source: doc/README @ 7b23afd

Last change on this file since 7b23afd was b7d3cc34, checked in by Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>, at 2005-11-06T18:23:18Z

Initial repository (0.99 release tree)

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1INSTALLATION
2============
3
4If you installed BitlBee from a .deb or .rpm you probably don't have to do
5anything anymore for installation. Just skip this section.
6
7If you want to compile BitlBee yourself, that's fine. Just run ./configure
8to set up the build system. If configure succeeds, run make to build BitlBee.
9make install will move all the files to the right places.
10
11After installation you have to set up inetd (you got that one running,
12right? If not, just take a look at utils/bitlbeed.c) to start BitlBee. You
13need to add BitlBee to inetd.conf, like this:
14
156667 stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/bitlbee
16
17Creating a special BitlBee user and running BitlBee with that UID (instead
18of just 'nobody') might be a good idea.
19
20Also, don't forget to create the configuration directory (/var/lib/bitlbee/
21by default) and chown it to the UID BitlBee is running as. Make sure this
22directory is read-/writable by this user only.
23
24(For xinetd users a xinetd configuration file is included: doc/bitlbee.xinetd)
25
26
27DEPENDENCIES
28============
29
30BitlBee's only real dependency is GLib. This is available on virtually every
31platform. Any recent version of GLib (including 1.x versions) will work.
32
33These days, MSN Messenger clients have to connect to the MS Passport servers
34through HTTPS. BitlBee can use serveral SSL libraries for this: GnuTLS, NSS
35(which comes with Mozilla) and OpenSSL. OpenSSL is not GPL-compatible in some
36situations, so using GnuTLS or NSS is preferred. However, especially on *BSD,
37OpenSSL can be considered part of the operating system, which eliminates the
38GPL incompatibility.
39
40The incompatibility is also the reason why the SSL library detection code
41doesn't attempt to use OpenSSL. If you want to use OpenSSL, you have to
42force configure to use it using the --ssl=openssl parameter. For more
43information about this problem, see the URL's configure will write to stdout
44when you attempt to use OpenSSL.
45
46
47PORTABILITY ISSUES
48==================
49
50FreeBSD NOTE: It looks like FreeBSD does allow port numbers instead of service
51names in inetd.conf, as long as the service for this port exists in
52/etc/services. Linux isn't this strict. If you got problems in FreeBSD, just
53add a line for your chosen port number to /etc/services.
54
55Darwin/Mac OS X is even more strict; you should add a bitlbee service to
56/etc/services and use that name in inetd.conf. Not really a problem, since
57that's the cleanest way of doing this on any operating system anyway.
58
59Cygwin NOTE: You'll need a glib installation to run BitlBee. However, Cygwin
60doesn't provide a glib package. You can download a binary tar.gz from:
61<http://my.dreamwiz.com/jbdoll/>. When you installed it, BitlBee should work
62fine. You'll probably like bitlbeed or xinetd to get it running on the
63network.
64
65On some non-Linux systems the program still suffers from some random bugs.
66Please do report them, we might be able to fix them if they're not too
67mysterious.
68
69
70RUNNING ON SERVERS WITH MANY USERS
71==================================
72
73BitlBee is not yet bug-free. Sometimes a bug causes the program to get into
74an infinite loop. Something you really don't want on a public server,
75especially when that machine is also used for other (mission-critical) things.
76For now we can't do much about it. We haven't seen that happen for a long
77time already on our own machines, but some people still manage to get
78themselves in nasty situations we haven't seen before.
79
80For now the best we can offer against this problem is bitlbeed, which allows
81you to setrlimit() the child processes to use no more than a specified
82number of CPU seconds. Not the best solution (not really a solution anyway),
83but certainly trashing one busy daemon process is better than trashing your
84whole machine.
85
86We don't believe adding a limit for bitlbee to /etc/security/limits.conf will
87work, because that file is only read by PAM (ie just for real login users,
88not daemons).
89
90See utils/bitlbeed.c for more information about the program.
91
92Just a little note: We run our public server im.bitlbee.org for a couple of
93months now, and so far we haven't experienced this problem yet. The only
94BitlBee processes killed because of CPU-time overuse were running for a long
95time already, they were usually killed during the MSN login process (which
96is quite CPU-time consuming).
97
98
99USAGE
100=====
101
102Not much to say here, it's all documented elsewhere already. Just connect to
103the new BitlBee IRC server and the bot (root) will tell you what to do.
104
105
106BACKGROUNDS
107===========
108
109We are both console lovers. But it is annoying to have a few tty's open with
110chat things in them. IRC, ICQ, MSN, AIM, Jabber... For X there is Gaim, which
111supports many chatprotocols. Why wasn't there such a thing for the console?
112
113The idea to port Gaim was easily thought of, of course. But we liked our IRC
114clients. And we used it the most, so we used it best. Importing it into the
115IRC client was a nice idea. But what if someone liked a different client.
116Then (s)he had to duplicate our work.
117
118That's a shame, we thought. Doing work twice is pointless. So when Wilmer
119got the ingenious thought in his mind while farming, to create an IRC to
120other chatnetworks gateway, we were both so excited, that we started working
121on it almost immediately. And the result is BitlBee.
122
123
124WEBSITE
125=======
126
127You can find new releases of BitlBee at:
128http://www.bitlbee.org/
129
130
131A NOTE ON ENCRYPTION
132====================
133
134BitlBee stores the accounts and settings (not your contact list though) in
135some sort of encrypted/obfuscated format.
136
137*** THIS IS NOT A SAFE FORMAT! ***
138
139You should still make sure the rights to the configuration directory and
140files are set so that only root and the BitlBee user can read/write them.
141
142This format is not to prevent malicicous users from running with your
143passwords, but to prevent accidental glimpses of the administrators to cause
144any harm. You have no choice but to trust root though.
145
146
147LEGAL
148=====
149
150BitlBee is distributed under the GPL (GNU General Public License). See the
151file COPYING for this license.
152
153Unfortunately some parts of the Gaim Jabber plugin (most notably the XML
154code) were licensed under the MPL (Mozilla Public License) version 1.1. We
155could not relicense this code under the GPL. As such it is still licensed
156under the MPL. The parts of the code to which this applies are marked as
157such.
158
159The MPL is provided in the file MPL-1.1.txt. This license is not GPL
160compatible. It is however a free software license.
161
162Another part (the md5 algorithm) is licensed under the Aladdin license.
163This license can be found in the files, to which this applies.
164
165The Yahoo! library used by BitlBee is libyahoo2 <http://libyahoo2.sf.net/>,
166also licensed under the GPL.
167
168
169        BitlBee - An IRC to other chat networks gateway
170                  <http://www.bitlbee.org/>
171        Copyright (C) 2002-2004  Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@gaast.net>
172                                 and others
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