pissircd/doc/RELEASE-NOTES.md

UnrealIRCd 5.2.4 Release Notes

This release fixes a crash bug that can be triggered by ordinary users.

Fixes:

• Fix crash that can be triggered by regular users if you have any deny dcc blocks in the config or any spamfilters with the d (DCC) target. NOTE: You don't have to upgrade to 5.2.4 to fix this, you can also hot-patch this issue without restart, see the news announcement.

Also important:

• UnrealIRCd 6 is the new "stable"
• UnrealIRCd 5.2.x ("oldstable") end of support dates:
  • Bug fixes until July 1, 2022 (no more feature enhancements)
  • Security fixes until July 1, 2023

UnrealIRCd 5.2.3

This release contains a couple of small changes.

Enhancements:

• Spanish example conf was added (conf/help/example.es.conf)

Fixes:

• set::anti-flood::connect-flood was only expiring entries every 2 minutes. Only after a REHASH the configuration file setting was used.
• Memory leak in websocket module
• Send WALLOPS back to the sender too

Changes:

• Update HELPOP docs
• Add information on EOL date
• Add CONTRIBUTING.md file with a reference to docs on how people can help out.

UnrealIRCd 5.2.2

Previous release 5.2.1.1 turned out to be good and stable. This 5.2.2 release only contains some minor changes.

If you are still using UnrealIRCd 5.0.x then we recommend you to upgrade to 5.2.2 in the next few weeks/months. Just as a reminder: 5.2.x is the direct successor to 5.0.9, there is no support for 5.0.x.

Fixes:

• Fix issues with Let's Encrypt certificates for remote includes (quite common) and with linking to servers with link::verify-certificate enabled (more rare). Both issues only happen with:
  • OpenSSL 1.0.2 and older, which is officially unsupported, but still in use on e.g. Debian 8 and Ubuntu 16.04.
  • LibreSSL, such as with UnrealIRCd on Windows
• OpenBSD compile issue when using shipped c-ares

Enhancements:

• set::allowed-nickchars: added arabic-utf8
• set::server-linking: add another autoconnect-strategy called sequential-fallback.

Changes:

• Shipped libs: updated c-ares to 1.17.2
• Windows build: updated LibreSSL to 3.3.5

Module coders / IRC protocol:

• S2S: Allow SVSLOGIN also when set::sasl-server is not set.
• Some minor CHATHISTORY fixes, for example the subcommand is now case-insensitive.
• You can use the new UNREAL_VERSION macro. It is easier than the old individual UNREAL_VERSION_MAJOR/MINOR/etc macros.

UnrealIRCd 5.2.1.1

UnrealIRCd 5.2.1.1 fixes an issue with SASL services autodetection and mechlist in 5.2.1.

UnrealIRCd 5.2.1

This is UnrealIRCd 5.2.1. Even though only a month has passed since 5.2.0, this release comes with several new features and some major bug fixes. Please report any issues to https://bugs.unrealircd.org/.

Enhancements:

• The allow block now uses allow::mask instead of allow::ip and allow::hostname. Users upgrading will receive a warning but the server will continue to boot.
• New documentation for mask items in the configuration file to show how it works with 1 or more mask items in a block. Also support for negative matching has been improved and we now support extended server ban syntax.
• Combining the new options from above you can do things like:
  • allow { mask ~a:TrustedUser; class flooders; maxperip 100; } If TrustedUser authenticates to services using SASL then he gets in the special class "flooders" with a maxperip of 100.
  • allow { mask { ~S:112233etc; ~S:anotherone; }; class clients; maxperip 10; } Users matching one of these certificate fingerprints get a high maximum per ip of 10.
• New block set::server-linking
  • For link blocks with autoconnect we now default to the strategy 'sequential', meaning we will try the 1st link block first, then the 2nd, then the 3rd, then the 1st again, etc.
  • We now have different and lower timeouts for the connect and the handshake. So we give up a bit more early on servers that are currently down or extremely lagged.
• New security-group block item called include-mask. This can be used to put clients matching a mask into a security group.
• New option lag-penalty and lag-penalty-bytes in the set::anti-flood block.
  • known-users can now executes commands at a slightly faster rate than unknown-users.
  • It can further be used to allow really trusted users/bots to execute commands at even higher rates, such as 20 commands per second, without making them IRCOp. This explained in FAQ: How to allow users to send more commands per second.
• The REHASH command is now sufficient to reload SSL/TLS certificates. You no longer need to use REHASH -tls. The same is true for ./unrealircd rehash which now also does the extra steps in ./unrealircd reloadtls. The commands will stay, though, in case you only want to reload the TLS certificates and not rehash the entire configuration file.
• Support for OpenSSL 3.0.0
• Show microseconds in TSCTL ALLTIME
• The git version id is now shown in the INFO command on *NIX (ReleaseId).
• Extban ~a:* now matches all authenticated users and ~a:0 matches all unauthenticated users.
• Allow multiple masks in the deny link { } block

Fixes:

• When using persistent channel history: if you had ANY rehash error (often completely unrelated to channel history) and you then rehashed again UnrealIRCd would crash.
• When server syncing larger channels we could accidentally skip over or forget to send a few users. These users would then not be shown on the other side of the link but are actually in the channel (ghosts)
• When using autoconnect on (very) big networks, the network no longer breaks down (with the new default strategy 'sequential')
• The default ban exemption on 127.* was too broad. It also matched hostnames that started with it, allowing such users to bypass gline/kline/shun (but not zline/gzline).
• Channel mode +d (so after -D) never took QUITs into account properly. This should now fix things, so the channel goes -d immediately once it is no longer needed.
• Windows log file maximum size exceeded did not start a new log file
• Give a better error message when trying to use an unconfirmed account with authprompt.

