First time IRC server tools reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JSV007 · 2022-02-03 22:04 Hi, Im looking into setting up an IRC server and have a few questions. What tool should I use ? Ive looked into inspIRCd but am open to suggestions, something that would be easy enough to administer as a begginer. Also, in the network field when creating my configuration (in something like inspircd) can I just put in any address I want to be the address of the server ? Does it have to be my home IP ? Or does it have to be my home IP going through a DNS (I would prefer to not give people my actual IP lmao and also having a DNS would look a lot better and be easier, so if I could just put in an address and not have to do a DNS forward etc that would be neat). Im not much of a networking nerd so I probably screwed up some of this. Im just interested in making my own IRC server and be a hobbyist. Any good resources for finding documentation (inspIRCd didnt really have any info I found beginner friendly). Thanks so much! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SqualorTrawler · 2022-02-03 22:17 Your home IP is going to be visible if you are hosting from home if people are connecting right to it. I don't know if a VPN running on a VPS (that is, forwarding incoming IRC traffic from the VPS to your home IP address) could mask this or not (IRC servers tend to be kind of loose with the information they report; am unclear whether there is something in the server which would leak your home IP address; some kind of server command or something.) If I were to run an IRC server, I'd get a cheap VPS (like from DigitalOcean or Linode), set it up there, then point people to that IP address. I wouldn't want people connecting to resources on my home network anyway. A cheap VPS is like $5 a month. I am unsure if this is adequate for a small IRC server but it probably is. Any project I've done in the past 5 years or so has been hosted on a VPS; unless you have heavy hardware requirements (and a server at home that meet them), I'm not sure what the advantage of hosting at home is, except for saving $5. But I can think of a lot of downsides. If someone trashes the server, they trash a VPS, and so what; destroy it and recreate or restore from backup. In any case, you wouldn't need DNS. IP address will work fine, however you do it. Assuming you're running Linux, a remote shell is 99.999% as good as a local machine. DigitalOcean (and probably others) even have web-based consoles should you accidentally block yourself with a bad firewall rule or something. If you've never used a VPS, I suggest you experiment with one - just provision one, log in, and play with it. You'll see what I mean. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JSV007 · 2022-02-04 00:12 Thx so much, my family already has a digitalocean server so I'll use that ! The server might have 60 people AT MOST and maybe 6 on at a time. So thank you. Any suggestions for a tool for making an IRC server ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SqualorTrawler · 2022-02-04 00:39 I could not recommend one myself as I've never contemplated running one. The popular one seems to be UnrealIRCDd but I have no opinion on it personally. Ubuntu, which I run on one of my DigitalOcean droplets, has the following in its package manager: * charybdis * ircd-hybrid * inspircd * ircd-irc2 * ircd-ircu * ngircd This last one is described as "lightweight," and might be a good option, but maybe someone with more knowledge can make a suggestion. [UnrealIRCd](https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Main_Page) seems to have ok documentation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SqualorTrawler · 2022-02-04 01:07 So, curious about your question, I installed Unreal. It took about 15 minutes from "I should see how long it takes to do this" to me connecting remotely from an IRC client and successfully creating a channel. That includes compilation time. Followed the instructions here: https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Installing_from_source#Creating_a_conf iguration_file The first time I went to run it, I needed to copy a sample config file over, then, I had to change a few things in it (it will tell you what lines you have to fix when you go to run it and you get errors.) It would probably take longer to secure it properly but I was just doing a test. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thischildslife · 2022-02-04 03:48 Please, for the love of all that is sacred, make sure you [secure the server](https://www.open-scap.org/) properly before you open it to public. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deepend_tilde · 2022-02-04 04:16 I personally run inspircd. Is nice. But maybe unrealircd might be easier. At least based on my memory of it. But if you select inspircd and have questions can just toss a message. Any reason you really want to run your own when there are A ton of irc networks that could use some users :) Anyways best of luck on your journey :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ptah4i · 2022-02-04 09:10 As a beginner you should take look on [Ergo](https://github.com/ergochat/ergo). It is easy to set up and have many things ready build in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hanzerik307 · 2022-02-07 15:14 This is the easiest way to go, very simple to setup and configure.