7.8 KiB
Ergo (formerly known as Oragono) is a modern IRC server written in Go. Its core design principles are:
- Being simple to set up and use
- Combining the features of an ircd, a services framework, and a bouncer (integrated account management, history storage, and bouncer functionality)
- Bleeding-edge IRCv3 support, suitable for use as an IRCv3 reference implementation
- High customizability via a rehashable (i.e., reloadable at runtime) YAML config
Ergo is a fork of the Ergonomadic IRC daemon <3
If you want to take a look at a running Ergo instance or test some client code, feel free to play with testnet.ergo.chat (TLS on port 6697 or plaintext on port 6667).
Features
- integrated services: NickServ for user accounts, ChanServ for channel registration, and HostServ for vanity hosts
- bouncer-like features: storing and replaying history, allowing multiple clients to use the same nickname
- native TLS/SSL support, including support for client certificates
- IRCv3 support
- yaml configuration
- updating server config and TLS certificates on-the-fly (rehashing)
- SASL authentication
- LDAP support
- supports multiple languages (you can also set a default language for your network)
- optional support for UTF-8 nick and channel names with RFC 8265 (PRECIS)
- advanced security and privacy features (support for requiring SASL for all logins, cloaking IPs, and running as a Tor hidden service)
- an extensible privilege system for IRC operators
- ident lookups for usernames
- automated client connection limits
- passwords stored with bcrypt
UBAN, a unified ban system that can target IPs, networks, masks, and registered accounts (KLINEandDLINEare also supported)- a focus on developing with specifications
For more detailed information on Ergo’s functionality, see:
Quick start guide
Download the latest release from this page: https://github.com/ergochat/ergo/releases/latest
Extract it into a folder, then run the following commands:
cp default.yaml ircd.yaml
vim ircd.yaml # modify the config file to your liking
./ergo mkcerts
./ergo run # server should be ready to go!Note: See the productionizing guide in our manual for recommendations on how to run a production network, including obtaining valid TLS certificates.
Platform Packages
Some platforms/distros also have Ergo packages maintained for them:
- Arch Linux AUR - Maintained by Jason Papakostas (@vith).
- Gentoo Linux - Maintained by Sam James (@thesamesam).
Using Docker
A Dockerfile and example docker-compose recipe are available in the
distrib/docker directory. Ergo is automatically published
to the GitHub Container Registry at ghcr.io/ergochat/ergo. For more
information, see the distrib/docker README
file.
From Source
You can also clone this repository and build from source. Typical
deployments should use the stable branch, which points to
the latest stable release. In general, stable should
coincide with the latest published tag that is not designated as a beta
or release candidate (for example, v2.7.0-rc1 was an
unstable release candidate and v2.7.0 was the corresponding
stable release), so you can also identify the latest stable release tag
on the releases
page and build that.
The master branch is not recommended for production use
since it may contain bugs, and because the forwards compatibility
guarantees for the config file and the database that apply to releases
do not apply to master. That is to say, running master may result in
changes to your database that end up being incompatible with future
versions of Ergo.
For information on contributing to Ergo, see DEVELOPING.md.
Building
You’ll need an up-to-date
distribution of the Go language for your OS and architecture. Once
that’s installed (check the output of go version), just
check out your desired branch or tag and run make. This
will produce an executable binary named ergo in the base
directory of the project. (Ergo vendors all its dependencies, so you
will not need to fetch any dependencies remotely.)
Configuration
The default config file default.yaml helps walk you through
what each option means and changes.
You can use the --conf parameter when launching Ergo to
control where it looks for the config file. For instance:
ergo run --conf /path/to/ircd.yaml. The configuration file
also stores where the log, database, certificate, and other files are
opened. Normally, all these files use relative paths, but you can change
them to be absolute (such as /var/log/ircd.log) when
running Ergo as a service.
Logs
By default, logs go to stderr only. They can be configured to go to a file, or you can use systemd to direct the stderr to the system journal (see the manual for details). The configuration format of logs is designed to be easily pluggable, and is inspired by the logging config provided by InspIRCd.
Passwords
Passwords (for both PASS and oper logins) are stored
using bcrypt. To generate encrypted strings for use in the config, use
the genpasswd subcommand as such:
ergo genpasswdWith this, you receive a blob of text which you can plug into your configuration file.
Nickname and channel registration
Ergo relies heavily on user accounts to enable its distinctive
features (such as allowing multiple clients per nickname). As a user,
you can register your current nickname as an account using
/msg NickServ register <password>. Once you have done
so, you should enable SASL in
your clients, ensuring that you will be automatically logged into
your account on each connection. This will prevent problems
claiming your registered nickname.
Once you have registered your nickname, you can use it to register channels:
- Join the channel with
/join #channel - Register the channel with
/CS REGISTER #channel
After this, your channel will remember the fact that you’re the owner, the topic, and any modes set on it!
Credits
- Jeremy Latt (2012-2014)
- Edmund Huber (2014-2015)
- Daniel Oaks (2016-present)
- Shivaram Lingamneni (2017-present)
- Many other contributors and friends of the project <3