Install & Configuring an IRC Bouncer (ZNC) on Linux
This is a guide to installing the ZNC IRC Bouncer. The guide assumes you have a fair level of competency with Linux software and command-line tools but having said that nothing done here is very difficult.
NOTE: If you have ZNC installed and just want to configure and connect to irc servers and start joining channels and going idle then skip this entire process and go for the second section, the configurations.
A Bouncer (BNC) is an IRC term for software that acts as a proxy between you and an IRC server. You can read more about the BNC concept over at
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_%28software%29
And there is also the invaluable
ZNC Wiki - http://wiki.znc.in/ZNC
which is an excellent reference.
ZNC is the best BNC software that exists. There are several other BNC programs including irssi, psyBNC, ShroudBNC, BNC and Night Light. Feel free to check them out but I haven't used better software than ZNC.
Using Ubuntu/Debian
Other packages you will need for compiling ZNC include: libperl-dev, libc-ares2, libc-ares-dev & pkg-config. If these are not installed on your system already you will need to be root in order to add them or have your system administrator install them.
So after connecting, switch to the root user by typing
sudo -i
Then
1- Installing dependencies
# aptitude install libperl-dev libc-ares2 libc-ares-dev pkg-config build-essential
If you'd like to compile znc with SSL support (recommended) you will need to make sure you have the OpenSSL development package installed. The Debian version of this package is named libssl-dev.
# aptitude install libssl-dev
Note: install any dependancies that libssl-dev may have.
Note that if you don’t have root permissions (the default case if you’re renting a seedbox slot) you’ll have to ask your provider to install the following packages:
-build-essential
-libssl-dev
-libperl-dev
-pkg-config
However, it is likely they’re already installed.
Note: I'm not sure what version of linux you got so if aptitude is not available for any reason, here are same thing using apt-get
To update the package sources and packages installed on the system type:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
After a moment, it’ll prompt you to answer whether or not you wish to install the listed packages. Type “Yes” and press “Enter”.
Once the upgrade process is done it will be time to install the aforementioned dependencies. The command used to install these is:
apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libperl-dev pkg-config
It’ll ask you for confirmation to install the packages and their dependencies. Type “Yes” and press enter to install the packages.
2- Installing ZNC
As we are no longer required to utilize the root user, type “exit” and this will bring us back into the regular user environment.
Navigate to your preferred source compiling directory. I usually use /home/USERNAME/src/ but you'll need to make sure you use a directory you have write permissions for.
We need to grab the latest stable version from the ZNC website via terminal. Check the latest stable sources at
http://znc.in/releases/
https://github.com/znc/znc/releases/
To download the file, type:
wget http:/ /znc.in/releases/znc-latest.tar.gz
Now we extract it using:
tar -xzvf znc*.*gz
Once this is done we are navigating into the directory:
cd znc*
We want to install ZNC in our home directory and not globally since unless you have root access, you will probably not be able to install znc system wide so you will need to specify a location which you have write access to. I suggest something like /home/USERNAME/local/znc/ so we are using the “Home” prefix in this step. Type this while being located in the ZNC directory and press “Enter”.
./configure --prefix="/your/chosen/install/directory"
You may add --with-openssl=/path/to/openssl if you have a non-standard OpenSSL installation.
If you get an error regarding memory usage then add --disable-optimization to your ./configure command and gcc will need less memory.
After the configure command being applied, it will take a short moment and once it’s done, we follow the instructions provided by the configure process and type
$ make
Note: Compiling can take 5 - 10 minutes or more depending on your hardware. If your server has a multicore processor you can use make -jX where 'X' is the number of cores your machine has. This should allow for faster building.
