source: doc/README @ d908e3a

INSTALLATION
============

If you installed BitlBee from a .deb or .rpm you probably don't have to do
anything anymore for installation. Just skip this section.

If you want to compile BitlBee yourself, that's fine. Just run ./configure
to set up the build system. If configure succeeds, run make to build BitlBee.
make install will move all the files to the right places.

After installation you have to set up inetd (you got that one running,
right? If not, just take a look at utils/bitlbeed.c) to start BitlBee. You
need to add BitlBee to inetd.conf, like this:

6667 stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/bitlbee

Creating a special BitlBee user and running BitlBee with that UID (instead
of just 'nobody') might be a good idea.

Also, don't forget to create the configuration directory (/var/lib/bitlbee/
by default) and chown it to the UID BitlBee is running as. Make sure this
directory is read-/writable by this user only.

(For xinetd users a xinetd configuration file is included: doc/bitlbee.xinetd)


DEPENDENCIES
============

BitlBee's only real dependency is GLib. This is available on virtually every
platform. Any recent version of GLib (including 1.x versions) will work.

These days, MSN Messenger clients have to connect to the MS Passport servers
through HTTPS. BitlBee can use serveral SSL libraries for this: GnuTLS, NSS
(which comes with Mozilla) and OpenSSL. OpenSSL is not GPL-compatible in some
situations, so using GnuTLS or NSS is preferred. However, especially on *BSD,
OpenSSL can be considered part of the operating system, which eliminates the
GPL incompatibility.

The incompatibility is also the reason why the SSL library detection code
doesn't attempt to use OpenSSL. If you want to use OpenSSL, you have to
force configure to use it using the --ssl=openssl parameter. For more
information about this problem, see the URL's configure will write to stdout
when you attempt to use OpenSSL.


PORTABILITY ISSUES
==================

FreeBSD NOTE: It looks like FreeBSD does allow port numbers instead of service
names in inetd.conf, as long as the service for this port exists in
/etc/services. Linux isn't this strict. If you got problems in FreeBSD, just
add a line for your chosen port number to /etc/services.

Darwin/Mac OS X is even more strict; you should add a bitlbee service to
/etc/services and use that name in inetd.conf. Not really a problem, since
that's the cleanest way of doing this on any operating system anyway.

Cygwin NOTE: You'll need a glib installation to run BitlBee. However, Cygwin
doesn't provide a glib package. You can download a binary tar.gz from:
<http://my.dreamwiz.com/jbdoll/>. When you installed it, BitlBee should work
fine. You'll probably like bitlbeed or xinetd to get it running on the
network.

On some non-Linux systems the program still suffers from some random bugs.
Please do report them, we might be able to fix them if they're not too
mysterious.


RUNNING ON SERVERS WITH MANY USERS
==================================

BitlBee is not yet bug-free. Sometimes a bug causes the program to get into
an infinite loop. Something you really don't want on a public server,
especially when that machine is also used for other (mission-critical) things.
For now we can't do much about it. We haven't seen that happen for a long
time already on our own machines, but some people still manage to get
themselves in nasty situations we haven't seen before.

For now the best we can offer against this problem is bitlbeed, which allows
you to setrlimit() the child processes to use no more than a specified
number of CPU seconds. Not the best solution (not really a solution anyway),
but certainly trashing one busy daemon process is better than trashing your
whole machine.

We don't believe adding a limit for bitlbee to /etc/security/limits.conf will
work, because that file is only read by PAM (ie just for real login users,
not daemons).

See utils/bitlbeed.c for more information about the program.

Just a little note: We run our public server im.bitlbee.org for a couple of
months now, and so far we haven't experienced this problem yet. The only
BitlBee processes killed because of CPU-time overuse were running for a long
time already, they were usually killed during the MSN login process (which
is quite CPU-time consuming).


USAGE
=====

Not much to say here, it's all documented elsewhere already. Just connect to
the new BitlBee IRC server and the bot (root) will tell you what to do.


BACKGROUNDS
===========

We are both console lovers. But it is annoying to have a few tty's open with
chat things in them. IRC, ICQ, MSN, AIM, Jabber... For X there is Gaim, which
supports many chatprotocols. Why wasn't there such a thing for the console?

The idea to port Gaim was easily thought of, of course. But we liked our IRC
clients. And we used it the most, so we used it best. Importing it into the
IRC client was a nice idea. But what if someone liked a different client.
Then (s)he had to duplicate our work.

That's a shame, we thought. Doing work twice is pointless. So when Wilmer
got the ingenious thought in his mind while farming, to create an IRC to
other chatnetworks gateway, we were both so excited, that we started working
on it almost immediately. And the result is BitlBee.


WEBSITE
=======

You can find new releases of BitlBee at:
http://www.bitlbee.org/


A NOTE ON ENCRYPTION
====================

BitlBee stores the accounts and settings (not your contact list though) in
some sort of encrypted/obfuscated format.

*** THIS IS NOT A SAFE FORMAT! ***

You should still make sure the rights to the configuration directory and
files are set so that only root and the BitlBee user can read/write them.

This format is not to prevent malicicous users from running with your
passwords, but to prevent accidental glimpses of the administrators to cause
any harm. You have no choice but to trust root though.


LEGAL
=====

BitlBee is distributed under the GPL (GNU General Public License). See the
file COPYING for this license.

Unfortunately some parts of the Gaim Jabber plugin (most notably the XML
code) were licensed under the MPL (Mozilla Public License) version 1.1. We
could not relicense this code under the GPL. As such it is still licensed
under the MPL. The parts of the code to which this applies are marked as
such.

The MPL is provided in the file MPL-1.1.txt. This license is not GPL
compatible. It is however a free software license.

Another part (the md5 algorithm) is licensed under the Aladdin license.
This license can be found in the files, to which this applies.

The Yahoo! library used by BitlBee is libyahoo2 <http://libyahoo2.sf.net/>,
also licensed under the GPL.


        BitlBee - An IRC to other chat networks gateway 
                  <http://www.bitlbee.org/>
        Copyright (C) 2002-2004  Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@gaast.net>
                                 and others