Module coders / IRC protocol:

• We now assume all services set the SVID field. If your services only sets umode +r and does not use SVSLOGIN or SVSMODE nick +d SVID then users will not be recognized as authenticated anymore.
• In the UID command we now validate the UID (parameter 6) to start with the SID and contains digits and uppercase only.
• Servers can no longer change moddata of remote clients. That is, it is disabled by default, but modules can still allow it for certain moddata via mreq.remote_write=1. You can use #if UNREAL_VERSION_TIME >= 202125 to detect if this new .remote_write option is available.
• Removed HCN from 005, since nobody uses this anyway.

UnrealIRCd 5.2.0

The two main new features in 5.2.0 are: an improved and more flexible anti-flood block and channel history which can now be stored encrypted on disk and allows clients to fetch hundreds/thousands of lines.

Upgrading and the 5.0.x series

UnrealIRCd 5.2.0 is the direct successor to 5.0.9/5.0.9.1. There will be no further 5.0.x releases, in particular there will be no 5.0.10.

Only four bugs that affect a limited number of people/networks were fixed. UnrealIRCd 5.2.0 is mostly a feature release. Admins wishing to take a conservative approach don't need to rush an upgrade from 5.0.x to 5.2.0, they can wait for a 5.2.1 or 5.2.2 release.

If you are upgrading from 5.0.9(.1) to 5.2.0 then feel free to try the new ./unrealircd upgrade command.

The only configuration change is in the set::anti-flood block (as explained further down under Enhancements). When starting UnrealIRCd will give you clear instructions if anything needs to be changed (and what). This process is really minor, the server will usually tell you to just delete a few old lines from the configuration file.

Enhancements

• The set::anti-flood block has been redone so you can have different limits for unknown-users and known-users.
  • As a reminder, by default, known-users are users who are identified to services OR are on an IP that has been connected for over 2 hours in the past X days. The exact definition of "known-users" is in the security-group block.
  • See here for more information on the layout of the new set::anti-flood block.
  • All violations of target-flood, nick-flood, join-flood, away-flood, invite-flood, knock-flood, max-concurrent-conversations are now reported to opers with the snomask f (flood).
• Add support for database encryption. The way this works is that you define an encryption password in a secret { } block. Then from the various modules you can refer to this secret block, from set::reputation::db-secret, set::tkldb::db-secret and set::channeldb::db-secret. This way you can encrypt the reputation, TKL and channel database for increased privacy.
• Add optional support for persistent channel history:
  • This stores channel history on disk for channels that have both +H and +P set.
  • If you enable this then we ALWAYS require you to set an encryption password, as we do not allow storing of channel history in plain text.
  • If you enable the option, then the history is stored in data/history/ in individual .db files. No channel names are visible in the filenames for optimal privacy.
  • See Persistent channel history on how to enable this. By default it is off.
• Add support for IRCv3 draft/chathistory.
• The maximums for channel mode +H have been raised and are now different for +r (registered) and -r channels. For unregistered channels the limit is now 200 lines / 31 days. For registered channels the limit is 5000 lines / 31 days. The old limit for both was 200 lines / 7 days. These maximums can be changed in the now slightly different set::history::channel::max-storage-per-channel block.
• Add c-ares and libsodium version output to boot screen and /VERSION.
• WHOX now supports displaying the reputation score. If you are an IRCOp then you can use e.g. WHO * %cuhsnfmdaRr.
• Add ability to spamfilter message tags via the new T target. Right now it would be unusual to use this, but some day when we have more message tags it may come in handy.
• Support +draft/reply IRCv3 client tag. Can be used by bots (and others) to indicate to what message people are replying to. This module, reply-tag, is loaded by default.
• Send draft/bot IRCv3 message tag if the user has mode +B set.
• Websockets: add support for clients to negotiate an explicit type via Sec-WebSocket-Protocol, instead of only the default type from listen::websocket::type. This is based on an IRCv3 websocket draft specification. Note that UnrealIRCd refuses type text if your configuration allows non-UTF8 characters in channel or nick names because it would lead to security and compatibility issues.
• set::restrict-commands: new option exempt-tls which allows SSL/TLS users to bypass a restriction.

Fixes

• Server squiting the wrong side. Often harmless, but when (re)connecting rapidly to multiple servers with autoconnect this could cause the network to fall apart.
• Forbid using extended server bans in ZLINE/GZLINE since they won't work there.
• Extended server ban ~a:accname was not working for shun, and only partially working for kline/gline.
• More accurate /ELINE error message.

Changed

• Channel mode +H always showed time in minutes (m) until now. From now on it will show it in minutes (m), hours (h) or days (d) depending on the actual value. Eg +H 50:7d.
• If you ran ./unrealircd stop we used to wait only 1 second. From now on we will wait up to 10 seconds max. This gives UnrealIRCd plenty of time to write database files.
• If you have zero log blocks then we already automatically logged errors to ircd.log. From now on we will log everything (not only errors) to that file.

Removed

• Version check for curl and openssl as nowadays they have ABI guarantees.

Module coders / Developers

• New UnrealDB API and disk format, see https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Dev:UnrealDB
• We now use libsodium for file encryption routines as well as some helpers to lock/clear passwords in memory.
• Updated HOOKTYPE_LOCAL_NICKCHANGE and HOOKTYPE_REMOTE_NICKCHANGE to include an MessageTag *mtags argument in the middle. You can use #if UNREAL_VERSION_TIME>=202115 to detect this.
• Updated channel mode conv_param function to include a Channel *channel argument at the end. You can use #if UNREAL_VERSION_TIME>=202120 to detect this.
• New: ModuleSetOptions(modinfo->handle, MOD_OPT_UNLOAD_PRIORITY, priority);. This can be used for modules to indicate they wish to be unloaded before or after others. It is used by for example the channel and history modules so they can save their databases before channel mode modules or other modules get unloaded.
• New CAP draft/chathistory. If a client REQ's this CAP then UnrealIRCd won't send history on-join as it assumes the client will fetch it when they feel the need for it.
• New informative CAP: unrealircd.org/history-backend

Reminder: UnrealIRCd 4 is no longer supported

UnrealIRCd 4.x is no longer supported. Admins must upgrade to UnrealIRCd 5.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.9.1

The only change between 5.0.9 and 5.0.9.1 is:

• Build improvements on *NIX (faster compiling and lower memory requirements)
• Windows version is unchanged and still 5.0.9

UnrealIRCd 5.0.9

The 5.0.9 release comes with several nice feature enhancements. There are no major bug fixes.

