Services Services, which Services

[Rachel Llorenna]

I don't personally use IRC services, but I have in the past come
across quite a few. The services are broken into mainly three groups;
DALnet-style, EFnet-style and Undernet-style. The common NickServ,
MemoServ, ChanServ and so forth are DALnet; whereas AuthServ,
ChanServ, etc are Undernet. ChanFix is EFnet and requires only minimal
operator intervention. Only the DALnet-style allows nickname
registration; Undernet-style only permits username registration;
EFnet-style records channels automatically based on a set of
predefined parameters.

People generally seem to prefer DALnet-style services. However, they
will require a few new ircd-hybrid modules to be installed, as those
services require commands like SVSNICK (FORCENICK) which don't exist
in stock ircd-hybrid. Please keep in mind that ircd-hybrid was never
designed for use in conjunction with services, and using ircd-hybrid
with IRC services is therefore not supported. Here is a list of a few
DALnet-style IRC service clones I've come across:
- HybServ2: This is the most commonly used services package for
TS-compatible servers, including ircd-hybrid, ircd-ratbox and csircd.
The services pseudoclients include NickServ, ChanServ, MemoServ,
OperServ, HelpServ, SeenServ and GlobalNoticer. You can view the CVS
repository at http://hybserv.dyndns.org/ or download
http://www.wohmart.com/ircd/'s copy at
http://www.wohmart.com/ircd/pub/irc_misc/hybserv-20040824_3.tar.gz
(24th of August 2004)
- FreeWorld Services: These are services that were developed for the
FreeWorld IRC Network, but are currently under a development hiatus.
The services are driven by SQL and have a BotServ. A mirrored copy can
be found at http://www.wohmart.com/ircd/pub/irc_misc/fwserv-1.0alpha4.tgz
- IRC Services: One of the first IRC Services packages, upon which
many other services sets are based. This includes NickServ, ChanServ
and MemoServ. The ircd-hybrid support is experimental and requires
that you use ircd-hybrid-7.0 or 7.1 (which is currently in beta) due
to its requirement of m_tburst.c. This also means that the services
will not function under ircd-ratbox or csircd. The web site is at
http://www.ircservices.esper.net/
- Anope: Based on the now-obsolete Epona, Anope has quite a few
features, including NickServ, ChanServ, MemoServ, StatServ, OperServ,
HostServ, BotServ, HelpServ, Global, DevNull. The web site is at
http://www.anope.org/

Undernet-style services are few and far between, and I am personally
only aware of one project that develops a service compatible with the
TS protocol.
- Shrike IRC Services: This provides a clone of the AuthServ and
ChanServ found on Undernet for username and channel registration. It
is currently under development for the Malkier IRC Network. The web
site is at http://shrike.malkier.net/

There are only three main EFnet-style (ChanFix) services publicly
available that qualify as free/open source software.
- OpenChanFix: A project started before the release of the actual
services.int package from comstud, OpenChanFix is a module that
provides a ChanFix pseudoclient and attempts to reverse-engineer some
of the techniques used on EFnet ChanFix. This means that they do not
operate in the same way. The web site is at http://openchanfix.net/
- ChanFix: The original EFnet ChanFix was released by comstud some
time ago. This includes both ChanFix and the JUPES services. However,
there is very little documentation available, development is slow (if
indeed comstud is still developing them at all), and it performs all
logging via syslog(). Only experienced users should use this. These
services are available from comstud's web site at
http://www.codestud.com/services/
- mchanfix: A version of EFnet ChanFix, cleaned up for use with
musircd. The protocol is slightly different, so it may not function
properly with ircd-hybrid. One may require a bit of ircd programming
experience to make them function seamlessly. A copy can be found at
http://musirc.sourceforge.net/mchanfix.tar.gz

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 03:44:13 -0800, Michael <xeon at xshellr8.com> wrote:
> I've been looking over some of the options for services that can be used
> with Hybrid and I'd like to get peoples opinnion here on which ones they
> recommend.  I'm new to this ircd (as you all know) and would appreciate
> your opinnions before I exhert any effort in this area.
> 
> Thanks for your reply in advance,
> 
> Michael
> 


-- 
Regards,

Rachel Llorenna (frequency)