Setting up your own IRC Server in Windows

Hi all,

This post will cover the basic setup of Unreal IRC server. UnrealIRCd is an open-source irc server daemon (ircd) that allows users to run their own IRC server from their system. Unreal is just one of the many ircds out there for use. This server is described as having “possibly the most security features of any IRC server.” Unreal can be configured on both Windows and Linux.

Installation

Step 1: Download Unreal3.2.8.1.exe from www.unrealircd.com.

Step 2: Navigate to the download destination on your computer and run the file named “Unreal3.2.8.1.exe”.

Step 3: Move through the installer by pressing Next. The installer will let you choose the location in which UnrealIRCd will be installed. The default location is C:\Program Files\Unreal3.2.

Step 4: Click Next. If you haven’t already got the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package installed, it will now be installed. Simply click Next, check the box that indicates that you have read the terms and then click Install. When it’s done, click Finish.

Step 5: UnrealIRCd will now install automatically.

Configuring Unreal

Now that we have completed the installation process. We will now need to configure UnrealIRCd.

Step 1: Open the example.conf file and rename it as unrealircd.conf and move it to the main Unreal3.2 directory. (C:\Program Files\Unreal3.2 by default)

Step 2: Open up unrealircd.conf in a text editor.

Step 3: Do the following changes,

Necessary Modules

In unrealircd.conf locate the Linux and Windows module section near the top of the configuration file. Uncomment (Remove the two slashes in front of the lines) the two “loadmodule” lines for your server’s respective operating system.

 /*FOR Windows, uncomment the following 2 lines:*/  
 loadmodule "modules/commands.dll"; 
 loadmodule "modules/cloak.dll";

Me Block

After opening unrealircd.conf, locate the me {} block. Edit the name and the info lines with the server name and description that you want.

me { 
name "server.name";
info "Server Description"; 
numeric (server numeric*); 
};

Example:

me { 
name "irc.foonet.com";
info "FooNet Server";
numeric 1; };

Admin block

Locate the admin {} block and add in some information about the server admin (you). You can have as many or as little lines as you want here.

 admin { 
"first line"; 
"second line"; 
[etc] 
};

Example:

admin {
"Bob Smith";
"bob";
"widely@used.name";
};

Oper Block

Locate the oper {} block. Edit “YourName” in the first line of the block to what you want your oper login to be. You’ll also have to change the host in the “userhost” line to your own host.

oper (login) {
 class newclass
 from {
 userhost (ident@host);
 userhost (ident@host);
 };
 flags {
 (flags here*);
 };
};

Example:

oper test {
class clients;
from {
userhost *@*;
password "test1"; }; flags {
netadmin;
can_zline;
can_gzline;
can_gkline;
global;
};
};

Listen block

This defines a port for the ircd to bind to and to allow users/servers to
connect to the server.

listen (ip number):(port number)
 { 
options { 
(options here); 
}; 
};

Example:

listen 192.168.1.4:8067;
listen 192.168.1.4:6667;

Link Block

Next, move down to the services link block. If we are connecting 2 servers we need a  link {} setting to connect properly. We are not going to do that so we just remove the link block.

TLD Block

This sets a different motd and rules files depending on the clients hostmask.

tld { 
mask (ident@host);
 motd "(motd file)";
 rules "(rules file)"; 
};

 Example:

tld { 
mask *@*.fr; 
motd "ircd.motd.fr"; 
rules "ircd.rules.fr"; 
};

Note that if we delete the above block, the a defaults (ircd.motd.fr, ircd.rules.fr) will be used by everyone.

Network Settings Block

Find the network settings block and change the network-name, default-server, services-server, stats-server and hidden-host prefix lines to your own network name.

Next you’ll have to change all three cloak keys to three random strings of numbers and letters. Cloak keys should be the same at all servers on the network. They are used for generating masked hosts and should be kept secret. The keys should be 3 random strings of 5-100 characters, (10-20 chars is just fine) and must consist of lowcase (a-z), upcase (A-Z) and digits (0-9).

After that, change the host block within the network settings block to your own network name. The host-on-oper-up value can be either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Setting it to yes will automatically give people, when they oper up, the host specified for their position.

set { 
network-name "ROXnet";
default-server "irc.roxnet.org"; 
services-server "services.roxnet.org"; 
stats-server "stats.roxnet.org"; 
help-channel "#ROXnet"; 
hiddenhost-prefix "rox"; 
cloak-keys { 
"aoAr1HnR6gl3sJ7hVz4Zb7x4YwpW"; 
"90jioIOjhiUIOH877h87UGU898hgF"; 
"IOjiojiio8990UHUHij89KJBBKU898"; }; 
hosts { 
local "locop.roxnet.org"; 
global "ircop.roxnet.org"; 
coadmin "coadmin.roxnet.org"; 
admin "admin.roxnet.org"; 
servicesadmin "csops.roxnet.org"; 
netadmin "netadmin.roxnet.org"; 
host-on-oper-up "no"; 
}; 
};