Enhancements:

• Changes to the "Client connecting" notice on IRC (for IRCOps):
  • The format changed slightly, instead of {clients} it now shows [class: clients]
  • SSL/TLS information is still shown via [secure]
  • New: [reputation: NNN] to show the current reputation score
  • New: [account: abcdef] to show the services account, but only if SASL was used.
• In the log file the format also changed slightly:
  • IP information is now added as [127.0.0.1] in both the connect and disconnect log messages.
  • The vhost is logged as [vhost: xyz] instead of [VHOST xyz]
  • All the other values are now logged as well on-connect, similar to the "Client connecting" notice, so: secure, reputation, account (if applicable).
• New option allow::global-maxperip: this imposes a global (network-wide) restriction on the number of connections per IP address. If you don't have a global-maxperip setting in the allow block then it will default to maxperip plus one. So, if you currently have an allow::maxperip of 3 then global-maxperip will be 4.
• Handshake delay is automatically disabled for users that are exempt from blacklist checking.
• Always exempt 127.* from gline, kline, etc.
• You can now have dated logfiles thanks to strftime formatting. For example log "ircd.%Y-%m-%d.log" { } will create a log file like called ircd.2020-01-31.log, a new one every day.
• The Windows build now supports TLSv1.3 too.

Fixes:

• Windows: some warnings and error messages on boot were previously missing.

Changes:

• Add doc/KEYS which contains the public key(s) used to sign UnrealIRCd releases
• The options set::anti-flood::unknown-flood-* have been renamed and integrated in a new block called set::anti-flood::handshake-data-flood. The ban-action can now also be changed. Note that almost nobody will have to change this setting since it has a good default.
• On *NIX bump the default maximum connections from 8192 to 16384. That is, when in "auto" mode, which is like for 99% of the users. Note that the system may still limit the actual number of connections to a lower value, epending on the value of ulimit -n -H.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.8

The main purpose of this release is to enhance the reputation functionality. There have also been some other changes and minor bug fixes. For more information, see below.

Enhancements:

• Support for security groups, of which four groups always exist by default: known-users, unknown-users, tls-users and tls-and-known-users.
• New extended ban ~G:securitygroupname. Typical usage would be MODE #chan +b ~G:unknown-users which will ban all users from the channel that are not identified to services and have a reputation score below 25 (by default). The exact settings can be tweaked in the security group block.
• The reputation command (IRCOp-only) has been extended to make it easier to look for potential troublemakers:
  • REPUTATION Nick shows reputation about the nick name
  • REPUTATION IP shows reputation about the IP address
  • REPUTATION #channel lists users in channel with their reputation score
  • REPUTATION <NN lists users with reputation scores below value NN
• Only send the first 1000 matches on STATS gline or a similar command. This to prevent the IRCOp from being flooded off. This value can be changed via set::max-stats-matches
• Warn when the SSL/TLS server certificate is expired or expires soon (within 7 days).
• New option allow::options::reject-on-auth-failure if you want to stop matching on a passworded allow block, see the allow password documentation for more information. Note that most people won't use this.

Fixes:

• The WHO command searched on nick name even if it was told to search on a specific account name via WHOX options.
• Some typos in the Config script and a warning
• Counting clients twice in some circumstances

Changes:

• Support for $(DESTDIR) in 'make install' if packaging for a distro
• Mention the ban reason in Q-line server notices
• Add self-test to module manager and improve the error message in case the IRCd source directory does not exist.
• Print out a more helpful error if you run the unrealircd binary rather than the unrealircd script with an argument like 'mkpasswd' etc.
• On *NIX create a symlink 'source' to the UnrealIRCd source

Module coders / Developers:

• The Doxygen module API docs have been improved, in particular the Hook API is now 100% documented.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.7

UnrealIRCd 5.0.7 consists mainly of fixes for the 5.x stable series, with some minor enhancements.

Enhancements:

• Add support for estonian-utf8, latvian-utf8 and lithuanian-utf8 in set::allowed-nickchars
• Add message tags to PONG to help fix timestamp issues in KiwiIRC.
• Dutch helpop file (conf/help/help.nl.conf)

Fixes:

• When having multiple text bans (+b ~T:censor), these caused an empty message.
• Text bans are now no longer bypassed by voiced users (+v).
• Websockets that used labeled-response sometimes received multiple IRC messages in one websocket packet.
• The reputation score of WEBIRC users was previously the score of the WEBIRC IP rather than the end-user IP.
• STATS badword was not working.
• When setting a very high channel limit, it showed a weird MODE +l value.
• The LINKS command worked, even when disabled via hideserver::disable-links in the optional hideserver module.
• In some cases WHO did not show your own entry, such as when searching on account name, which was confusing.
• Memory leak when repeatedly using ./unrealircd reloadtls or /REHASH -tls.

Module coders / Developers:

• No changes, only some small additions to the Doxygen module API docs

UnrealIRCd 5.0.6

UnrealIRCd 5.0.6 is a small maintenance release for the stable 5.x series. For existing 5.x users there is probably little reason to upgrade.

Enhancements:

• Spanish help conf was added (conf/help/help.es.conf)

Fixes:

• History playback on join was not obeying the limits from set::history::channel::playback-on-join. Note that if you want to see more lines, there is the HISTORY command. For more information on the different ways to retrieve history, see Channel History
• Spamfilter with the 'tempshun' action was letting the message through.
• In very specific circumstances a REHASH -tls would cause outgoing linking to fail with the error "called a function you should not call".
• Crash if empty set::cloak-method
• Issues with labeled-response on websockets (partial fix)

Module coders / Developers:

• In RPL_ISUPPORT we now announce BOT=B to indicate the user mode and WHO status flag for bots.
• HOOKTYPE_ACCOUNT_LOGIN is called for remote users too now (also on server syncs)
• Send RPL_LOGGEDOUT when logging out of services account
• Fix double batch in message tags when using both labeled-response and the HISTORY command

UnrealIRCd 5.0.5.1

5.0.5.1 reverts the previously introduced UTF8 Spamfilter support. Unfortunately we had to do this, due to a bug in the PCRE2 regex library that caused a freeze / infinite loop with certain regexes and text.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.5

This 5.0.5 release mainly focuses on new features, while also fixing a few bugs.

