source: doc/README @ 99f929c

Last change on this file since 99f929c was ed3ae7e, checked in by Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>, at 2008-03-03T00:08:49Z

Added note about daemon mode to doc/README

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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--- inetd installation
12
13After installation you have to set up inetd (you got that one running,
14right? If not, just take a look at utils/bitlbeed.c) to start BitlBee. You
15need to add BitlBee to inetd.conf, like this:
16
176667 stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/bitlbee
18
19Creating a special BitlBee user and running BitlBee with that UID (instead
20of just 'nobody') might be a good idea.
21
22*BSD/Darwin/OSX NOTE: Most *BSD inetds are more scrict than the one that
23comes with Linux systems. Possibly all non-Linux inetds are like this. They
24don't allow you to specify a port number in the inetd.conf entry, instead
25you have to put a service name there (one that is also mentioned in
26/etc/services). So if there's no line in /services for 6667/tcp (or whatever
27you choose), add it and use that name in the inetd.conf entry.
28
29-- xinetd installation
30
31Most machines use xinetd instead of inetd these days. If your machine runs
32xinetd, you can copy the bitlbee.xinetd file from the doc/ directory to your
33xinetd.d/ directory. Most likely you'll have to change a thing or two before
34it'll work.
35
36After configuring your (x)inetd, send the daemon a SIGHUP and things should
37work. If not, see your syslogs, since both daemons will complain there when
38something's wrong.
39
40Also, don't forget to create the configuration directory (/var/lib/bitlbee/
41by default) and chown it to the UID BitlBee is running as. Make sure this
42directory is read-/writable by this user only.
43
44--- (Fork)Daemon mode
45
46If you don't want to run any inetd daemon, you can run BitlBee in Daemon
47mode. Right now, daemon mode may be a bad idea on servers with multiple
48users, since possible fatal BitlBee bugs will crash the BitlBee process and
49disconnect all connected users at once. Instead, you can use ForkDaemon
50mode, which serves every user from a separate process, without depending on
51an inetd daemon.
52
53To use BitlBee in daemon mode, just start it with the right flags or enable
54it in bitlbee.conf. You probably want to write an init script to start
55BitlBee automatically after a reboot. (This is where you realise using
56a package from your distro would've been a better idea. :-P)
57
58
59DEPENDENCIES
60============
61
62BitlBee's only real dependency is GLib. This is available on virtually every
63platform. Any recent version of GLib (2.4 or higher) will work.
64
65These days, MSN Messenger clients have to connect to the MS Passport servers
66through HTTPS. BitlBee can use several SSL libraries for this: GnuTLS, NSS
67(which comes with Mozilla) and OpenSSL. OpenSSL is not GPL-compatible in some
68situations, so using GnuTLS or NSS is preferred. However, especially on *BSD,
69OpenSSL can be considered part of the operating system, which eliminates the
70GPL incompatibility.
71
72The incompatibility is also the reason why the SSL library detection code
73doesn't attempt to use OpenSSL. If you want to use OpenSSL, you have to
74force configure to use it using the --ssl=openssl parameter. For more
75information about this problem, see the URL's configure will write to stdout
76when you attempt to use OpenSSL.
77
78
79PORTABILITY ISSUES
80==================
81
82Cygwin NOTE: You'll need a glib installation to run BitlBee. However, Cygwin
83doesn't provide a glib package. You can download a binary tar.gz from:
84<http://my.dreamwiz.com/jbdoll/>. When you installed it, BitlBee should work
85fine. You'll probably like bitlbeed or xinetd to get it running on the
86network.
87
88On some non-Linux systems the program still suffers from some random bugs.
89Please do report them, we might be able to fix them if they're not too
90mysterious.
91
92Also, the configure script is known to not work very well with non-Bash
93shells, so if you experience problems, make sure you use bash to run the
94script. Same for the Makefile, it only works well with GNU make. (gmake on
95most BSD systems)
96
97If someone can tell us how to write Makefiles that work with both/all
98versions of make, we'd love to hear it, but it seems this just isn't
99possible.
100
101
102RUNNING ON SERVERS WITH MANY USERS
103==================================
104
105BitlBee is not yet bug-free. Sometimes a bug causes the program to get into
106an infinite loop. Something you really don't want on a public server,
107especially when that machine is also used for other (mission-critical) things.
