Anope -- a set of IRC services for IRC networks
-----------------------------------------------

Anope is          2003-2005 Anope Team    <info@anope.org>.
Based on Epona    2000-2002 PegSoft       <epona@pegsoft.net>.
Based on Services 1996-1999 Andrew Church <achurch@achurch.org>.

This program is free but copyrighted software; see the file COPYING for
details.

Information about Anope may be found at http://www.anope.org/
Information about Epona may be found at http://www.epona.org/
Information about Services may be found at http://www.ircservices.esper.net/

Table of Contents
-----------------
1) Credits
2) Presentation
3) Installation
4) Command Line Options
5) Messages Translation
6) Contact and Mailing List

1) Credits

    Anope is based on Lara's Epona version 1.4.14.
    Epona is based on Andy Church's IRC Services version 4.3.3.

    The original credits:

        * Mauritz Antunes
            Portuguese translation
        * Jose R. Holzmann, Raul S. Villarreal
            Spanish translation
        * Andrew Kempe <theshadow@shadowfire.org>
            News system
        * <d.duca@eurcom.net>
            Italian translation
        * <mikado@holyfire.com>
            Turkish translation
        * Andrew Kempe <theshadow@shadowfire.org>
            Session limiting

    Epona credits:

        * lara <lara@pegsoft.net>
            Main coding
        * CafeiN <oytuny@yahoo.com>
            Turkish translation
        * Sylvain Cresto aka tost <scresto@netsante.fr>
            FreeBSD 5 patch
        * Marcelo Conde Foscarini aka Bras <ircadmin@brmarket.net>
            Portuguese translation
        * Alvaro Toledo aka POLLITO <atoledo@keldon.org>
            Spanish translation
        * chemical <chemical@musicplay.de>
            German translation
        * shine <dh@shinewelt.de>
            German translation
        * Guven Guzelbey aka MeShGuL <guzelbey@cs.utk.edu>
            Turkish translation
        * Jordi Pujol <jordi.pujol@aujac.org>
            Catalan translation
        * Eva Dachs <evadachs@terra.es>
            Catalan translation
        * Toni Perez <toni.perez@aujac.org>
            Catalan translation
        * Sergios Karalis <sergios_k@hotmail.com>
            Greek translation
        * Thomas J. Stensas aka ShadowMaster <shadowmaster@shadow-realm.org>
            Ultimate 3.x support

    Anope credits:

        * Adam Kramer <ribosome@anope.org>
        * Alvaro Toledo <atoledo@keldon.org>
        * Björn Stiddien <keeper@anope.org>
        * Chris Hogben <heinz@anope.org>
        * Daniel Engel <dane@zero.org>
        * David <dv@diboo.net>
        * David Narayan <jester@phrixus.net>
        * David Robson <rob@anope.org>
        * Daniele Nicolucci <jollino@sogno.net>
        * Florian Schulze <certus@anope.org>
        * Gabriel Acevedo H. <drstein@anope.org>
        * JH <jh@irc-chat.net>
        * Joris Vink <joris@anope.org>
        * Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net>
        * Pieter Bootsma <geniusdex@anope.org>
        * Thomas Juberg Stensås <ShadowMaster@Shadow-Realm.org>
        * Trystan .S Lee <trystan@nomadirc.net>
        * openglx <openglx@brasnerd.com.br>

    Anope Translations:

        * GeniusDex <geniusdex@anope.org> (nl.l)
        * Oleg Nikolaev aka Isot <isot@complife.ru> (ru.l)
        * Stuff <the.stuff@gmx.de> (de.l)
        * Gabriel Acevedo H. <drstein@anope.org> (es.l)
        * Janos Kapitany <sarkanyka@cjbchat.hu>  (hun.l)
        * Mateusz Szczyrzyca <annihilator@ircnet.pl> (pl.l)

    
2) Presentation

    Anope is a set of Services for IRC networks that allows users to manage
    their nicks and channels in a secure and efficient way, and administrators
    to manage their network with powerful tools.

    Currently available services are:

        * NickServ, a powerful nickname manager that users can use to protect
          themselves against nick stealing. Each user has its own nickname
          group, that allows the user to register as many nicks as needed
          while still being able to take profit of his privileges and to
          modify the nick configuration. NickServ also has an optional
          password retrieval feature.

        * ChanServ, a powerful channel manager that helps users to administer
          their channels in a totally customizable way. ChanServ has an
          internal list of privileged users and banned users that controls
          accesses on a per-channel basis. It eliminates all takeover
          problems, because of its powerful op/unban/invite and even mass
          deop and mass kick functions.

