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#134682 03/11/05 08:19 PM
Joined: Nov 2005
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Bowl of petunias
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Bowl of petunias
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Joined: Nov 2005
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I am not new to irc but have a unique question.

I am a moderator of a very large text based game which will be kept out right now out of this unless needed.

The game has at last count 300,000 + accounts. They have been asking for some time on a chat area for the game.

First question would be what does it take to get a server registered?

Second question gets a little more interesting.

I know enough about script files having run many irc rooms before but never this large scale. I know what I am looking for is possible.

The server would serve two major roles, giving people a place to chat and also since basically alliance town halls for the game, I need to know if it is possible to write a script file that will load preprogrammed irc bots into their pre determined rooms. The bots are the easy part since it is universal on programming with just the membership list of each channel different.

The trick is loading all of them, and there would be upwards of tens of thousands, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 channels, and do so without crashing the system in one fell swoop, essentially one huge file opening all of the alliance rooms.

This would not be on all of the user computers. The full room list would only come up on the ircops computer systems fully. The main user rooms on the groups would only show their respective rooms.

The other trick is not as difficult. The rooms would have to be free of commands for private messages and also set in a way to prevent things like file transfers to keep the entire network free of viruses.

The bots would log and control the rooms, alliance leaders moderate them.. ircops would only intervene if necessary. Also the bots would log everything, including kicks for rules violations, sending them to the ircops.

My question is, can all of this be developed easily, and also how many irc ops would it take to control the entire server, responding only when needed to handle issues?

Thanks in advance. Just seeing if this is possible before I work with a team to develop it.

The entire size would be comparative to dalnet on user capabilities in time but it of course will take a while to get to that point.

I look forward to a response.

#134683 03/11/05 08:49 PM
Joined: Jun 2003
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Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
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Information on setting up a server can be found in this sticky.

Cost-wise, if you're seriously contemplating an IRC network made up of 40,000+ users regularly, you're looking at a largeish amount and you'll need more than one server. That said, many ISPs/Universities are willing to host IRC servers.

The bots issue is more complex. Botnets are not something we'd help with, and it would be much more efficient of you to run a Services (Nickserv/Chanserv/Memoserv) package on the network anyway. Such packages are usually free, popular ones include Anope and Epona. Customising them would require help from their relevant development teams and most likely advanced knowledge.

Halting private messages is breaking protocol, you'd need to edit the IRCd (or create your own). I think some existent IRCds would allow blocking of the DCC protocol already to prevent file sharing, again, you'd find it more enlightening to ask the IRCd developers.

Quote:
My question is, can all of this be developed easily, and also how many irc ops would it take to control the entire server, responding only when needed to handle issues?


Possible? With enough effort, I would guess so. Easily? I'd guess not.
Large networks tend not to have a set amount of IRCops - they let individual server administrators choose which IRCops they want, though I find most servers don't have more than 5 IRCops (and a lot of the time less than that). As long as you have enough IRCops to cover the different timezones, and there must be 2 or so IRCops at all hours, you should be okay. If you're looking for user support and IRCop interference in "alliance"/channel issues, you may need more.

Regards,


Mentality/Chris
#134684 03/11/05 09:14 PM
Joined: Nov 2005
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Bowl of petunias
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Bowl of petunias
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The bots i am not worried on. It is the core system.

Pm's could be done yes.

the main thing is to keep it totally virus free which is why the firle transfer commands, and things like links would need to be removed.

I am seeing if the main part can be done on a server without crashing i tbecause it will be a HUGE file haviing to call up all of the various bots assigned to each room without crashing the system

#134685 03/11/05 09:18 PM
Joined: Oct 2004
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Hoopy frood
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Hoopy frood
Joined: Oct 2004
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I think I would skip the idea of "bots"... as Mentality said, services would be much better. If you wanted beyond that, you could set up a downloadable bot script for people to use that is set up to allow them to handle any additional things that services can't handle. Then, you're letting them run the bot instead of you. Much easier.

Check out some ircd's and some services and then start checking prices to see if it's worth doing.


Invision Support
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#134686 04/11/05 12:27 PM
Joined: Apr 2003
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Hoopy frood
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I don't see the point in creating those 25k channels at startup, just find a decent way to assign a channel name to a specific 'town hall'. Then you only need to do some work when a user actually joins that channel. Many services like Chanserv arent physically in the channel, other like Q or L can act as a user (ircop) and appear in the channel. But this really affects how you command them.

Basically, as said before, you'll need to adapt an existing irc server package to your needs (disallowing dcc sends and pm's) which seems rather easy and then you'll need to heavily adapt or even completely write a channel service deamon that can handle those channels with the knowledge of your game. This will take a lot more effort and coding, depending on how much non-standard behaviour (game specifics) need to be included and the complexity of those rules...


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