Fixes:

• except ban { } without 'type' was not exempting from gline.
• Channel mode +L #forward and +k key: should forward on wrong key, but was also redirecting on correct key.
• Crash on 32-bit machines in tkldb (on start or rehash)
• Crash when saving channeldb when a parameter channel mode is combined with +P and that module was loaded after channeldb. This may happen if you use 3rd party modules that add parameter channel modes.

Enhancements:

• antimixedutf8 has been improved to detect CJK and other scripts and this will now catch more mixed UTF8 spam. Note that, if you previously manually set the score very tight (much lower than the default of 10) then you may have to increase it a bit, or not, depending on your network.
• Support for IRCv3 +typing clienttag, which adds "user is typing" support to channels and PM (if the client supports it).
• New flood countermeasure, set::anti-flood::target-flood, which limits flooding to channels and users. This is only meant as a filter for high rate floods. You are still encouraged to use channel mode +f in channels which give you more customized and fine-grained options to deal with low- and medium-rate floods.
• If a chanop /INVITEs someone, it will now override ban forwards such as +b ~f:#forward:*!*@*.

Changes:

• We now do parallel builds by default (make -j4) within ./Config, unless the $MAKE or $MAKEFLAGS environment variable is set.
• set::restrict-commands:
  • The disable option is now removed as it is implied. In other words: if you want to disable a command, then simply don't use connect-delay.
  • You can now have a block without connect-delay but still make users bypass the restriction with exempt-identified and/or exempt-reputation-score. Previously this was not possible.
• We now give an error when an IRCOp tries to place an *LINE that already exists. (Previously we sometimes replaced the existing *LINE and other times we did not)
• Add Polish HELPOP (help.pl.conf)

Module coders / Developers:

• Breaking API change in HOOKTYPE_CAN_SEND_TO_USER and HOOKTYPE_CAN_SEND_TO_CHANNEL: the final argument has changed from int notice to SendType sendtype, which is an enum, since we now have 3 message options (PRIVMSG, NOTICE, TAGMSG).

UnrealIRCd 5.0.4

This new 5.0.4 version fixes quite a number of bugs. It contains only two small feature improvements.

Fixes:

• When placing a SHUN on an online user it was not always effective.
• Channeldb was not properly restoring all channel modes, such as +P.
• When upgrading UnrealIRCd it could sometimes crash the currently running IRC server (rare), or trigger a crash report on ./unrealircd restart (quite common).
• UnrealIRCd was giving up too easily on ident lookups.
• Crash when unloading a module with moddata.
• Crash if an authenticated server sends wrong information (rare).
• Removing a TEMPSHUN did not work if the user was on another server.
• SAJOIN to 0 (part all channels) resulted in a desync when used on remote users.
• Forced nick change from services was not showing up if the user was not in any channels.

Enhancements:

• New option set::hide-idle-time::policy by which you can change usermode +I (hide idle time in WHOIS) from oper-only to settable by users. More options will follow in a future release.
• In WHOIS you can now see if a user is currently (temp)shunned. This only works for locally connected users for technical reasons, so use /WHOIS Nick Nick to see it for remote users.

Changes:

• The oper notices and logging with regards to server linking have changed a little. They are more consistent and log more now.
• When an IRCOp tries to oper up from an insecure connection we will now mention the https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/FAQ#oper-requires-tls page. This message is customizable through set::plaintext-policy::oper-message.
• The French HELPOP text was updated.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.3.1

This fixes a crash issue after REHASH in 5.0.3.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.3

Fixes:

• Fix serious flood issue in labeled-response implementation.
• An IRCOp SQUIT'ing a far remote server may cause a broken link topology
• In channels that are +D (delayed join), PARTs were not shown correctly to channel operators.

Enhancements:

• A new HISTORY command for history playback (HISTORY #channel number-of-lines) which allows you to fetch more lines than the on-join history playback. Of course, taking into account the set limits in the +H channel mode. This command is one of the two interfaces to Channel history.
• Two new message tags, unrealircd.org/userip and unrealircd.org/userhost which communicate the user@ip and real user@host to IRCOps.

Changes:

• Drop the draft/ prefix now that the IRCv3 labeled-response specification is out of draft.
• The operclass permission immune:target-limit is now called immune:max-concurrent-conversations, since it bypasses set::anti-flood::max-concurrent-conversations. For 99% of the users this change is not important, but it may be if you use highly customized operclass blocks

Are you upgrading from UnrealIRCd 4.x to UnrealIRCd 5? If so, then check out the UnrealIRCd 5 release notes further down. At the very least, check out Upgrading from 4.x.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.2

Fixes:

• Halfop users are not synced correctly, resulting in missing users across links.
• Channel history used incorrect time internally, resulting in messages expiring too soon. The syntax is now really /MODE #chan +H lines:time-in-minutes. To make clear that the time is in minutes, an 'm' will be added automatically by the server (eg +H 15:1440m).
• Documentation: to exempt someone from gline via /ELINE you have to use type 'G', not 'g'. Similarly, to exempt from spamfilter, use type 'F' and not 'f'.
• Exempting IPs from throttling via except throttle was not working.
• Unable to customize set::tls::outdated-protocols and set::tls::outdated-ciphers.
• Specifying multiple channels did not work in set::auto-join, set::oper-auto-join and tld::channel.

