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QuickStart

Installation
Initial Setup
Starting PBot
Additional configuration
Further Reading
- Commands
- Factoids
- Plugins
- Applets

Installation

Docker

If you prefer to use Docker/Podman/etc to run PBot, follow the Docker guide instead. The set-up is much easier and will install packages/dependencies into a container.

Installing Perl

PBot uses the Perl programming language. Perl is usually part of a base Linux install. If you do not have Perl installed, please see your system’s documentation to install it.

Some systems may ship with a minimal Perl installation. You may need to complete the installation by, e.g., yum install perl-core on RHEL/CentOS or dnf install perl on RHEL/CentOS 8 or Fedora.

If you do not have system administrator access, you can install Perl locally into your home directory using, .e.g., perlbrew, plenv, plx, etc.

Installing PBot

git (recommended)

The recommended way to install PBot is with git. This will allow you to easily update to the latest version of PBot via the git update process by issuing the git pull command. Also, if you become interested in contributing improvements to PBot, you will be able to submit them through git.

The command to install with git is:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/pragma-/pbot.git

Download zip archive

Alternatively, you may download a ZIP archive.

If you want to use the Plang scripting language within PBot, you’ll need to download the Plang ZIP archive as well. Extract it into pbot/Plang after you extract the PBot ZIP archive into pbot.

Initial Setup

After git-cloning (or unpacking the ZIP archives) you should have a directory named pbot/ (or pbot-master/). It should contain at least these directories and files:

Name	Description
`Plang/`	Plang scripting language
`applets/`	External command-line executables invokable as PBot commands
`bin/`	PBot executables (e.g., `bin/pbot`)
`data/`	Default data-directory
`doc/`	Helpful documentation
`lib/`	PBot source tree
`updates/`	Migration scripts run automatically by PBot after updates that modify data structures
`cpanfile`	CPAN dependencies file

There are a few one-time configuration things we must do to get PBot’s environment ready. Once the following steps are completed there is no need to do them again.

Installing CPAN modules

Some of PBot’s features depend on the availability of Perl modules written by third parties. To use such PBot features, the modules listed in the cpanfile file need to be installed.

This can be a lengthy process as each module may itself have a certain amount of dependencies and sub-dependencies. Perl is an extremely collaborative community! Fortunately, you only need to install the CPAN modules once.

You must have make, perl, a C compiler, a C++ compiler, OpenSSL or LibreSSL or equivalent, libssl-dev, and other such tools and libraries installed.

Installing cpanminus

The cpanminus tool is a fast and lightweight way to install CPAN modules.

There are several ways to install cpanminus. If you have wget instead of curl, then replace curl -L in the following commands with wget -O -.

Option 1) Use your system package manager, e.g.:

$ apt install cpanminus

Option 2) Install to ~/perl5 (if you used, e.g., perlbrew to install Perl):

$ curl -L https://cpanmin.us | perl - App::cpanminus

Option 3) Download the cpanm script directly to ~/bin:

$ cd ~/bin
$ curl -L https://cpanmin.us/ -o cpanm
$ chmod +x cpanm

Installing and using local::lib

If you prefer to install the CPAN modules into ~/perl5 you can use local::lib.

You may ignore this step if you installed Perl with, e.g., perlbrew or if you have system administrator privilege and prefer to install the CPAN modules to the system Perl location.

The following command will install and set-up local::lib in ~/perl5:

$ cpanm --local-lib=~/perl5 local::lib && eval $(perl -I ~/perl5/lib/perl5/ -Mlocal::lib)

The local::lib set-up will be lost when you close your shell. To make the set-up permanent, add the eval $(perl -I ~/perl5/lib/perl5/ -Mlocal::lib) command to your .bashrc or shell equivalent.

Using cpanminus

Ensure you have set your current working directory to where you have git cloned or unzipped PBot. There should be a cpanfile in the current directory, along with lib/ and bin/ directories.

$ cd pbot (or pbot-master)

The CPAN modules may be installed with (assuming you do not need Windows support):

$ cpanm -n --installdeps . --with-all-features --without-feature=compiler_vm_win32

If you want to install the bare minimum CPAN modules required for PBot’s core functionality, you can use the following command. But be aware that several plugins and applets may not function.

$ cpanm -n --installdeps .

You may then choose to install the missing CPAN modules on a feature-by-feature basis using:

$ cpanm -n --installdeps . --with-feature=... --with-feature=...

where ... is an optional PBot feature listed in PBot’s cpanfile.

re::engine::RE2

Perl’s native regular expression engine is susceptible to ReDoS attacks. To prevent this, PBot uses the re::engine::RE2 module for user-submitted regular expressions.

If you could not install it through CPAN, you must install it manually.

