source: doc/README @ 8b61469

Last change on this file since 8b61469 was b925666, checked in by Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>, at 2010-07-29T19:30:47Z

Show a friendly warning message when running in inetd mode on the command
line (if stdin is a TTY). This hopefully answers a FAQ. Also moved stuff
around in README a little bit, daemon mode should be described before
obsolete inetd stuff.

  • Property mode set to 100644
File size: 7.6 KB
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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
11--- (Fork)Daemon mode
12
13These days ForkDaemon mode is the recommended way of running BitlBee. The
14difference between Daemon and ForkDaemon mode is that in the latter, a
15separate process is spawned for every user. This costs a little bit more
16memory, but means that if one user hits a bug in the code, not all other
17users get disconnected with him/her.
18
19To use BitlBee in any daemon mode, just start it with the right flags or
20enable it in bitlbee.conf (see the RunMode option). You probably want to
21write an init script to start BitlBee automatically after a reboot. (This
22is where you realise using a package from your distro would've been a better
23idea. :-P)
24
25Please do make sure that the user BitlBee runs as (not root, please!) is
26able to read from and write to the /var/lib/bitlbee directory to save your
27settings!
28
29--- inetd installation (more or less deprecated)
30
31After installation you have to set up inetd (you got that one running,
32right? If not, just take a look at utils/bitlbeed.c) to start BitlBee. You
33need to add BitlBee to inetd.conf, like this:
34
356667 stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/bitlbee
36
37Creating a special BitlBee user and running BitlBee with that UID (instead
38of just 'nobody') might be a good idea.
39
40*BSD/Darwin/OSX NOTE: Most *BSD inetds are more scrict than the one that
41comes with Linux systems. Possibly all non-Linux inetds are like this. They
42don't allow you to specify a port number in the inetd.conf entry, instead
43you have to put a service name there (one that is also mentioned in
44/etc/services). So if there's no line in /services for 6667/tcp (or whatever
45you choose), add it and use that name in the inetd.conf entry.
46
47-- xinetd installation (equally deprecated)
48
49Most machines use xinetd instead of inetd these days. If your machine runs
50xinetd, you can copy the bitlbee.xinetd file from the doc/ directory to your
51xinetd.d/ directory. Most likely you'll have to change a thing or two before
52it'll work.
53
54After configuring your (x)inetd, send the daemon a SIGHUP and things should
55work. If not, see your syslogs, since both daemons will complain there when
56something's wrong.
57
58Also, don't forget to create the configuration directory (/var/lib/bitlbee/
59by default) and chown it to the UID BitlBee is running as. Make sure this
60directory is read-/writable by this user only.
61
62
63DEPENDENCIES
64============
65
66BitlBee's only real dependency is GLib. This is available on virtually every
67platform. Any recent version of GLib (2.4 or higher) will work.
68
69These days, MSN Messenger clients have to connect to the MS Passport servers
70through HTTPS. BitlBee can use several SSL libraries for this: GnuTLS, NSS
71(which comes with Mozilla) and OpenSSL. OpenSSL is not GPL-compatible in some
72situations, so using GnuTLS or NSS is preferred. However, especially on *BSD,
73OpenSSL can be considered part of the operating system, which eliminates the
74GPL incompatibility.
75
76The incompatibility is also the reason why the SSL library detection code
77doesn't attempt to use OpenSSL. If you want to use OpenSSL, you have to
78force configure to use it using the --ssl=openssl parameter. For more
79information about this problem, see the URL's configure will write to stdout
80when you attempt to use OpenSSL.
81
82
83PORTABILITY ISSUES
84==================
85
86Cygwin NOTE: You'll need a glib installation to run BitlBee. However, Cygwin
87doesn't provide a glib package. You can download a binary tar.gz from:
88<http://my.dreamwiz.com/jbdoll/>. When you installed it, BitlBee should work
89fine. You'll probably like bitlbeed or xinetd to get it running on the
90network.
91
92On some non-Linux systems the program still suffers from some random bugs.
93Please do report them, we might be able to fix them if they're not too
94mysterious.
95
96Also, the configure script is known to not work very well with non-Bash
97shells, so if you experience problems, make sure you use bash to run the
98script. Same for the Makefile, it only works well with GNU make. (gmake on
99most BSD systems)
100
101If someone can tell us how to write Makefiles that work with both/all
102versions of make, we'd love to hear it, but it seems this just isn't
103possible.
104
105
106USAGE
107=====
108
109Not much to say here, it's all documented elsewhere already. Just connect to
110the new BitlBee IRC server and the bot (root) will tell you what to do.
111
112
113BACKGROUNDS
114===========
115
116We are both console lovers. But it is annoying to have a few tty's open with
117chat things in them. IRC, ICQ, MSN, AIM, Jabber... For X there is Gaim, which
118supports many chatprotocols. Why wasn't there such a thing for the console?
119
120The idea to port Gaim was easily thought of, of course. But we liked our IRC
121clients. And we used it the most, so we used it best. Importing it into the
122IRC client was a nice idea. But what if someone liked a different client.
123Then (s)he had to duplicate our work.
124
125That's a shame, we thought. Doing work twice is pointless. So when Wilmer
126got the ingenious thought in his mind while farming, to create an IRC to
127other chatnetworks gateway, we were both so excited, that we started working
128on it almost immediately. And the result is BitlBee.
129
130
131WEBSITE
132=======
133
134You can find new releases of BitlBee at:
135http://www.bitlbee.org/
136
137The bug tracking system:
138http://bugs.bitlbee.org/
139
140Our version control system is Bazaar. Our repository is at:
141http://code.bitlbee.org/
142
143More documentation on the Wiki:
144http://wiki.bitlbee.org/
145
146
147A NOTE ON ENCRYPTION
148====================
149
150There used to be a note here about the simple obfuscation method used to
151make the passwords in the configuration files unreadable. However, BitlBee
152now uses a better format (and real encryption (salted MD5 and RC4)) to store
153the passwords. This means that people who somehow get their hands on your
154configuration files can't easily extract your passwords from them anymore.
155
156However, once you log into the BitlBee server and send your password, an
157intruder with tcpdump can still read your passwords. This can't really be
158avoided, of course. The new format is a lot more reliable (because it can't
159be cracked with just very basic crypto analysis anymore), but you still have
160to be careful. The main extra protection offered by the new format is that
161the files can only be cracked with some help from the user (by sending the
162password at login time).
163
164So if you run a public server, it's most important that you don't give root
165access to people who like to play with tcpdump. Also, it's a good idea to
166delete all *.nicks/*.accounts files as soon as BitlBee converted them to the
167new format (which happens as soon as the user logs in, it can't be done
168automatically because it needs the password for that account). You won't
169need them anymore (unless you want to switch back to an older BitlBee
170version) and they only make it easier for others to crack your passwords.
171
172
173LEGAL
174=====
175
176BitlBee is distributed under the GPL (GNU General Public License). See the
177file COPYING for this license.
178
179The MD5 algorithm code is licensed under the Aladdin license. This license
180can be found in the files, to which this applies. The SHA1 algorithm code
181is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, see http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
182for details.
183
184The Yahoo! library used by BitlBee is libyahoo2 <http://libyahoo2.sf.net/>,
185also licensed under the GPL.
186
187
188        BitlBee - An IRC to other chat networks gateway
189                  <http://www.bitlbee.org/>
190        Copyright (C) 2002-2010  Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@gaast.net>
191                                 and others
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