Enhancements:

• Extended server bans in *LINE and /ELINE allow you to ban or exempt users on criteria other than host/IP. These use a similar syntax to extended bans. Currently supported are ~a, ~S and ~r. Examples:
  • /ELINE ~a:TrustedAccount kG 0 This user can bypass kline/gline when using SASL
  • /ELINE ~S:1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef kGF 0 Trusted user with this certificate fingerprint
  • /GLINE ~r:*some*stupid*real*name*
  • These can also be used in the configuration file, eg: except ban { mask ~S:11223344etc; type all; };
• New options that may not be used much, but can be useful on specific networks:
  • The IRCd may add automatic bans, for example due to a blacklist hit, a spamfilter hit, or because of antirandom or antimixedutf8. The new option set::automatic-ban-target specifies on what the ban should be placed. The default is ip. Other options are: userip, host, userhost, account, certfp.
  • Similarly, an oper may type /GLINE nickname. The new option set::manual-ban-target specifies on what the ban should be placed. By default this is host (fallback to ip).
• New options to exempt webirc users: set::connthrottle::webirc-bypass, set::restrict-commands::name-of-command::exempt-webirc.

UnrealIRCd 5.0.1

Fixes:

• IRCd may hang in rare circumstances
• Windows: fix repeated "ERROR renaming 'data/reputation.db.tmp'" warnings
• Antirandom and blacklist did not deal properly with 'warn' actions
• Authprompt did not always work properly
• Line numbers were incorrect in config file warnings/errors when using @if or @define

Enhancements:

• New /ELINE exception type 'm' to bypass allow::maxperip. Or in the configuration file: except ban { mask 203.0.113.0/24; type maxperip; };
• IRCOps can override MLOCK restrictions when services are down, if they have the channel:override:mlock operclass permission, such as opers which use the operclass 'netadmin-with-override'.

Other:

• Gottem and k4be have uploaded their 3rd party modules to unrealircd-contrib so *NIX users can now easily install them using the new Module manager

UnrealIRCd 5

After more than 6 months of hard work, UnrealIRCd 5 is now our new "stable" branch. In particular I would like to thank Gottem and 'i' for their source code contributions and PeGaSuS and westor for testing releases.

When we transitioned from 3.2.x to 4.0.0 there were 175,000 lines of source code added/removed during 3 years of development. This time it was 120,000 lines in only 6 months, a major effort!

If you are upgrading from 4.x to 5.x, then it would be wise to read Upgrading from 4.x. In any case, be sure to upgrade your services package first! (if you use any)

UnrealIRCd 5 is compatible with the following services:

• anope (version 2.0.7 or higher) - with the "unreal4" protocol module
• atheme (version 7.2.9 or higher) - with the "unreal4" protocol module

Summary

The most visible change to end-users is channel history. A lot of IRCv3 features were added. Various modules from Gottem have been integrated and enhanced. We now have a 3rd party module manager so you can install modules with 1 simple command. Channel settings of +P channels and *LINES are saved in a database and restored on startup (via 'channeldb' and 'tkldb' respectively). Channel mode +L has a slight change of meaning, the existing floodprot mode (+f) has a new type to prevent repeated messages and a new drop action. A few extended bans have been added as well (~f and ~p). IRCOps now have the ability to add ban exceptions via the /ELINE command. Advanced admins can use more dynamic configuration options where you can define variables and use them later in the configuration file. Finally, there have been speed improvements, we use better defaults and have added more countermeasures and options against spambots. Under the hood a significant amount of the source code was changed and cleaned up.

Read below for the full list of enhancements, changes and removals (and information for developers too).

Enhancements

• Support for IRCv3 server generated message tags, which allows us to communicate additional information in protocol messages such as in JOIN and PRIVMSG. Currently implemented and permitted message tags are:

  • account: communicate the services account that a user uses
  • msgid: assign an unique message id to each message
  • time: assign a time label to each message The last two are mainly for history playback.

• Support for IRCv3 echo-message, which helps clients, among other things, to see if the message you sent was altered in any way, eg: censored, stripped from color, etc.

• Support for IRCv3 draft/labeled-response-0.2, which helps clients to correlate commands and responses.

• Support for IRCv3 BATCH, needed for some other features.

• Recording and playback of channel history when channel mode +H is set. The syntax is: MODE #chan +H max-lines-to-record:max-time-to-record-in-minutes.

  For example: MODE #chan +H 50:1440 means the last 50 messages will be stored and no message will be stored longer than 1440 minutes (1 day).

  The channel history is then played back when joining such a channel, but with two things to keep in mind:

  1. The client must support the 'server-time' CAP ('time' message tag), otherwise history is not shown. Any modern IRC client supports this.
  2. Only a maximum of 15 lines are played back on-join by default

  The reason for the maximum 15 lines on-join playback is that this can be quite annoying if you rejoin repeatedly and as to not flood the users screen too much (unwanted). In the future we will support a mechanism for clients to "fetch" history - rather than sending it on-join - so they can fetch more than the 15 lines, up to the number of lines and time configured in the +H channel mode.

  You can configure the exact number of lines that are played back and all the limits that apply to +H via set::history::channel.

• For saving and retrieving history we currently have the following options:

  • history_backend_mem: channel history is stored in memory. This is very fast but also means history is lost on restart.
  • history_backend_null: don't store channel history at all. This can be useful to load on servers with no users on it, such as a hub server, where storing history is unnecessary.

  As you can see there is currently no 'disk' backend. However, in the future more options may be added. Also note that 3rd party modules can add history backends as well.

• Support for ban exceptions via the new /ELINE command. This allows you to add exceptions for regular bans (KLINE/GLINE/ZLINE/etc), but also for connection throttling and blacklist checking. For more information, just type /ELINE in your IRC client as an IRCOp.

• Websocket support now includes type 'text' in addition to 'binary', which should work with KiwiIRC's nextclient.

