juno

Yes.
It really is an IRC daemon.
It's written in Perl.

...

You can breathe again.
There. Very good.

Introduction

This is juno, a seriously modern IRC daemon written from scratch in Perl. Really.

Perl is the right language for IRC. IRC is chock full of various strings and other what not, all of which is easily parsed by Perl, where the C IRC daemons jump through all kinds of hoops and have really nasty looking code (have you ever looked at the Undernet IRC daemon?) Whereas this is, in my opinion, very clean.

This software will hopefully surprise you with its novel features and functionality. It's super easy to install and even comes with a working configuration, so go ahead and try it already.

Come chat with us at #k on irc.notroll.net too.

Features

There are a lot! But here are some things that make juno stand out.

You can

• Upgrade an entire network without restarting any servers.
• Check out the latest version from git via IRC.
• Modify server configuration dynamically from IRC.
• Link a complex network of various IRCds and services packages spanning multiple server protocols.
• Write modules for the easy-to-use event-based module API.
• Or rather, beg us to add the features you want.

Plus, juno

• Is free and open-source.
• Is written in Perl, making it fun and easy to tinker with.
• Is extensively documented.
• Is excessively configurable.
• Despite that, ships with a working configuration and runs out-of-the-box.
• Consists entirely of modules and therefore can be as minimal or as bloated as you're comfortable with.
• Supports the latest IRCv3 standards.
• Supports multiple linking protocols, including several TS variants and a custom user-extensible protocol.
• Supports Atheme, PyLink and probably other IRC services packages.

Concepts

• Eventedness: The core unifying policy of juno is the excessive use of events. Just about any operation that occurs is represented as an event. This is made possible by Evented::Object, the base of every class within the IRCd.

# if it's a server, add the $PROTO_message events
if (my $server = $connection->server) {
    my $proto = $server->{link_type};
    push @events, [ $server, "${proto}_message"        => $msg ],
                  [ $server, "${proto}_message_${cmd}" => $msg ];
    $msg->{_physical_server} = $server;
}

# fire the events
my $fire = $connection->prepare(@events)->fire('safe');

• Extensibility: Through the use of events and other mechanisms, extensibility is another important guideline around which juno is designed. It should not be assumed that any commands, modes, prefixes, etc. are fixed or finite. They should be changeable, replaceable, and unlimited.

[ modes: channel ]
    no_ext        = [ mode_normal, 'n' ]    # no external channel messages
    protect_topic = [ mode_normal, 't' ]    # only ops can set the topic
    ban           = [ mode_list,   'b' ]    # ban
    except        = [ mode_list,   'e' ]    # ban exception
    limit         = [ mode_pset,   'l' ]    # user limit
    forward       = [ mode_pset,   'f' ]    # channel forward mode
    key           = [ mode_key,    'k' ]    # keyword for entry

• Modularity: By responding to events, modules add new features and functionality. Without them, juno is made up of under thirty lines of code. Modules work together to create a single functioning body whose parts can be added, removed, and modified dynamically. This is made possible by the Evented::API::Engine, a class that manages modules and automatically tracks their events.

Ban::TS6 10.6
   TS6 ban propagation
   TS6 CAPABILITIES
       BAN, KLN, UNKLN
   TS6 COMMANDS
       BAN, ENCAP_DLINE, ENCAP_KLINE, ENCAP_NICKDELAY
       ENCAP_RESV, ENCAP_UNDLINE, ENCAP_UNKLINE
       ENCAP_UNRESV, KLINE, RESV, UNKLINE, UNRESV
   OUTGOING TS6 COMMANDS
       BAN, BANDEL, BANINFO

• Upgradability: The beauty of Perl's malleable symbol table makes it possible for an entire piece of software to be upgraded or reloaded without restarting it. With the help of the Evented::API::Engine and with modularity as a central principle, juno aims to do exactly that. With just one command, you can jump up one or one hundred versions, all without your users disconnecting.

*** Update: k.notroll.net git repository updated to version 12.88 (juno12-mihret-209-g269c83c)
*** Reload: k.notroll.net upgraded from 12.48 to 12.88 (up 88 versions since start)

• Configurability: Very few values are hard coded. Many have defaults, but nearly everything is configurable. In spite of that, the included working configuration is minimal and easy-to-follow. This is made possible by Evented::Configuration. Real-time modification of the configuration is also feasible, thanks to Evented::Database.