108For now we can't do much about it. We haven't seen that happen for a long
109time already on our own machines, but some people still manage to get
110themselves in nasty situations we haven't seen before.
111
112For now the best we can offer against this problem is bitlbeed, which allows
113you to setrlimit() the child processes to use no more than a specified
114number of CPU seconds. Not the best solution (not really a solution anyway),
115but certainly trashing one busy daemon process is better than trashing your
116whole machine.
117
118We don't believe adding a limit for bitlbee to /etc/security/limits.conf will
119work, because that file is only read by PAM (ie just for real login users,
120not daemons).
121
122See utils/bitlbeed.c for more information about the program.
123
124Just a little note: Now that we reach version 1.0, this shouldn't be that
125much of an issue anymore. However, on a public server, especially if you
126also use it for other things, it can't hurt to protect yourself against
127possible problems.
128
129
130USAGE
131=====
132
133Not much to say here, it's all documented elsewhere already. Just connect to
134the new BitlBee IRC server and the bot (root) will tell you what to do.
135
136
137BACKGROUNDS
138===========
139
140We are both console lovers. But it is annoying to have a few tty's open with
141chat things in them. IRC, ICQ, MSN, AIM, Jabber... For X there is Gaim, which
142supports many chatprotocols. Why wasn't there such a thing for the console?
143
144The idea to port Gaim was easily thought of, of course. But we liked our IRC
145clients. And we used it the most, so we used it best. Importing it into the
146IRC client was a nice idea. But what if someone liked a different client.
147Then (s)he had to duplicate our work.
148
149That's a shame, we thought. Doing work twice is pointless. So when Wilmer
150got the ingenious thought in his mind while farming, to create an IRC to
151other chatnetworks gateway, we were both so excited, that we started working
152on it almost immediately. And the result is BitlBee.
153
154
155WEBSITE
156=======
157
158You can find new releases of BitlBee at:
159http://www.bitlbee.org/
160
161The bug tracking system:
162http://bugs.bitlbee.org/
163
164Our version control system is Bazaar-NG. Our repository is at:
165http://code.bitlbee.org/
166
167
168A NOTE ON ENCRYPTION
169====================
170
171There used to be a note here about the simple obfuscation method used to
172make the passwords in the configuration files unreadable. However, BitlBee
173now uses a better format (and real encryption (salted MD5 and RC4)) to store
174the passwords. This means that people who somehow get their hands on your
175configuration files can't easily extract your passwords from them anymore.
176
177However, once you log into the BitlBee server and send your password, an
178intruder with tcpdump can still read your passwords. This can't really be
179avoided, of course. The new format is a lot more reliable (because it can't
180be cracked with just very basic crypto analysis anymore), but you still have
181to be careful. The main extra protection offered by the new format is that
182the files can only be cracked with some help from the user (by sending the
183password at login time).
184
185So if you run a public server, it's most important that you don't give root
186access to people who like to play with tcpdump. Also, it's a good idea to
187delete all *.nicks/*.accounts files as soon as BitlBee converted them to the
188new format (which happens as soon as the user logs in, it can't be done
189automatically because it needs the password for that account). You won't
190need them anymore (unless you want to switch back to an older BitlBee
191version) and they only make it easier for others to crack your passwords.
192
193
194LEGAL
195=====
196
197BitlBee is distributed under the GPL (GNU General Public License). See the
198file COPYING for this license.
199
200The MD5 algorithm code is licensed under the Aladdin license. This license
201can be found in the files, to which this applies. The SHA1 algorithm code
202is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, see http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
203for details.
204
205The Yahoo! library used by BitlBee is libyahoo2 <http://libyahoo2.sf.net/>,
206also licensed under the GPL.
207
208
209        BitlBee - An IRC to other chat networks gateway
210                  <http://www.bitlbee.org/>
211        Copyright (C) 2002-2007  Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@gaast.net>
212                                 and others
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