  Also, websockets are no longer active on all ports by default. You have to explicitly enable the websocket option in the listen block and also specify type text or binary, eg: listen { ip *; port 6667; options { websocket { type text; } } }

  Also note that websockets require nick names and channels to consist of UTF8 characters only, due to WebSocket being incompatible with non-UTF8

• There's now a Module manager which allows you to install and upgrade 3rd party modules in an easy way:

  • ./unrealircd module list - to list all available 3rd party modules
  • ./unrealircd module install third/something - to install the specified module.

• You can now test for configuration errors without actually starting the IRC server. This is ideal if you are upgrading UnrealIRCd to a newer version: simply run ./unrealircd configtest to make sure it passes the configuration test, and then you can safely restart the server for the upgrade (in this example case).

• Channel mode +L now kicks in for any rejected join, so not just for +l but also for +b, +i, +O, +z, +R and +k. If, for example, the channel is +L #insecure and also +z then, when an insecure user ties to join, they will be redirected to #insecure.

• New extended ban ~f to forward users to the specified channel if the ban matches. Example: MODE #chan +b ~f:#badisp:*!*@*.isp.org

• Channel mode +f now has a 'd' action: drop message. This will send an error message to the user and not show the message in the channel but otherwise do nothing (no kick or ban). For example: MODE #chan +f [5t#d]:15 will limit sending a maximum of 5 messages per 15 seconds per-user and drop any messages sent above that limit.

• Channel mode +f now has 'r' floodtype to prevent repeated lines. This will compare the current message to the last message and the one before that the user sent to the channel. If it's a repeat then the user can be kicked (the default action), the message can be dropped ('d') or the user can be banned ('b'). Example: MODE #chan +f [1r#d]:15 If you want to permit 1 repeated line but not 2 then use: +f [2r#d]:15

• New module tkldb (loaded by default): all *LINES and spamfilters are now saved across reboots. No need for services for that anymore.

• New module channeldb (loaded by default): saves and restores all channel settings including topic, modes, bans etc. of +P (persistent) channels.

• New module restrict-commands, which allows you to restrict any IRC command based on criteria such as "how long is this user connected", "is this user registered (has a services account)" etc. The example.conf now ships with configuration to disable LIST the first 60 seconds and disable INVITE the first 120 seconds. If you are having spambot problems then tweaking this configuration may be helpful to you.

• New option set::require-module, which allows you to require certain modules on other UnrealIRCd 5 servers, otherwise the link is rejected.

• New option set::min-nick-length to set a minimum nick length.

• New module rmtkl (loaded by default): this allows you to remove TKL's such as GLINEs easily via the /RMTKL command.

• The reputation and connthrottle modules are now loaded by default. Just as a reminder, what these do is classifying your users in "known users (known IP's)" and "unknown IP's" for IP's that have not been seen before (or only for a short amount of time). Then, when there is a connection flood, unknown/new IP addresses are throttled at 20 connections per minute, while known users are always allowed in.

• Add support for defines and conditional configuration via @define and @if. This is mostly for power users, in particular users who share the same configuration file across several servers.

• New extban ~p to hide the part/quit message in PART and QUIT. For example: MODE #chan +b ~p:*!*@*.nl

• You will now see a warning when a server is not responding even before they time out. How long to wait for a PONG reply upon PING can be changed via set::ping-warning and defaults to 15 seconds. If you see the warning frequently then your connection is flakey.

• Add new setting set::broadcast-channel-messages which defines when channel messages are sent across server links. The default setting is auto which is the correct setting for pretty much everyone.

• Add new option set::part-instead-of-quit-on-comment-change: when a QUIT message is changed due to channel restrictions, such as stripping color or censoring a word, we normally change the QUIT message. This has an effect on ALL channels, not just the one that imposed the restrictions. While we feel that is the best tradeoff, there is now also this new option (off by default) that will change the QUIT into a PART in such a case, so the other channels that do not have the restrictions (eg: are -S and -G) can still see the original QUIT message.

• New module webredir. Quite some people run their IRCd on port 443 or 80 so their users can avoid firewall restrictions in place. In such a case, with this module, you can now send a HTTP redirect in case some user enters your IRC server name in their browser. Eg https://irc.example.org/ can be made to redirect to https://www.example.org/

• We now protect against misbehaving SASL servers and will time out SASL sessions after set::sasl-timeout, which is 15 seconds by default.

Changed

• Channel mode +L can now be set by chanops (+o and higher) instead of only by +q (channel owner)

• Channel names must now be valid UTF8 by default. We actually have 3 possible settings of set::allowed-channelchars:

  • utf8: Channel must be valid UTF8, this is the new default
  • ascii: A very strict setting, for example in use at freenode, the channel name may not contain high ascii or UTF8
  • any: A very loose setting, which allows almost all characters in the channel name. This was the OLD default, up to and including UnrealIRCd 4. It is no longer recommended.

  For most networks this new default setting of utf8 will be fine, since by far most IRC clients use UTF8 for many years already. If you have a network that has a significant portion of chatters that are on old non-UTF8 clients that use a specific character set then you may want to use set { allowed-nickchars any; } Some Russian and Ukrainian networks are known to need this.

• The "except tkl" block is now called except ban. If no type is specified in an except ban { } block then we exempt the entry from kline, gline, zline, gzline and shun.

• We no longer use a blacklist for stats (set::oper-only-stats). We use a whitelist now instead: set::allow-user-starts. Most users can just remove their old set::oper-only-stats line, since the new default set::allow-user-starts setting is fine.

• Windows: we now require a 64-bit version, Windows 7 or later. The new program path is: C:\Program Files\UnrealIRCd 5 and the binaries have been moved to a new subdirectory: bin\

• Modules lost their m_ prefix, so for example m_map is now just map. Also the modules in cap/ are now directly in modules.

• More modules that were previously PERM (permanent) can now be unloaded and reloaded on the fly. This allows more "hotfixing" without restart in case of a bug and also more control for admins at runtime. Only <5 modules out of 173 are permanent now.

• User mode +T now blocks channel CTCPs as well.

• User mode +q (unkickable) could previously be set by any IRCOp. This has been changed to require the self:unkickablemode operclass permission. This is included in the *-with-override operclasses (eg: netadmin-with-operoverride).

