Forums General Discussion Where To Get An IRC Server

Me And One Of My Firends Have been talking now for the past week about setting up are own IRC Server, But we cant seem to find any thing out there about where we go to buy one and what we need to do, Can any one help me,

Regards

There are several ways to get your own IRC server.
there are some easy windows servers such as conference room (http://www.webmaster.com)
Windows ircds are usually not very good and not recommended for irc networks, most major irc networks develop their own server and services, undernet use ircu (http://coder-com.undernet.org) and use the services gnuworld (http://www.gnuworld.org)

There are many other types of servers and services such as unreal ircd, bahamut, hybrid and many more.

To run your linux (or freebsd) irc server you need an account on a linux machine, you can buy ircd accounts from most major shell providers, these let you run you own small ircd server and link to some minor networks, to link to any of the major irc networks you need a dedicated machine running on a major connection with good firewalls due to all dos attacks, the attacks against my undernet server sometimes hit over 1Gbps

You can buy a ircd account from companies such as kirenet.com, lomag.net, sh3lls.com, and many many more, just search for "ircd shell" or something simular on google.

Good luck.

Basically we are looking to own a server to create are own chat rooms, like other servers such as the well know UKChatterbox,

I have a server online, i only use it for scripting, you and your friend can use that if you want? it's online 24/7 and running unreal ircd. msg me if you want the address..

Magic pretty much said it. You're gonna need ircd software (internet relay chat daemon), some sort of services software (there are many, but certain ones are for certain ircds), a box that this can be hosted on (preferably *nix) ... and preferably some sort of (sub)domain name to point to the IP(s) of the server(s) running the ircd software. I myself use Nefarious ircd (basically ircu) and x3 services (based off of srvx) ... you can find info on both of those here. You would need to purchase the domain name, unless you were to use FreeDNS, and if you wanted someone else to host your ircd and services then youd need to pay for an ircd shell with at least one BG process for your use (obviously for services). You'd have to (up|down)load the IRC software, and the IRC services, youd then need to compile, and configure them. This is very unadvisable by me unless you have a somewhat advanced knowledge of IRC, and be able to find your way around Unix (that is if the software you're using is going to run on Unix, which personally to me is the only way to do it, although you can use Windows, which i strongly disadvise).

the best one you can get work for linked
is on linux
UnrealIRCD UnrealIRCD
a vertion is for windows but work bater on linux

Unreal IRCd sucks! It's the worst IRCd ever conceived!

It's too hacker friendly and just messed up.

ircu ftw!

hello friend... can i get the address for ur server

Hmm, whats the problem with unreal ircd ? been running that one for a year or so now, and never had 1 problem with it, but i run it on linux, dont know about the window version

UnrealIRCD is the worst IRCD Out there, Sure it may look nice, but NO!

everything has a standard they should follow, this standard is known as the RFC's, EVERYTHING folows, it right down to computer hardware, software, even networking standards have RFC's

UnrealIRCD doesnt follow the IRC RFC's, ircu, or most ircu based ircd's are the closest you can get to complete compatability and RFC following, since it was the ircu that was the first and started it all off...

Unreal IRCD is bloated, has too many channel and user modes, and is too 'admin abuse' friendly..

IRC is meant to be a simple easy chat facility that people can connect to, and chat, and not get confused, UnrealIRCD has about 6 channel level user modes (Regular, voice, half op, op, owner, master, oper) etc, and not all clients support these either... unreal ircd DOES have some nice features, but thier implementation is poor..

My personal favourite and current choice of ircd is Nefarious..

so, if you want an IRCD that is bloated, and the coding team are a bunch of total **** ** * * ** *** 's (fill in the gaps with whatever) then sure, go for UnrealIRCD..

While I'm definitely not a fan of UnrealIRCd or some of it's developers, I don't think the RFC argument holds much weight. Simply put, the IRC protocol is abandonware. Jarkko Oikarinen published RFC1459 in 1993 and since then every modification has been ad-hoc changes tagged on by software developers. Even the additional IRC RFCs were written by IRCd coders looking to document and legitimise their additions. All things told, the lack of standards and solid specification in IRC software can't be blamed solely on developers since if someone wrote a strictly RFC1459-compliant server it would probably be considered unuseable and featureless by many of today's IRC users.

the current ircu and ircu hybrids still stick to the under-laying RFC, ircu and such still use an internal numeric system for nick and server tracking, whilst unrealIRCD uses plain text, not a good way imho

with the RFC argument im not talking about NOW, im talking about the underlaying code, the base that it was worked from

Not going to start a "best IRCD" war here as it certainly wont help the original poster. However it all depends what type of host method you are going to use. If you can afford a few $ a month then go for a VM host service (ircd shell). Use google to look for yourself. I am very lucky I have a friendly host service that helped me out a lot when I first started out. My point is try to use a nix box if you can, Windows is not the best way to run an IRCD.

Regards
Ultraviolent

Airfreshner,

I have, along with three mates of mine, hosted our own IRC network with our own connections, servers and running UnrealIRCd which is one of the more popular IRCd's out there.

I have to say that I do have a soft spot for Conference Room (CR) as I used to be an administrator on a network owned by a large ISP who used that software. In recent years though, CR has become somewhat of a multi-purpose application that does many things and does them well but at around $7,500 in my local currency, it is wayyyyyy out of the price range for our little operation.

So the only logical choice for us was Unreal IRCd and Anope Services as both packages run well on Unix and Windows boxes. Forget anything said about OS preferences - the "Windows is unstable" yarn is a bit stale and really only applied to non-NT versions anyway because FAT32 is a dreadful filesystem. In our experience (and we have hosted chats for large corporations) both our Windows Services server and Unix IRC nodes perform equally well.

Some of the long-standing members of this forum will remember lengthy and heated debates between myself and one of the Unreal IRCd coders, Codemastr but that doesn't change the fact that I do believe Unreal is a good product, especially since it doesn't cost anything.

Of course, as some here have said, you can lease space on a Unix shell provider to host your server, though if your internet connection is strong enough, be adventurous and host it yourself. You will need a domain name, static IP and DNS hosting though, but DNS hosting can be done by you too, if you know how to set it up.

Pros: More control to you, no costs for hosting, gain knowledge of hosting Internet services.
Cons: There is a lot to learn, time consuming to set up, you have to run the server 24/7 or risk upsetting your user base, your ISP may disapprove - read their AUP before making a decision.

Ghozer: RFC stands for "Request For Comment". Nothing in that phrase implies that a standard exists for anything. Unreal IRCd is an RFC1492-compatible IRCd and any added function does not detract from that fact.

Get a unix shell account and setup bahamut IRCd and I'm pretty sure you will be happy. Bahamut gets my vote anyway

Now why reply to me with that? Why don't you tell the person who wanted the information.

because many people use the flat forum style and use the last post to reply too...

I would love the forum to have a reply button at the bottom that replies to the first post by default...