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Hack 96 Install Services

You've used the so-called
"Services" on various IRC networks, but have you ever wondered how to
set them up for your own IRC server?

A Services
package provides the NickServ, ChanServ, MemoServ, and OperServ
features found on many IRC networks. This hack assumes that you
already have an ircd set up, such as that shown in the previous hack.
Just as there are many different types of ircds, there are lots of
different Services packages, although they vary much more than ircds.
The NickServ and ChanServ formats are probably the most common, but
there are also bots such as X on Undernet and Q on QuakeNet that
provide similar functionality. See [Hack #9] for more details on using
ChanServ.

IRC Services was one of the first open source ChanServ packages. The
first ChanServ was actually used on DALnet, but their version
hasn't been released. Ever since Version 5 was
released, IRC Services has been modular, so you can choose what
functionality you wantit even includes the option of a web
server to access data.

Although Services are seen as several clients by users (ChanServ,
NickServ, etc.), the Services package itself links to the network as
another server. This allows it to see all the clients connected to
IRC, see the state of the channels, and change modes that normal
clients (and usually operators) are unable to change.

IRC
Services
is really supported only under Unix-like systems, including Linux and
FreeBSD. It should compile under the
Cygwin Unix
emulation environment on Windows, but the README
states it isn't supported.

IRC Services can be downloaded from http://www.ircservices.za.net. Once you have
downloaded the archive file, extract it with the following command:

% tar zxvf ircservices-5.0.23.tar.gz

You may need to change the version number if you have a more recent
version. Now change to the new directory that has appeared and run
the configure script:

% cd ircservices-5.0.23
% ./configure

The configure script asks some questions and configures the Services
ready to be compiled. It will ask you the path where the
sbin directory should be placed. Unless you have
root access, you'll need to put this in your home
directory, for example in
/home/user/services/sbin/. It will ask you if
you want to create the directory if it doesn't
already exist. The path for the data should automatically update, so
just press Enter. After this, the configure script will check your
system for various features. It will then tell you to edit
defs.h and run make. You
shouldn't need to edit defs.h,
as the default settings will suffice. To compile Services, run:

% make

It will then tell you to run make
install to install Services:

% make install

15.3.1 Configuring the IRC Server

The ircd that you are going to link the

Services to must be configured to
allow this and to also allow Services to change the channel modes. On
Unreal 3.2, the configuration blocks are link and ulines. On other
ircds, the lines are C: and N: for linking and U: for ulines. For
example, if your Services are called services.example.com
(you'll be able to set this later), then you need a
link for them and a uline for them.

If you are using Unreal, you will need to add
something like this to the configuration file,
unrealircd.conf:

link services.example.com {
username *;
hostname 127.0.0.1;
bind-ip *;
hub *;
password-connect "password";
password-receive "password";
}; 
ulines {
services.example.com;
};

The important thing here is the hostname of Services. This should
match the setting you used in the services-server
setting in unrealircd.conf. The IP address
127.0.0.1 is localhostif you run Services on the same machine
as the ircd, this is fine as it is. The password should be changed to
something better than "password".
If you compare this to another link block, you will notice the lack
of the options section. This is because Services does not support any
extra options and is not actually an IRC server, so it cannot be
connected to. You don't need to restart the ircd to
apply these changes. Simply type /rehash when
connected to the server as an IRC operator, and it will reread the
configuration file.

15.3.2 Configuring Services

The next step is to edit the configuration files for
Services.
To do this, change into the lib/ircservices
directory where you installed IRC Services:

% cd ~/services/lib/ircservices

There are two configuration files. One is the main configuration for
Services, including the server to connect to and the modules to load.
The modules configuration file has the settings for each of the
modules. These two files are provided as
example-ircservices.conf and
example-modules.conf, respectively. A lot of the
configuration is up to personal preference and the features you
needthis hack will show you how to change only the settings
that are needed to get Services running.

Copy example-ircservices.conf to
ircservices.conf and open it in a plain text
editor. Lines that start with a # character are
comments. There are a lot of useful comments, but some of the
settings you will need are also commented out. Each option is
described with a word such as REQUIRED or
RECOMMENDED. For any setting that is not required,
the default value will normally work.

Find the line that sets the option RemoteServer.
It will be commented out, so you should remove the
# and change the password to the password you used
in the link block earlier. ServerName is the
hostname that Services should use and should match the name used in
the link and ulines blocks. ServiceUser is the
username that Services will appear to have when it's
on IRC. This should be something like
services@domain, where
domain is the domain you chose to use.

Finally, find the line that reads #LoadModule
protocol/(insert protocol name here).
The protocol name is the type of IRC server in use; this should be
changed to unreal if you are using Unreal. The
comments explain what to use for other ircds. Remember to remove the
# from this line as well. Now save
ircservices.conf.

The next file that needs editing is
example-modules.conf. Copy it to
modules.conf and open it in your text editor.
The main aspect is the protocol module. Change the module name where
it says Module protocol/(insert protocol
name here) to unreal. Each of the
protocol options explains the protocols it works with. If you set an
option that is not needed for a protocol, you will get an error. On
Unreal, you should set the ServerNumeric option.
This is the same as the numeric in the
"me" block discussed in the
previous IRC server hack. Uncomment the
ServerNumeric and
NSRequireEmail settings by removing the
# character from the start of both lines. You will
also need to uncomment one of the ListenTo lines
so that it reads something like:

ListenTo *:80

Services can send emails to allow users to retrieve
passwords and so on, so you will need to set various email options.
The FromAddress and FromName
should be changed to values suitable for your domain name.
RelayHost should be changed to the name of an SMTP
server, and SMTPName should be changed to the
hostname of the machine running Services.

Finally the ServicesRoot option should be set to
your nickname on IRC. The person who registers this nickname will get
full control over Services.

15.3.3 Running the Services

To start Services, run:

% ~/services/sbin/ircservices

Services
will start and connect to the IRC server. If you get any errors,
there is most likely a configuration option problem. Check
~/services/lib/ircservices/ircservices.log to
see if it sheds any light on the problem. A common problem is setting
an option without loading the required module. If Services
doesn't link but appears to start correctly, there
may be an error reported in the Services log file, too. You may also
get some messages from the IRC server if there is a problem linking.

Now that Services is linked, you must register your nickname with
NickServ. You should now have full access to OperServ, allowing you
to change settings, add networkwide bans (akills), and exercise
various other powers. You can get a list of the various options by
typing
/msg OperServ help.

David Leadbeater