• set::modes-on-join is now +nt by default.

• The authprompt module is now loaded by default. This means that if you do a soft kline on someone (eg: KLINE %*@*.badisp) then the user has a chance to authenticate to services, even without SASL, and bypass the ban if (s)he is authenticated.

• The WHOX module is now used by default. Previously it was optional. WHOX enhances the "WHO" output, providing additional information to IRC clients such as the services account that someone is using. It is also more universal than standard WHO. Unfortunately this also means the WHO syntax changed to something less logical.

• At many places the term SSL has been changed to SSL/TLS or TLS. Configuration items (eg: set::ssl to set::tls) have been renamed as well and so have directories (eg: conf/ssl to conf/tls). The old configuration names still work and currently does NOT raise any warning. Also, when upgrading an existing installation on *NIX, the conf/tls directory will be symlinked to conf/ssl as to not break any Let's Encrypt certificate scripts.

• It is now mandatory to have at least one open SSL/TLS port, otherwise UnrealIRCd will refuse to boot. Previously this was a warning.

• IRCOps now need to use SSL/TLS in order to oper up, as the set::plaintext-policy::oper default setting is now 'deny'. Similarly, set::outdated-tls-policy::oper is now also 'deny'. You can change this, if you want, but it is not recommended.

• set::outdated-tls-policy::server is now 'deny' as well, since all servers should use reasonable SSL/TLS protocols and ciphers.

• The default generated certificated has been changed from RSA 4096 bits to Elliptic Curve Cryptography "384r1". This provides the same amount of security but at higher speed. This only affects the default self- signed certificate. You can still use RSA certificates just fine.

• If you do use an RSA certificate, we now require it to be at least 2048 bits otherwise UnrealIRCd will refuse to boot.

• When matching allow { } blocks, we now always continue with the next block (if any) if the password did not match or no password was specified. In other words, allow::options::nopasscont is now the default and we behave as if there was a ::wrongpasscont too.

• All snomasks are now oper-only. Previously some were not, which was confusing and could lead to information leaks. Also removed weird set::snomask-on-connect accordingly.

• The IRCd now uses hash tables that are resilient against hash table attacks. Also, the hash tables have increased in size to speed things up when looking up nick names etc.

• Server options in VERSION (eg: Fhin6OoEMR3) are no longer shown to normal users. They don't mean much nowadays anyway.

• ./Config now asks fewer questions and configure runs faster since many unnecessary checks have been removed (compatibility with very old compilers / systems).

• We now default to system libs (eg: --with-system-pcre2 is assumed)

• Spamfilter should catch some more spam evasion techniques.

• All /DCCDENY and deny dcc { } parsing and checking is now moved to the 'dccdeny' module.

• Windows: If you choose to run UnrealIRCd as a service then it now runs under the low-privilege NetworkService account rather than the high-privilege LocalSystem account.

Minor issues fixed

• Specifying a custom OpenSSL/LibreSSL path should work now

Removed

• Support for old server protocols has been removed. This means UnrealIRCd 5.x cannot link to 3.2.x. It also means you need to use reasonably new services. Generally, if your services can link to 4.x then they should be able to link to 5.x as well. More information about this change and why it was done can be found here.
• Connecting with a server password will no longer send that password to NickServ. Use SASL instead!
• Extended ban ~R (registered nick): this was the old method to match registered users. Everyone should use ~a (services account) instead.
• The old TRE posix regex method has been removed because the TRE library is no longer maintained for over a decade and contains many bugs. (It was already deprecated in UnrealIRCd 4.2.3). Use type regex instead, which uses the modern PCRE2 regex engine.
• Timesync support has been removed. Use your OS time synchronization instead. (Note that Timesync was already disabled by default in 2018)
• Changing time offsets via TSCTL OFFSET and TSCTL SVSTIME are no longer supported. Use your OS time synchronization (NTP!). Adjustments via TSCTL are simply not accurate enough.
• The nopost module was removed since it no longer serves any useful purpose. UnrealIRCd already protects against these kind of attacks via ping cookies (set::ping-cookie, enabled by default).

Deprecated

• The set::official-channels block is now deprecated. This provided a mechanism to pre-configure channels that would have 0 members and would appear in /LIST with those settings, but once you joined all those settings would be gone. Rather confusing.

  Since UnrealIRCd 4.x we have permanent channels (+P) and since 5.x we store these permanent channels in a database so all settings are saved every few minutes and across restarts.

  Since permanent channels (+P) are much better, the official-channels support will be removed in a later version. There's no reason to use official-channels anymore.

Developers

• The module header is now as follows:

  ModuleHeader MOD_HEADER
    = {
          "nameofmodule",
          "5.0",
          "Some description", 
          "Name of Author",
          "unrealircd-5",
      };
  

  There's a new author field, the version must start with a digit, and also the name of the module must match the loadmodule name. So for example third/funmod must also be named third/funmod.

• The MOD_TEST, MOD_INIT, MOD_LOAD and MOD_UNLOAD functions no longer take a name argument. So: MOD_INIT(mymod) is now MOD_INIT()

• We now use our own BuildBot infrastructure, so Travis-CI and AppVeyor have been removed.

• We now use a new test framework.

• Auth_Check() now returns 1 for allow and 0 on deny (!!)

• New function new_message() which should be called when a new message is sent, or at least for all channel events. It adds (or inherits) message tags like 'account', 'msgid', 'time', etc.

• Many send functions now take an extra MessageTag *mtags parameter, including but not limited to: sendto_one() and sendto_server().

• Command functions (CMD_FUNC) have an extra MessageTag *mtags, on the other hand the cptr parameter has been removed.

• Command functions no longer return int but are void, the same is true for exit_client(). FLUSH_BUFFER has been removed too. All this is a consequence of removing this (limited) signaling of client exits. From now on, if you call exit_client() it will free a lot of the client data and exit the user (close socket, send [s]quit), but it will not free 'sptr' itself, so you can simply check if some upstream function killed the client by checking IsDead(sptr). This is highly recommended after running do_cmd() or calling other functions that could kill a client. In which case you should return rather than continue doing anything with sptr. Ultimately, in the main loop, the client will be freed (normally in less than 1 second).