Clone data-directory

PBot uses a data-directory to store all its configuration settings and data. You must clone this data-directory for each instance of PBot you want to run, otherwise they will become quite confused with each other and things will break horribly.

Even when you’re running just one bot, cloning the data-directory will allow PBot to be updated via git or unzip without overwriting your data. PBot will automatically use update migrations (see updates/) to safely update your existing data with the new data.

Here we clone the data-directory for two PBot instances, naming them after the IRC network they will connect to:

$ cp -r data libera
$ cp -r data ircnet

Alternatively, you could name your new data directory after your bot’s nickname:

$ cp -r data coolbot

Configuration

PBot configuration is stored in a registry of key/value pairs grouped by sections. For more information, see the Registry documentation.

For initial first-time setup, you may configure registry settings via the PBot command-line options. We’ll show you how to do that soon! First, read on to see what settings you should configure.

Alternatively, you can edit the registry file in your cloned data-directory. See editing registry file for more information.

Here is a table of basic initial settings you should configure:

Registry key	Description	Default value
irc.botnick	IRC nickname. This is the name people see when you talk. Required.	undefined
irc.username	IRC username. This is the `USER` field of your hostmask.	pbot3
irc.realname	IRC gecos/realname. This is the `general information` or `real-name` field, as seen in `WHOIS`.	https://github.com/pragma-/pbot
irc.server	IRC server address to connect.	irc.libera.chat
irc.port	IRC server port.	6667 (secure port: 6697)
irc.identify_password	Password to authenticate with services or bots.	undefined
irc.sasl	Whether to use the IRCv3 SASL authentication mechanism.	0 (1 to enable)
irc.tls	Whether to use TLS encryption.	0 (1 to enable)
general.trigger	Bot trigger. Can be a character class containing multiple trigger characters. Can be overridden per-channel.	[!]

For a list of other available settings see this table in the Registry documentation.

Recommended settings for IRC Networks

Libera.Chat

The default settings are tailored for an insecure connection to the Libera.Chat IRC network. To make the connection secure, set irc.tls to 1. This will enable TLS encryption. You may optionally set irc.tls_ca_path or irc.tls_ca_file if necessary. Be sure to set irc.port to 6697 for the secure port.

It is strongly recommended that you register an account with NickServ and to enable SASL authentication. Register your channels with ChanServ. You may request a host cloak from Libera staff. This will protect your nickname, channels and IP address.

Once you register with NickServ, it is strongly recommended to enable irc.sasl. If you choose not to use IRCv3 SASL authentication, then it is recommended to set these options:

Click to show recommended Libera.Chat settings with SASL disabled

Registry key	Description	Recommended value
irc.identify_password	Password to use to identify to NickServ	`<password>`
irc.randomize_nick	Randomize IRC nickname when connecting to server. PBot will change to `irc.botnick` when logged-in. This prevents users from monitoring the botnick to catch its IP address before it is identified.	1
general.autojoin_wait_for_nickserv	Wait for NickServ login before auto-joining channels. This prevents PBot from joining channels before it is identified and cloaked.	1
general.identify_command	Command to send to NickServ to identify. `$nick` will be replaced with `irc.botnick`; `$password` will be replaced with `irc.identify_password`. If you wish to login to a NickServ account different than the `irc.botnick` you may replace the `$nick` text with a literal value.	`identify $nick $password`

IRCnet

IRCnet is one of the oldest IRC networks still running. It has no Services like NickServ and ChanServ. Instead, its nicknames and channels are protected by custom bots.

These settings may be useful:

Click to show recommended IRCnet settings

Registry key	Description	Default value	Recommended value
general.identify_nick	Who to /msg for login/identify/authentication. Defaults to NickServ, can be overridden to a custom bot.	NickServ	`<service botnick>`
general.identify_command	Command to send to `general.identify_nick` to login.	`identify $nick $password`	`<service bot command>`
general.op_nick	Who to /msg to request channel OP status. Defaults to ChanServ, can be overridden to a custom bot.	ChanServ	`<service botnick>`
general.op_command	Command to send to `general.op_nick` to request channel OP status.	`op $channel`	`<service bot command>`

Other networks

Other networks are untested. They should be very similiar to either Libera.Chat or IRCnet, and so one or both of the recommended settings should suffice. If you have any issues, please report them here or by sending pragma- a message on the Libera.Chat network.

Starting PBot

The executable to start PBot is bin/pbot. You may create a symbolic link to the bin/pbot executable in $HOME/bin/ or in /usr/local/bin/.

If you choose not to install the bin/pbot file to your PATH, remember to use ./bin/pbot instead of pbot in the following examples.

Usage

$ pbot [directory overrides...] [registry overrides...]

rlwrap

It is recommended to use the rlwrap program for command-line history if you use the PBot STDIN interface.