Server settings Block

Change the kline-address to a working email address so that people who get banned can contact you. TheMaxchannelsperuser  is the maximum number of channels a user can be logged in. Anti-spam-quit-message-time  is the minimum time a user must be connected before being allowed to use a QUIT message. This will hopefully help stop spam. Oper-only-stats allows you to make certain stats oper only, use * for all stats, leave it out to allow users to see all stats.The Throttle is the limit of connection attempts per second per user.

set {
kline-address "test@test.com";
modes-on-connect "+ixw";
modes-on-oper "+xwgs";
oper-auto-join "#opers";
maxchannelsperuser 10;
anti-spam-quit-message-time 10s;
oper-only-stats "okfGsMRUEelLCXzdD";
throttle {
connections 3;
period 60s;
};
anti-flood {
nick-flood 3:60;
}; spamlter {
ban-time 1d;
ban-reason "Spam/Advertising";
virus-help-channel "#help";
}; };

Step 4: Save the file unrealircd.conf.
Step 5: Now double-click the UnrealIRCd icon on the desktop. After that go to default UnrealIRCd folder and open the file service.log. If the IRCd configuration is loaded without any errors then the file should have text something like this,

* Loading IRCd conguration . .
* Configuration loaded without any problems . .

Note: To connect to your IRC server, IRC client is required.

Thats it. Hope this post was helpful. 🙂

Secure any text message using ENCIPHER.IT

Hi all,

With all the Hacking news revolving around, I thought I may post something related to security. So this post is all about ENCIPHER.IT, which can be used to secure text messages by using encryption & decryption in Google mail, Facebook or any other site.

About ENCIPHER.IT, it’s just a simple bookmarklet that allows you to encrypt and decrypt messages before you send them. Encipher.it will encrypt your message using Symmetric key encryption implemented with AES256 and PDBKF2 key generation and it also uses SSL Digital certificate. The whole encryption and decryption is performed in your browser using JavaScript, so no data leaves your browser in plain text.

Step 1: Move on to ENCIPHER.IT homepage & get the bookmarklet, you can save that in your web browser. Step 2: Login to Google mail, Facebook or any other site and type your message and click the bookmark, when asked for password provide that.Step 3: To decrypt the same text click the same bookmark and enter the same password which you had provided to encrypt the text.

Now remember, if you are going to send encrypted text to your friend you’ve to first inform them beforehand the password. ENCIPHER.IT website also provides a Try it section, which is very useful if you don’t have a bookmarklet.

Hope this post was helpful 🙂

How to disable Auto Login in Ubuntu 11.04

Hi all,
Did you note the automatic Login when you turn on your ubuntu machine?
I have disabled it successfully and this is how I have done.

I will explain 2 methods, you can use any one of the 2 methods,
Method 1:

1) Open up a Terminal.

2) Copy & paste the following code into the terminal,
 sudo gedit /etc/gdm/custom.conf

This will open a file custom.conf, whose contents will be as follows,
[daemon] 
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=user 
TimedLoginEnable=false

4) Now, change the value of AutomaticLoginEnable to False.

5) Save the file & Restart your machine.

Method 2:
The other way to disable Automatic Login is,

1) In menu goto System >> Administration >> Login Screen

2) This will open a Login Screen settings like this,
 3) Now change the settings to Show the screen for choosing who will
   login, as shown in the below figure.

You can now restart your system and see that you have diabled automatic Login.
Hope this post was helpful 🙂

Readability – Firefox Add-on that makes reading webpages easier

Hi all,

Readability is a Firefox add-on that makes reading web pages easier. By activating the Readability add-on on a particular web page, it compresses the original web page & displays only the main contents of that page (i.e. text).

So that we can easily go through the important data in a website by skipping the ads, images etc. You can activate it by just clicking the readability icon on Firefox status bar (or) by using the below keyboard shortcuts. By right clicking on the readability icon you can get other Styling Options.

Keyboard Shortcut	Usage
CTRL + ALT + R	To activate Readability
CTRL + R	To return to the Original page
CTRL + SHIFT + A	To activate Autoscroll
0 to 9	To Set scroll speed
–	To Decrease scrolling speed
=	To Increase scrolling speed
SHIFT + –	To Decrease scrolling speed quickly
SHIFT + =	To Increase scrolling speed quickly
ESC or q	Quit

For Mac users

Keyboard Shortcut	Usage
Command + Option + R	To activate Readability
Command + R	To return to the Original page

For more information & downloads visit this site.
Happy reading 🙂