• New single unified sendto_channel() and sendto_local_common_channels() functions that are used by all the channel commands.

• Numerics should now be sent using sendnumeric(). There's also a format string version sendnumericfmt() in case you need it, in which case you need to pass the numeric format string yourself. In such a case, don't forget the colon character, like ":%s", where needed.

• The parameters in several hooks have changed. Many now have an extra MessageTag *mtags parameter. Sometimes there are other changes as well, for example HOOKTYPE_CHANMSG now has 4 extra parameters.

• You can call do_cmd() with NULL mtags. Usually this is the correct way.

• If you used HOOKTYPE_PRE_USERMSG to block a message then you should now use HOOKTYPE_CAN_SEND_TO_USER. Similarly, the hook HOOKTYPE_CAN_SEND which deals with channels is now called HOOKTYPE_CAN_SEND_TO_CHANNEL. Some other remarks:

  • You CANNOT use HOOKTYPE_PRE_USERMSG anymore.
  • The hooks require you to set an error message if you return HOOK_DENY.
  • You should not send an error message yourself from these hooks. In other words: do not use sendnumeric(). This is done by the hook caller, based on the error message you return.
  • Thanks to this, all rejecting of user messages now use generic numeric 531 and all rejecting of channel messages use numeric 404. See also under Client protocol later in this document.

• If you use CommandOverrideAddEx() to specify a priority value (rare) then be aware that in 5.0.1 we now use the 4.0.x behavior again to match the same style of priorities in hooks: overrides with the lowest priority are run first.

• If you ever send a timestamp in a printf-like function, such as in sendto_server(), then be sure to use %lld and cast the timestamp to long long so that it is compatible with both *NIX and Windows. Example: sendnotice(sptr, "Timestamp is %lld", (long long)ts);

• EventAdd() changed the order of parameters and expects every_msec now which specifies the time in milliseconds rather than seconds. This allows for additional precision, or at least multiple calls per second. The minimum allowed every_msec value is 100 at this time. The prototype is now: EventAdd(Module *module, char *name, vFP event, void *data, long every_msec, int count);

• New HOOKTYPE_IS_HANDSHAKE_FINISHED. If a module returns 0 there, then the register_user() function will not be called and the user will not come online (yet). This is used by CAP and some other stuff. Can be useful if your module needs to "hold" a user in the registration phase.

• The function is_module_loaded() now takes a relative path like "usermodes/noctcp" because with just "ctcp" one could not see the difference between usermodes/noctcp and chanmodes/noctcp.

• CHFL_CHANPROT is now CHFL_CHANADMIN, is_chanprot() is now is_chanadmin()

• All hash tables now use SipHash, which is a hash function that is resilient against hash table attacks. If you, as a module dev, too use any hash tables anywhere (note: this is quite rare), then you are recommended to use our functions, see the functions siphash() and siphash_nocase() in src/hash.c.

• The random generator has been updated to use ChaCha (more modern).

• You can now save pointers and integers etc. across rehashes by using LoadPersistentPointer() and SavePersistentPointer(). For an example, see src/modules/chanmodes/floodprot.c how this can be used. Note that there can be no struct or type changes between rehashes.

• New ModData types: MODDATA_LOCALVAR and MODDA_GLOBALVAR. These are settings or things that are locally or globally identified by the variable name only and not attached to any user/channel.

• Various files have been renamed. As previously mentioned, the m_ prefix was dropped in src/modules/m_*.c. Similarly the s_ prefix was dropped in src/s_*.c since it no longer had meaning. Also some files have been deleted and integrated elsewhere or renamed to have a name that better reflects their true meaning. Related to this change is that all command functions are now called cmd_name rather than m_name.

• HOOKTYPE_CHECK_INIT and HOOKTYPE_PRE_LOCAL_CONNECT have their return value changed. You should now return HOOK_*, such as HOOK_DENY or HOOK_CONTINUE.

Server protocol

• UnrealIRCd 5 now assumes you support the following PROTOCTL options: NOQUIT EAUTH SID NICKv2 SJOIN SJ3 NICKIP TKLEXT2. If you fail to use SID or EAUTH then you will receive an error. For the other options, support is assumed, no warning or error is shown when you lack support. These are options that most, if not all, services support since UnrealIRCd 4.x so it shouldn't be a problem. More information here
• PROTOCTL MTAGS indicates that the server is capable of handling message tags and that the server can cope with 4K lines. (Note that the ordinary non-message-tag part is still limited to 512 bytes).
• Pseudo ID support in SASL was removed. We now use real UID's. This breaks services who rely on the old pseudo ID format.

Client protocol

• Support for message tags and other IRCv3 features. See the IRCv3 specifications for more details.
• When a message is blocked, for whatever reason, we now use a generic numeric response: :server 531 yourname targetname :reason for the block This replaces all the various NOTICEs, ERR_NOCTCP, ERR_NONONREG, etc. with just one single numeric. The only other numerics that you may still encounter when PM'ing are ERR_NOSUCHNICK, ERR_TOOMANYTARGETS and ERR_TARGETTOOFAST, which are generic errors to any command involving targets. And ERR_SERVICESDOWN. Note that channel messages already had a generic numeric for signaling blocked messages for a very long time, ERR_CANNOTSENDTOCHAN.
• The 271 response to the SILENCE command is now: :server 271 yournick listentry!*@* Previously the nick name appeared twice, which was a mistake.
• The 470 numeric, which is sent on /JOIN #channel redirect to #redirect now uses the following format: :server 470 yournick #channel #redirect :[Link] Cannot join channel...etc..
• Clients are recommended to implement and enable the server-time extension by default. When enabled, channel history is played back on-join (if any) when the channel has channel mode +H. Otherwise your users will not see channel history.