[ listen: 0.0.0.0 ]
    port    = [6667..6669, 7000]
    sslport = [6697]
    ts6port = [7050]

[ ssl ]
    cert = 'etc/ssl/cert.pem'   
    key  = 'etc/ssl/key.pem'    

• Efficiency: Modern IRC servers have a higher per-user load and therefore must be prompt at fulfilling requests. Utilizing the wonderful IO::Async framework, juno is quite reactive.

Setup and operation

Installation

Before installing juno, install the tools for a common building environment (a compiler, make, etc.) Below is an example on a Debian-based distribution. Also install a few Perl modules from the CPAN:

sudo apt-get install build-essential # or similar
cpanm --sudo IO::Async IO::Socket::IP Socket::GetAddrInfo JSON JSON::XS DBD::SQLite

Once you've installed the appropriate Perl packages, clone the repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/cooper/juno.git
# OR (whichever is available on your git)
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/cooper/juno.git

If your git does not support recursive cloning, or if you forgot to specify, run git submodule update --init to check out the submodules.

Next, pick a release. The default branch is master which is the development branch and might be broken at any given moment.

git checkout juno13-ava

Now set up SSL if you want or skip to the configuration.

SSL setup

If you wish to use SSL on the server, install libssl and the following Perl module:

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
cpanm --sudo IO::Async::SSL

You will now need to run ./juno genssl to generate your self-signed SSL certificate.

In the configuration, use the sslport key in your listen block(s) to specify the port(s) on which to listen for secure connections. If you're setting up connect blocks with the ssl option enabled, you will also need to listen on more port(s) using the format: <protocol name>sslport; e.g. ts6sslport.

Configuration

juno comes with a working example configuration. So if you want to try it with next to no effort, just copy etc/ircd.conf.example to etc/ircd.conf. The password for the default oper account admin is k.

The configuration is, for the most part, self-explanitory. Anything that might be questionable probably has a comment that explains it. Explanations of all options are available in the configuration spec.

Note that, because juno ships with a configuration suitable for fiddling, the default values in the limit block are rather low. A production IRC server will likely require less strict limits on connection and client count, for example.

Operation

Most actions for managing the IRC server are committed with the juno script.

usage: ./juno [action]
    start       start juno IRCd
    forcestart  attempt to start juno under any circumstances
    stop        terminate juno IRCd
    debug       start in NOFORK mode with printed output
    forever     run continuously
    foreverd    run continuously in debug mode
    rehash      rehash the server configuration file
    mkpasswd    runs the password generator
    dev         various developer actions (./juno dev help)
    help        print this information

• start: Runs the server in the background as a daemon.

• forcestart: Runs the server in the background, ignoring the PID file if it appears to already be running.

• stop: Terminates the IRCd if it is currently running.

• debug: Runs the IRCd in the foreground, printing the logging output.

• forever: Runs the IRCd continuously in the background. In other words, if it is stopped for any reason (such as a crash or exploit or SHUTDOWN), it will immediately start again. Don't worry though, it will not stress out your processor if it fails over and over.

• foreverd: Runs the IRCd continuously in the foreground, printing the logging output.

• rehash: Notifies the currently-running server to reload its configuration file.

• mkpasswd: Runs the script for generating encrypted passwords for use in oper and connect blocks in the server configuration.

• dev: Includes a number of subcommand tools for developers; see ./juno dev help.

On Windows, start juno with juno-start.bat.

Upgrading

To upgrade an existing repository, run the following commands:

git pull origin master
git submodule update --init

OR

Use the UPDATE command (provided by the Git module) to update the current repository. It will report the version of the repository to you after checking out.

THEN

Assuming the Reload module is loaded on your server, use the RELOAD command to upgrade the server without restarting. This usually works. However, because there are no stable releases, the possibility for this to fail certainly exists.

Currently, the best way to know whether the RELOAD command is safe on a production server is to check with the developers, providing your current IRCd version. Perhaps one day we will have stable releases that are known to upgrade without error.

Information

Contact

Go to #k on irc.notroll.net.

If you discover a reproducible bug, please file an issue.

Author

Mitchell Cooper, [email protected]

juno was my first project in Perl — ever. Scary, right? Luckily it's been through several years of constant improvement, including a few rewrites. I am awfully proud of the cleanliness of the current codebase, which dates back to juno3.

License

Released under the three-clause "New" BSD license. A copy should be included in the root directory of all instances of this software.