Once the build process is over type
$ make install
3- Configuration of ZNC
The last step is all about configuring the now installed ZNC. According to your installing directory type:
/home/USERNAME/local/znc/bin/znc --makeconf
- Listen on port (1025 to 65534): 65500 (Port number you will connect to your server on)
- Listen using SSL (yes/no) [no]: yes (no, if you don't want to use SSL)
- Listen using both IPv4 and IPv6 (yes/no) [yes]: no (yes, if you know what you are doing)
-- Admin user settings --
- Username (alphanumeric): zu (username you will connect to your server with)
Enter password:
Confirm password:
- Nick [zu]: (This username should be your site nick for the IRC network you are connecting to)
- Alternate nick [zu_]: zu_
- Ident [zu]: zu (You can have whatever you'd like here, its what appears before the @your.server.ip)
- Real name [Got ZNC?]: zu (Don't put your real name here)
- Set up a network? (yes/no) [yes]: n (You may add one new or later through the webadmin in the browser)
- Listen Host (Blank for all ips): (if you have more than one IP, ZNC can listen on only one or as many as you'd like)
- Do you want to load any global modules? (yes/no): yes (You can select yes if you'd like to add any global modules, webadmin etc...)
You'll have to decide which modules you'd like to add for each user. I usually use chansaver, keepnick, disconkick, nickserv, kickrejoin and perform. The full list is here.
To access the web interface, use your server’s hostname and the port you chose in the first step of the setup assistant. Make sure you’re using https.
The easiest method of ZNC configuration is via the webadmin module. Make sure you add the webadmin global module during initial setup or SSH into your server and edit the configuration file (usually ~/.znc/configs/znc.conf). Look at the global options at the top of the file. You may or may not see an entry which looks like this: LoadModule = webadmin. If it is there then we'll add some options and if it isn't then add it and add the following options.
LoadModule = webadmin -noircport SERVER_IP_ADDRESS_OR_HOSTNAME PORT_YOU_WISH_TO_CONNECT_TO
Save and exit the file then enter the following:
/etc/init.d/znc restart
This will restart ZNC and apply the changes you have made. Now point your browser to https://[SERVER_IP_OR_HOSTNAME]:[PORT]/ and you should be greeted with a login prompt. You can login with any of the credentials already setup within ZNC (any of the users) but I suggest logging in as the admin user so you can see all the options available.
You’ll see the configuration screen as shown below. The “Network Name” is how you want the network to be titled within ZNC - you may use any name you like. However, be sure you do not use spaces or special characters in the name. Select all the IRC settings you want to be used and add the IRC server. Use “+” in front of the port number for SSL.
http://funkyimg.com/i/2e2aF.jpg
After this, to quickly connect to your znc connection of the added network simply time in mIRC this
/server [Ip_Address]:[Port_Number] [User_Name]/[Network_Name]:[Password]
Of course the use and the password is your znc user and password.
Using Fedora
Now I must mention that I tested all this on Fedora not Debian. So here what commands you'll need in Fedora following same instructions. You may simply run (may use dnf instead of yum)
sudo yum install znc
Once installed you can configure znc by running:
sudo -u znc znc --makeconf
Then finally to start it you can run:
sudo systemctl start znc
Or you can install it the same exact way like we did in Debian to get the most recent version. And here are the commands
sudo -i
yum install make automake gcc gcc-c++ kernel-devel
yum install openssl-devel
yum install pkgconfig
wget http:/ /znc.in/releases/znc-latest.tar.gz
tar -xzvf znc*.*gz
cd znc*
./configure --prefix="$HOME/.local"
/home/user/.local/bin/znc --makeconf
So it's basically same thing just using yum/dnf and the correct packages names for Fedora.
Restart ZNC automatically (in case of a machine reboot, crash, etc.)
- Connect to your seedbox through SSH or open terminal in case you are on the machine.
- Open your crontab file using the command
crontab -e
- Enter the jobs you want to schedule in the editor (one per line) which in our case would be
*/10 * * * * /usr/local/bin/znc >/dev/null 2>&1
- Hit Ctrl-x to exit. Press Y then Enter to save changes.
This cron will execute ZNC regularly. If there is already one copy of ZNC running on a particular config file, new copies won't be spawned. This will check if ZNC is running every 10 minutes.
The correct job syntax for restarting ZNC is @reboot /home/user/znc/bin/znc.
Congrats. ZNC is installed and ready for connecting and idling !!
