Configuring UnrealIRCD3.2+ on windows including portforwarding and domain forwarding.


Hello I'm Alexandra.
After helping multiple friends set up IRC servers on windows using UnrealIRCD It got suggested to me that I write a quick guide... And as it was commented to me that the guides on the internet are not always as easy to understand for new comers.
I have seen a Windows guide for UnrealIRCD on here already although it was unsubstantial and somebody said that most of it was "pasted from the UnrealIRCD guide" also I thought it didn't explain fully enough what to do.

Downloading UnrealIRC3.2

1. Go to http://www.unrealircd.com and download "3.2.8.1 Win32" (Be sure not Win32 Ssl this guide is for non ssl)
2. During the download and installation you need to click download as a service along the way.
3. Once you have downloaded it go to your computer then your C drive then go to program files then down to Unreal3.2

If you use Vista
If you use vista you will need to add yourself to permissions to edit the config file, to do this you need to right click the Unreal3.2 file and go down to properties, then in that tab go to security. Then in the "Group or Usernames:" section click "Users (Admin-PC\Users)" and then go to Edit - Then Highlight "Users (Admin-PC\Users)" again and below there will be a check window, check Full control and press "Apply" then "Ok".
You can now join the rest of the guide.

(Note:By doing this you have added yourself to permissions to be able to edit the configuration file for UnrealIRCD. Xp users do not have this problem as if they are running admin they can edit it anyway. Also you must be running admin to edit permissions.)

Editing the configuration file

1. Open up My Computer > Your C: File > Programme Files > Unreal3.2
2. In Unreal3.2 go to the folder named "Doc" - In there open up Example (Config file), It may ask you to say what programme to open it with, If it does open with Notepad.
3. Go back to the main Unreal3.2 file and create a new notepad file - copy and paste the whole of the "Example" file that you opened a minute ago into the new notepad. Now save that file as "unrealircd.conf" by saving it as name unrealircd.conf you have recognised that file as a config file. Check this by after saving it looking in your Unreal3.2 and checking that "unrealircd" is saved as a CONF file.
4. Open up this Unrealircd (Conf file) if you have not already - you are now ready to edit the config file.
Note that the codes that you edit are not the only ones you need so don't go deleteing the whole file and just adding the ones below.

Scroll down to where you see this:

You need to "uncomment" the modules like this-

Now scroll down to where the me { block is

(Note: The name doesn't have to be an actual Domain name.)
Admin block:

This is what will come up when you do the /admin command, This is fairly unimportant but still.
Now scroll down to the operblock-

Important to note here that this is what you use to identify yourself as an operator - I tend to find that it is case sensitive so that is somthing you need to consider.

Now scroll down to the listen block.

It is important to delete the ssl; bit from here as we are not compiling for ssl (and this is not the ssl version).
Listen is the ports that people can connect through, note that 6667 is the default port for most Irc servers.

Now scroll to the link block.

We delete this as we are not linking yet, this is used to link to other servers to make a network and also to link to services, I'm not using this guide for Anope services at the moment although I can/will make a guide for that later on.

As with the above we are not configuring this for services so you can leave this or delete it.

Now scroll down to the tld { block - This is used to display a different motd file to people from different countries. I'm not setting this up as most people speak english, Delete this block otherwise it will cause a directory error when you start up.
Delete this:


Now scroll down to "/* Network configuration */" (Set block.)
This is generally where you set it up yourself. Most of the time it doesn't matter if you dont keep the addresses uniform although it helps when you configure anope services. I'll show you mine as an example.

cloak-keys are what Unreal uses to hide your ip, you need three and they need to be different, in the example file you can just copy the same one into each area and just change 5-10 chars of each.
Hosts { is not really needed but to complete that block I added them anyway. These are the hosts that are given to each "strand" of oper, "host-on-oper-up "no"; means that this feature is off at the moment. If you want to change your host as oper you can do /sethost host or use HostServ if you have Anope services compiled.

Now scroll to the next set block, this doesn't need to be changed mush although there are some key things to be considerd.


Another block I normally add is the DNS block:


Although this block has met me with some trial and tribulation as i'm not entirely sure that I need it. But it works for me so whatever. (:
Save the file and open up UnrealIRCD, it should start fine if it doesn't post the errors here. On mIRC or SwiftKit you can now do /server -m 127.0.01 (with unrealircd running) and this will connect you to your irc server on a local server.

Port Forwarding
People will not be able to connect to your server until you portforward which is where you direct connections towards port 6667 (and therefore the IrcD). Port forwarding is done differently depending on what modem you have.
I found this website very useful - http://www.portforward.com it has most of the main modems. Basically what you have to do is forward connections to your local ip on port 6667- Mine looks like this

After port forwarding users will be able to connect through your ip.

Forwarding domains to your Irc server.
Possibly the most simple thing to explain. All you need to do is go to http://www.afraid.org and let them host a domain for you. You need to get a registerd domain before getting them to host it (you dont just get a domain by entering it in their database). If you dont want to spend money on a domain you can get a free one from http://www.co.cc When logged into afraid.org you can make subdomains - the default one to make is irc.yourdomain.co.cc although you can use almost anything like on swiftirc you'll see tripwire.uk.eu.swiftirc.net "tripwire.uk.eu" replaces "irc". You then need to direct this subdomain to your ip which will in turn direct the connection to the local ip which will connect them to your irc server.

I hope you find this guide useful and if you have any questions you can memo me on irc nickname Alexandra or post here.

-Lexy

Nice guide Lexy!This will really help noobs like me with IRC servers. Thanks for helping me set up my server earlier

*is one of the friends she helped*, lol, you definitely helped 400% times more than the only other guide I could find about it. Thank you very much

This is a guide about configuring unrealircd on windows, not compiling. Compiling involves a third party piece of software in this case a C compilrer (unreal 3.2.* is still C I think)

Overall it is not a bad guide for the quickie setup

Although, if your going to run an irc server, I suggest spending more then 5-10 minutes setting up your config

Fair comment, This is more for somebody that wants a quickie set up just to experience the basics, for people who are coming from a background of knowing next to nothing - I now run mine on linux rarther than windows.. And yeah compileing configuring - I wrote it at about 2:30am forgive

You still want a tld block to allow a user to view the motd and rules.


The file doesn't have to specifically be named 'ircd.motd' or 'ircd.rules'.


/ADMIN is not unimportant. ADMIN is the only command that a client can send to the server when shunned (that will actually work..). It is useful in finding a contact e-mail to use in case of server errors, etc.

For deleting the tld block, to be more clear I mean that I wasn't going to bother setting up things for *.fr hosts etc. And yeah you are right so for it to be correct it should say delete the country specific bits.
I'm leaving this guide as it is anyway; any comments and criticisms can be posted and then if anyone uses it they can read the posts.

~Lexy

EDIT: Correct where I say Irc is a programme with protocol. ^ UnrealIRCd is the programme.

For some reason the geniuses at unreal didnt think to ship the package with a default ircd.motd and ircd.rules

Because it's not required and takes two seconds to do it on your own. They don't include an ircd.log either.