

Step 4: Edit the ircd.conf file. The ircd.conf file contains the main configuration for DALnet's ircd and its own documentation. If you plan to be on DALnet and have already applied for a server, you need to place C: lines in which will allow services to operate on your server. You will have to place in an O: line for yourself and Q: lines for prohibited nicks, as well as (I believe the letter is right) P: lines to make ircd listen on certain ports. If you want ircd to listen on a port below 1025, it will have to run under a priveleged user's id.

Step 5: Go! If you want to run your irc program on the same client on which the server is running, then ircII is what most people would call the best non-graphical client for Unix. Its main drawbacks are that you can't use mIRC scripts with it -- although ircII's own script language is quite powerful -- and that colors do not show up properly (if this ends up annoying you, you can simply write a script to filter them out).

IRCop commands

Another reference containing IRCop commands is at the DALnet FTP site, operator.txt. Read their k-lines section for a few hints on how/when your kline/autokill can be removed.