Unreal 3.4-alpha1 & 3.2.10.4 released

News about the UnrealIRCd project, including release announcements
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Syzop
UnrealIRCd head coder
Posts: 2112
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2004 8:57 pm
Location: .nl
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Unreal 3.4-alpha1 & 3.2.10.4 released

Post by Syzop »

Finally.. the first alpha version of UnrealIRCd 3.4 is out! Plus a small update to the 3.2.x stable series...

3.4-alpha1 (development version)
Major enhancements compared to 3.2.x are:
  • We moved a lot of channel modes and user modes to modules and at the same time improved the module system, this means:
    • You can now easily choose not to load a particular feature if you don't like it (we will be moving more in next few versions!)
    • It also makes it easier for coders to see all source code related to a specific feature
    • Enables you to fix / "patch" something and reload the module rather than needing to restart the IRCd.
  • The I/O engine has been rewritten. This makes the IRCd feel a lot more 'responsive' and can potentially accept a lot more users. Still, the entire system is not as stable as 3.2.x yet.
  • The SSL version of the IRCd will now boot even if you have no SSL certificates. This means you can safely compile with SSL support even if you don't intend to use it straight away. This also means we only provide the SSL version of Windows downloads now, if you insist on not using SSL then simply don't make a server.*.pem certificate.
  • Behind-the-scenes: Source code cleanups, enhancements, memory pooling, simplifying the code, all to make the source better and also more readable for (new) developers. This should make it easier for the community to contribute patches.
  • There have been some configuration changes, Unreal 3.4 will not boot with your existing 3.2.x unrealircd.conf! (see below)
This version is not suitable for production servers. In fact, since it's the first alpha version of 3.4 it is likely to contain quite some bugs and may even crash occasionally!
Still, if you have some spare time to test and/or are just curious, then try it out! Please report any issues you find on http://bugs.unrealircd.org/ -- your help is really appreciated!

In an earlier post I already wrote some history about UnrealIRCd development the past few years and the challenges for us to move forward. Let me just summarize it by saying it was a lot of work, and I and the project as a whole had a lot of setbacks. This makes the release of the first alpha only more special, we're finally getting somewhere, so I'm really happy about this.
Also, Heero has joined the development team for UnrealIRCd 3.4 and hopefully others will join in soon as well! (interested? contact [email protected])

There'll still be many changes to come in 3.4.x, this alpha1 version is by no means feature-complete! We will be using the UnrealIRCd survey results as a guideline, plus of course our own ideas.

Configuration changes:

Code: Select all

You can use your 3.2.x unrealircd.conf WITH SOME CHANGES:
* In your me { } block, change your "numeric" to "sid", and change the
  value as follows: pick a 3 character Server ID that starts with a digit.
  For example: numeric "1"; becomes: sid "001";
* The commands module is gone and replaced with 100+ individual modules:
  1) Remove the loadmodule lines for commands.so and cloak.so
  2) Add the following line to your unrealircd.conf:
     include "modules.conf";
* For any remaining loadmodule lines you can (and should!) now use the
  shorter syntax. Instead of:
  loadmodule "src/modules/somemodule.so";
  You should now use:
  loadmodule "modules/somemodule";
  UnrealIRCd will figure out the exact name of the module. It doesn't
  matter if you are on Windows or *NIX, and if your modules are in
  src/modules/ or in modules/.

3.2.10.4 (stable)
I've also released an update to the 3.2.x stable series: 3.2.10.4.
Two major issues are addressed in this version:
  • Fix for a compile problem on FreeBSD and other OS's where clang is used as the default compiler.
  • Fix for services such as anope 2.x where you may log in by account name rather than identify for a nickname. Now when you log in to such services you can join +R channels and speak in +M channels just like you expect to.
In addition to this, the Windows version is now using the latest OpenSSL/cURL/etc. libraries.

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