        * MemoServ, an helpful companion that allows sending short messages
          to offline users, that they can then read when they come online
          later.

        * BotServ, an original service that allows users to get a permanent,
          friendly bot on their channels in an easy way. Each bot can be
          configured to monitor the channels against floods, repetitions,
          caps writing, and swearing, and to take appropriate actions. It
          also can handle user-friendly commands (like !op, !deop, !voice,
          !devoice, !kick, and many others), say a short greet message when
          an user joins a channel, and even "take over" ChanServ actions such
          as auto-opping users, saying the entry notice, and so on. This
          service can be disabled if you want to save some bandwidth.

        * OperServ, the IRCops' and IRC admins' black box, that allows them
          to manage the list of network bans (also known as AKILL (DALnet) or
          GLINE (Undernet)), to configure messages displayed to users when
          they log on, to set modes and to kick users from any channel, to
          send notices quickly to the entire network, and much more!

        * HostServ, a neat service that allows users to show custom vHosts
          (virtual hosts) instead of their real IP address; this only works
          on daemons supporting ip cloaking, such as UnrealIRCd, UltimateIRCd
          and ViagraIRCd.

        * HelpServ, a skeleton service used to serve help files.

    Anope currently works with:

        * Bahamut 1.4.27 or later (including 1.8)
        * Charybdis 1.0 or later
        * DreamForge 4.6.7
        * Hybrid 7 or later
        * Plexus 2.0 or later (including 3.0)
        * PTlink 6.15 or later
        * RageIRCd 2.0 beta-6 or later
        * Ratbox 2.0.6 or later
        * ShadowIRCd 4.0 beta 7 or later
        * Solid IRCd 3.4.6 or later
        * UltimateIRCd 2.8.2 or later (including 3.0.0)
        * UnrealIRCd 3.1.1 or later (including 3.2)
        * ViagraIRCd 1.3 or later

    Anope could also work with some of the daemons derived by the ones listed
    above, but there's no support for them if they work or don't work.


3) Installation

    See the INSTALL file for instruction on installing Anope.


4) Command Line Options

    Normally, Anope can be run simply by invoking the "services" executable.
    Anope will then use the defaults specified in the services.conf file, and
    connect to the specified uplink server. Alternatively, any of the
    following command-line options can be specified to change the default
    values:

        -remote server[:port]    Connect to the specified server
        -local host  -or-        Connect from the specified address (e.g. for
            [host]:[port]            multihomed servers)
        -name servername         Our server name (e.g. services.some.net)
        -desc string             Description of us (e.g. SomeNet Services)
        -user username           Username for Services' nicks (e.g. services)
        -host hostname           Hostname for Services' nicks (e.g. esper.net)
        -dir directory           Directory containing Services' data files
                                     (e.g. /usr/local/lib/services)
        -log filename            Services log filename (e.g. services.log)
        -update secs             How often to update databases (in seconds)
        -expire secs             How often to check for nick/channel
                                     expiration (in seconds)

    Additionally, the following command-line options can be used to modify
    the behavior of Anope:

        -debug          Enable debugging mode; more info sent to log (give
                            option more times for more info)
        -readonly       Enable read-only mode; no changes to databases
                            allowed, .db files and log not written
        -skeleton       Enable skeleton mode; like read-only mode, but only
                            OperServ is available
        -nofork         Do not fork after startup; log messages will be
                            written to terminal (as well as to the log file
                            if not in read-only mode)
        -forceload      Try to load as much of the databases as possible,
                            even if errors are encountered
        -noexpire       Expiration routines won't be run at all
        -logchan        Startup with logchan enabled
        -version        Display the version of Anope

    Upon starting, Anope will parse its command-line parameters, open its
    logfile, then (assuming the -nofork option is not given) detach itself
    and run in the background. If Anope encounters a problem reading the
    database files or cannot connect to its uplink server, it will terminate
    immediately; otherwise, it will run until the connection is terminated
    (or a QUIT, SHUTDOWN, or RESTART command is sent; see OperServ's help).
    In the case of an error, an appropriate error message will be written to
    the log file.

    If Anope is run with the "-readonly" command-line option, it can serve as
    a "backup" to the full version of services.  A "full" version of services
    (run without -readonly) will automatically reintroduce its pseudo-clients
    (NickServ, ChanServ, etc.), while a "backup" services will not, thus
    allowing full services to be brought up at any time without disrupting
    the network (and without having to take backup services down beforehand).