$ rlwrap pbot [...]

Overriding directories

You may override PBot’s default directory locations via the command-line.

$ pbot data_dir=/path/to/data applets_dir=/path/to/applets

Overriding registry

You may override any of your Registry values via the command-line. Any overrides made will be saved to the registry file. You do not need to use the override every time you launch PBot.

$ pbot irc.botnick=coolbot irc.server=irc.example.com irc.port=6667 [...]

First-time start-up

Using default settings

The default settings will connect to the Libera.Chat IRC network.

At minimum, the registry key irc.botnick must be set before PBot will connect to any IRC servers.

The following command will use the coolbot data-directory that we cloned in the initial setup, and set the irc.botnick registry key to the same name. It will automatically connect to the Libera.Chat IRC network.

$ pbot data_dir=coolbot irc.botnick=coolbot

Using custom settings

To connect to a specific IRC server or to configure additional settings, you may override the directory paths and override the registry values. Read on to the next section for examples.

Custom recommended settings

The following command is based on the Recommended settings for IRC Networks section earlier in this document. The irc.server and irc.port settings are omitted because the default values will connect to the Libera.Chat IRC network.

Replace the placeholders, marked X, with values you want to use. Note that this is just for the first-time start-up. Regular subsequent start-up needs only data_dir to be overridden.

If you have registered your botnick with the NickServ service, update the irc.identify_password entry in the registry file in your bot’s data directory and then use this command:

pbot data_dir=X irc.botnick=X irc.sasl=1
Otherwise, use this one:

pbot data_dir=X irc.botnick=X

Custom recommended IRCnet/other network settings

The following command is based on the Recommended settings for IRC Networks section earlier in this document.

Replace the placeholders, marked X, with values you want to use. Note that this is just for the first-time start-up. Regular subsequent start-up needs only data_dir to be overridden.

If you want PBot to identify with a custom bot or service on IRCnet/other networks, use this command:

pbot data_dir=X irc.botnick=X irc.server=X irc.port=X general.identify_nick=X general.op_nick=X
Otherwise, use this one:

pbot data_dir=X irc.botnick=X irc.server=X irc.port=X

Regular start-up

After your initial start-up command, you only need to use the data_dir directory override when starting PBot. Any previously used registry overrides have been saved to your data-directory’s registry file.

$ pbot data_dir=X

Additional configuration

Once you’ve launched PBot, you can type directly into its terminal to execute commands as the built-in PBot console admin user account. This will allow you to use admin commands to create new users or join channels.

Creating your bot owner admin account

To create your own fully privileged admin user account, use the useradd command in the PBot terminal console. Its usage is:

useradd <username> <hostmasks> [channels [capabilities [password]]]

Suppose your nick is Bob and your hostmask is Bob!~user@some.domain.com. Use the following command:

useradd Bob Bob!~user@*.domain.com global botowner

This will create a user account named Bob with the botowner user-capability that can administrate all channels. Note the wildcard replacing some in some.domain.com. Now as long as your connected hostmask matches your user account hostmask, you will be recognized.

It is very important that user account hostmasks are defined as strictly or as narrowly as possible to match only the person it is intended for. Ideally, the user would have a NickServ account, a user-cloak given by the staff of the IRC server or a unique DNS name.

In your own IRC client, connected using the hostmask we just added, type the following command, in a private /query or /msg:

my password

This will show you the randomly generated password that was assigned to your user account. You can change it – if you want to – with:

my password <new password>

Then you can login with:

login <password>

Now you can use /msg in your own IRC client to administrate PBot, instead of the terminal console.

Adding other users and admins

To add users to PBot, use the useradd command. Its usage is:

useradd <username> <hostmasks> [channels [capabilities [password]]]

The hostmasks and channels arguments can be a comma-separated list of values.

If you omit the capabilities argument, the user will be a normal unprivileged user. See user-capabilities for more information about user-capabilities.

If you omit the password argument, a random password will be generated. The user can use the my command to view or change it.

Users may view and change their own metadata by using the my command, provided their hostmask matches the user account.

my [key [value]]

For more information, see the Admin documentation.

Adding channels

To temporarily join channels, use the join command.

join <channel>

To permanently add a channel to PBot, use the chanadd command. PBot will automatically join permanently added channels.

chanadd <channel>

To configure a permanent channel’s settings, use the chanset command:

chanset <channel> [key [value]]

You can chanset the following keys:

Name	Description	Default value
enabled	If set to false, PBot will not autojoin or respond to this channel.	1
chanop	If set to true, PBot will perform OP duties in this channel.	0
permop	If set to true, PBot will not de-OP itself in this channel.	0

For more information, see the Channels documentation.

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