(My last mail didn’t reach its recipients; /me should use the correct mailing list address in the future – so here my next try…)

Hello World!

After about 6 months of development, we are in preparation for the next ngIRCd release which will be release 17. I uploaded the first release candidate for the upcoming release, please test!

The following new features and changes have been coded, most notably ngIRCd now supports user authentication using PAM, supports hostname cloaking (user mode „x“), and supports BOPM, the open proxy monitor. The full NEWS file lists:

* New configuration option "NoZeroConf" to disable service registration at runtime even if ngIRCd is compiled with support for ZeroConf (e.g. using Howl, Avahi or on Mac OS X). * New configuration option "SyslogFacility" to define the syslog "facility" (the "target"), to which ngIRCd should send its log messages. Possible values are system dependant, but most probably "auth", "daemon", "user" and "local1" through "local7" are possible values; see syslog(3). Default is "local5" for historical reasons. * Dump the "internal server state" (configured servers, established connections and known clients) to the console or syslog when receiving the SIGUSR2 signal and debug mode is enabled. * Enable the daemon to disable and enable "debug mode" on runtime using signal SIGUSR1, when debug code is compiled in, not only on startup using the command line parameters. * Implement user mode "x": hostname cloaking (closes: #102). * Change MOTD file handling: ngIRCd now caches the contens of the MOTD file, so the daemon now requires a HUP signal or REHASH command to re-read the MOTD file when its content changed. * Allow IRC ops to change channel modes even without OperServerMode set. * Allow IRC operators to use MODE command on any channel (closes: #100). * New configuration option "NoPAM" to disable PAM. * Implement asynchronous user authentication using PAM, please see the file doc/PAM.txt for details. * Implement user mode "c": receive connect/disconnect NOTICEs. Note that this new mode requires the user to be an IRC operator. * Show SSL status in WHOIS output, numeric 275.

The release candidate is available for downloading and testing at the usual locations:

ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/ngircd/ngircd-17~rc1.tar.gz ftp://ngircd.barton.de/pub/ngircd/ngircd-17~rc1.tar.gz

The GnuPG signatures for 17~rc1 and patches from release 16 are available as well and can be downloaded from here:

ftp://ngircd.barton.de/pub/ngircd/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/ngircd/

You can have a look at the complete history and every single patch using the GIT web-frontend located at:

http://ngircd.barton.de/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=ngircd.git

Please test this release candidate thoroughly and report all bugs and problems you encounter using the bug tracker (http://ngircd.barton.de/bugzilla/index.cgi) and/or this mailing list.

Are features missing, for release 17 or later? Please file „enhancement“ bugs as well! And patches are welcome, too ;-)

Thanks a lot for your support!

Regards Alex