    If Anope is run with the "-skeleton" command-line option, it will not try
    to load the nickname or channel databases, and will respond with "service
    is inactive" messages to any commands sent to NickServ, ChanServ,
    MemoServ or BotServ. This can be useful as an emergency stopgap measure
    when the main copy of Anope cannot be started.

    The "-debug" option is useful if you find or suspect a problem in Anope.
    Giving it once on the command line will cause all traffic to and from
    services as well as some other debugging information to be recorded in
    the log file; if you send a bug report, PLEASE include an excerpt from
    the log file WITH DEBUGGING ACTIVE; we cannot emphasize enough how
    important this is to tracking down problems. (You can also enable
    debugging while Services is running using OperServ's SET DEBUG command.)
    If you repeat the -debug option more than once, the debugging level will
    be increased, which provides more detailed information but may also slow
    Anope down considerably and make the log file grow dramatically faster
    (in particular, at debug level 4 a message is written to the log for
    every character received from the server). In general, a debug level of 1
    is sufficient for the coding team to be able to trace a problem, because
    all network traffic is included and we can usually reproduce the problem.

    The "-forceload" option is provided to attempt recovery of data from
    corrupted or truncated databases. Normally, if Anope encounters an error
    writing to a database file, it will attempt to restore the original
    version of the file and report an error to the logfile and through
    WALLOPS. However, if this should fail (which normally should not happen),
    or if Anope is terminated abruptly e.g. by kill -9 or a power failure,
    then one or more of the databases may be corrupt. Normally, this will
    cause Anope to abort the next time you try to run it; however, if yo
    give the -forceload option to Anope, it will instead read as much as it
    can, then skip to the next database. For obvious reasons, it's highly
    recommended to keep backup copies of your databases in case something
    does happen (since Anope will stop at the first error in a database, even
    with -forceload, meaning you lose any data after that).

5) Messages Translations

    Anope has a powerful option in NickServ allowing users to choose what
    language it must use when sending messages to users. Messages are stored
    in language files (located in the lang directory).

    Anope is currently provided with thirteen languages: Catalan, Dutch,
    English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese,
    Russian, Spanish and Turkish. If you want to translate Anope messages
    into another language, follow this instructions:

        * Copy the lang/en_us.l file to a meaningful name (for example, if
          you would like to translate messages in Spanish, you would rename
          it to es.l).

        * Edit the file with your favorite text editor. Carefully read the
          instructions given at the top of the file, and start translating
          the whole file. The file is big, so make sure you have some coffee
          available ;) Try to avoid the use of English words as much as
          possible. If the new language contains only a few 'special'
          characters, try and use latin representations of it, if possible.
          Remember that most clients are only capable of handling the
          ISO-8859-1 charset. Of course, if you are translating Anope to a
          language with a totally different charset, such as Russian, feel
          free to use the one that suites it best (and the one that is in use
          by most speakers of that language ;)).

        * When this is done, you have two solutions: either patch Services
          source code so they take in account the new language file
          (basically, you'll have to modify lang/Makefile, language.c and
          maybe services.h), or send us the translated file so we can make
          the patch and include your language in the next Anope release.

        * Note that there is a language tool on bin/langtool.pl that can aid
          the verification process on newly created language files. Try to
          use it before you submit a language file.

    When new major releases come out, you'll not have to retranslate the
    whole file; the Changes.lang file will help you to know which messages
    were added, modified or deleted.

    If you did a language file translation, and want to let others use it,
    please send it to dev@anope.org (don't forget to mention clearly your
    (nick)name, your e-mail and the language name). You'll of course get full
    credit for it, and will even get future final major releases before
    anyone else to complete the translation!... ;) 

6) Contact

    For announcements and discussions about Anope, please visit our
    Portal and Forums at http://www.anope.org/ -- make sure you register
    yourself and your network to get full benefits.

    If you read the documentation carefully, and didn't find the answer to
    your question, feel free to post on the website forums or join our irc
    channel (irc.anope.org #anope). Once you join our Support channel, just
    type "? report" for instructions on how to report a Bug. Be as precise as
    possible when asking a question, because we have no extraordinary powers
    and can't guess things if they aren't provided. The more precise you are,
    the sooner you'll be likely to get an answer.

    If you think you found a bug, add it to the bug tracking system
    (http://bugs.anope.org) and - again - be as precise as possible. Also say
    whether the bug happens always or under what circumstances, and anything
    that could be useful to track your bug down. If you wrote a patch, send
    it over. :)
