An IRC server with ircd-hybrid and hybserv on Ubuntu 12.04LTS

I setup a private IRC server today on an Ubuntu 12.04LTS machine, but ran into some frustrations in the process. Hopefully, this can simplify the process for you.

I've never had a reason to create an IRC server, so first I researched a bit. I settled on using the common ircd-hybrid IRC server with hybserv2 to provide nickserv and chanserv. The intial ircd-hybrid setup was simple; getting hybserv2 to talk to ircd-hybrid was the difficult part. I found some good information here and here, but further details were required.

Installing ircd-hybrid

First install ircd-hybrid from the repos:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ircd-hybrid

Use mkpasswd to generate an encrypted password for the configuration files. The password is used by the administrator to gain operator privileges and by hybserv to add bots.

mkpasswd MyNewSecurePassword
hSRshwZirOrK2

Open the IRC server configuration and adjust to suit your needs. The following contains the minimum configuration required, feel free to change anything else as needed:

sudo nano /etc/ircd-hybrid/ircd.conf

The first section to change is the serverinfo. Change the name, description, network_name, and network_description as needed.

 /* serverinfo {}:  Contains information about the server. (OLD M:) */
serverinfo {
  /* name: the name of our server */
  name = "irc.example.com";

  /* description: the description of our server.  '[' and ']' may not
   * be used here for compatibility with older servers.
   */
  description = "Example.com IRC Server";

  /* network info: the name and description of the network this server
   * is on.  Shown in the 005 reply and used with serverhiding.
   */
  network_name = "example";
  network_desc = "example.com irc";

Change admin section to have some useful information:

/* admin {}: contains admin information about the server. (OLD A:) */
admin {
  name = "Example Admin";
  description = "Example Server Administrator";
  email = "<email@example.com>";
};

Next comes the listen section. Comment out the host line to bind to all available IP addresses.

/* listen {}: contain information about the ports ircd listens on (OLD P:) */
listen {
  /* port: the specific port to listen on.  if no host is specified
   * before, it will listen on all available IPs.
   *
   * ports are separated via a comma, a range may be specified using ".."
   */

  /* port: listen on all available IPs, ports 6665 to 6669 */
  #host = "127.0.0.1"; # change this!
  port = 6665 .. 6669;
};

Scroll down to the operator section. Note the user is set to *@127.0.0.1, which means any localhost user can connect as root. Set the password to the encrypted password generated above. If you set the password incorrectly here or in the hybserv configuration, you'll receive a Closing Link: Invalid password. error in the hybserv logs.

/* operator {}: defines ircd operators. (OLD O:)
 * ircd-hybrid no longer supports local operators, privileges are
 * controlled via flags.
 */
operator {
  /* name: the name of the oper */
  name = "root";

  /* user: the user@host required for this operator.  CIDR is not
   * supported.  multiple user="" lines are supported.
   */
  user = "*@127.0.0.1";

  /* password: the password required to oper.  By default this will
   * need to be encrypted using '/usr/bin/mkpasswd'.
   * WARNING: Please do not mix up the 'mkpasswd' program from
         * /usr/sbin with this one. If you are root, typing 'mkpasswd'
   * will run that one instead and you will receive a strange error.
   *
   * MD5 is supported. If you want to use it, use mkpasswd -Hmd5.
   */
  password = "hSRshwZirOrK2";

Scroll down to the connect section and add the following code to specify how hybserv2 will connect to ircd-hybrid. Note that the name of the server is different than the name of the IRC server above. If it is the same you'll receive Closing Link: Invalid servername. or Closing Link: Server ID Exists. errors in the hybserv logs.

connect {
  /* name: the name of the server */
  name = "ircservices.example.com";
  /* host: the host or IP to connect to. If a hostname is used it * must match the reverse dns of the server. */
  host = "127.0.0.1";
  /* passwords: the passwords we send (OLD C:) and accept (OLD N:). * The remote server will have these passwords rev$
  send_password = "password";
  accept_password = "password";
  /* compressed: controls whether traffic is compressed via ziplinks. * By default this is disabled */
  compressed = no;
  hub_mask = "*";
  class = "server";
};

Now save and close the configuration file, then restart ircd-hybrid:

sudo /etc/init.d/ircd-hybrid restart

Installing hybserv
Hybserv is not available in the Ubuntu repos, so you'll need to download and compile it yourself. Don't worry, the process is straightforward. Go to this page to download Hybrid2 IRC Services, copy the direct link URL and perform the following commands:

# Make sure you've got the tools required to compile software.
sudo apt-get install build-essential
# Paste the download URL after the wget command.
wget $url
# Uncompress the newly downloaded file.
tar xvfz $filename
# Change to the newly created hybserv directory.
cd hybserv
# If you don't need to configure specific settings, you can simply run the install.fast script. Refer to the INSTALL file for details.
./install.fast
# Change to the hybserv install directory (this is the default, change if you installed it elsewhere.)
cd /usr/local/hybserv
# Make the irc user (created by the ircd-hybrid install) the owner of the files for additional security.
sudo chown -R irc:irc .

Open the configuration file for hybserv to configure how it will connect to ircd-hybrid:

sudo nano /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv.conf

The current hybserv configuration is set up for older IRC servers, so it is more difficult to read. A, N, S, and O lines need to be changed or added. Adjust the file to make them match settings specified above:

# Set the Administrator name/email.
A:Example Admin <admin@example.com>
# Set the hostname for the IRC services.
N:ircservices.example.com:Example IRC services.
# Set the password (which is actually the word password), IP, and port of the IRC server to connect to.
S:password:127.0.0.1:6667
# Set the user, encrypted password, nickname and privileges for the connection.
O:*@*:hSRshwZirOrK2:root:segj

Save and close the configuration file, then start hybserv as the irc user:

sudo su irc -c /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv

Log in to the IRC server with the irc program. Apt-get install epic4, epic5, or ircii to get the an irc program if you do not have one.

irc 127.0.0.1

Now you should be able to confirm that nickserv is available by typing:

/msg nickserv help

Everything work? If so there are many additional options to configure for both ircd-hybrid and hybserv.

• Adjust the number_per_ip and max_number in /etc/ircd-hybrid/ircd.conf for regular users.
• Adjust the /etc/ircd-hybrid/ircd.motd file to change the message of the day.
• Setup hybserv as a service to run automatically on startup. Following is for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS YMMV.
  Create a service file:

  sudo nano /etc/init.d/hybserv

  Add the following to the file.

  #!/bin/bash
  # Kill the current hybserv, and start a new one.
  kill `cat /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv.pid`
  su irc -c /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv

  Save and close the file. Then make it executable and add it to the startup scripts.

  sudo chmod u+x /etc/init.d/hybserv
  sudo update-rc.d hybserv defaults

• If you have a firewall setup (and you should!), you can open port 6667 with the following command:
  

  sudo ufw allow 6667

• Plus many more.

Everything doesn't work? The following commands can partially automate your debugging process.

# Close the current hybserv instance.
sudo kill `cat /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv.pid`
# Edit the hybserv configuration.
sudo pico /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv.conf
# Restart hybserv
sudo su irc -c /usr/local/hybserv/hybserv
# Tail the hybserv log file
sudo tail /usr/local/hybserv/logs/hybserv.log 
# Tail the ircd-hybrid log file
sudo tail /var/log/ircd/ircd-hybrid.log