Install and Configure InspIRCd on Debian 10 and Ubuntu 20.04

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a real-time, text-based communication protocol with a long history of use for group chats and discussion forums. IRC networks — which can be made up of several independent servers — may each have numerous channels, with each channel functioning as a space for group chat.

InspIRCd is a free and open-source IRC server application. It has been designed to be a stable, high-performance, and modular IRC server option. This guide shows you how to get your own InspIRCd server up and running on Ubuntu and Debian.

Before You Begin

1. If you have not already done so, create a Linode account and Compute Instance. See our Getting Started with Linode and Creating a Compute Instance guides.

2. Follow our Setting Up and Securing a Compute Instance guide to update your system. You may also wish to set the timezone, configure your hostname, create a limited user account, and harden SSH access.

Install InspIRCd

1. Install the InspIRCd package.

    sudo apt install inspircd
   

2. Open ports 22 and 6667 in your machine’s firewall. The following assumes you are using UFW for firewall management.

    sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
    sudo ufw allow 6667/tcp
    sudo ufw reload
   

Configure InspIRCd

Open the InspIRCd configuration file, located at /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf, and update it with changes displayed in this section.

1. Locate the server tag. Change the name value to reflect your IRC server’s hostname; leave the id value as is. Modify the other values in the server tag to reflect the description and naming you would like for your IRC server.

   File: /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf

   1 2 3 4 5

   <server name="irc.example.com" description="Example IRC Server" id="1AB" network="ExampleNet">

2. Find the admin tag, and modify its contents to reflect the contact information for the server’s administrator.

   File: /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf

   1 2 3 4

   <admin name="Example User" nick="example-user" email="example-user@example-email.com">

3. Locate the bind tag, and remove the value from the address field. Doing so allows the server to respond to outside requests, where the default (127.0.0.1) limits the IRC server to local connections.

   File: /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf

   1 2	<bind address="" port="6667" type="clients">

4. Find the power tag. Enter the passwords to be required for the operator to shut down the IRC server (diepass) and to restart it (restartpass).

   File: /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf

   1 2	<power diepass="shutdown-password" restartpass="restart-password" pause="2">

5. Locate the oper tag. This defines the operator user, who has administrative authority on the IRC server. Enter a username (name) and password for the operator user. Leave the type as NetAdmin.

   File: /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf

   1 2 3 4 5

   <oper name="example-user" password="password" host="*@*" type="NetAdmin">

   • The host value defines the username@hostname masks from which a user may log in as the operator. Setting this to *@*, as in the example above, allows a user to log in as the operator from any address mask.

   • To make your IRC server more secure, a host value like the example below only allows a user from the IRC network’s localhost, IP address, or domain to log in as the operator. Replace 192.0.2.0 with the IP address for the IRC server, and likewise replace irc.example.com with the machine’s domain name:

     *@localhost *@192.0.2.0 *@irc.example.com
     

   • You can restrict access even further by replacing the asterisks (*) with the username of a specific user on the machine. You can enter as many address masks as desired, separating each with space.

Complete the InspIRCd Setup

1. Open the /etc/inspircd/inspircd.motd file, and enter a “message of the day” for your IRC server. The message of the day displays when users connect to your IRC server and when they use the /motd command. The message of the day is a good place to remind users to review the server’s rules, which you input in the next step.

2. Open the /etc/inspircd/inspircd.rules file, and enter the usage rules for your IRC server. Users can review these with the /rules command. The rules should set expectations for the kinds of behavior you allow on your server.

   Note

   Not all IRC clients support the /rules command. The popular client WeeChat, for example, does not support this command. If you expect users may frequently use one of these clients, you may also opt to present your rules in the message of the day.

3. Restart the InspIRCd service for the changes to take effect.

    sudo systemctl restart inspircd
   

Test the InspIRCd Installation

To verify that your IRC server is running properly, you should connect to it using an IRC client. There are many options, and this guide uses the popular WeeChat client as an example.

If you want more information on WeeChat and its usage, refer to the Using WeeChat for Internet Relay Chat guide.

1. Install the WeeChat IRC client.

    sudo apt install weechat
   

2. Startup WeeChat once the installation is complete.

    weechat
   

3. Enter the following command in the WeeChat interface to add your IRC network. Replace irc.example.com with the domain name for your IRC network, and replace example-irc-alias with an alias you would like to store the connection under.

    /server add example-irc-alias irc.example.com
   

   To quit the WeeChat interface, use the /quit command.

   WeeChat stores the information for connecting to the IRC server under the alias you provide. You can then connect to the server anytime, even after quitting and restarting WeeChat, by using that alias.

4. Connect to the IRC server using the alias you created:

    /connect example-irc-alias
   

5. You can then log in as the operator using the /oper command. Replace example-user and password with the name and password, respectively, that you configured for the operator user.

    /oper example-user password
   

Add SSL Certification

While not necessary, using SSL certification on your IRC server significantly increases its security by ensuring that the information it sends and receives is encrypted. The following steps show you how to use Certbot to request and download a free certificate from Let’s Encrypt and how to use that certificate on your IRC server.

Install Certbot

1. Install the Snap app store. Snap provides application bundles that work across major Linux distributions. If you are using Ubuntu, Snap should already be installed (since version 16.04):

    sudo apt install snapd
   

2. Update and refresh Snap.

    sudo snap install core && sudo snap refresh core
   

3. Ensure that any existing Certbot installation is removed.

    sudo apt remove certbot
   

4. Install Certbot.

    sudo snap install --classic certbot
   

5. Create a symbolic link for Certbot.

    sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot
   

Download a Certificate

1. Open port 80 in your machine’s firewall. Certbot verifies your domain information by connecting through this port.

    sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
    sudo ufw reload
   

2. Download the standalone certificate. Replace irc.example.com with your IRC server’s domain name.

    sudo certbot certonly --standalone --preferred-challenges http -d irc.example.com
   

3. Certbot includes a cron job that automatically renews your certificate before it expires. You can test the automatic renewal with the following command:

    sudo certbot renew --dry-run
   

Add the Certificate to InspIRCd

1. Create a directory to store the SSL files for InspIRCd.

    sudo mkdir /etc/inspircd/ssl
   

2. Copy the certificate and private key files into the new InspIRCd SSL directory.

    sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/irc.example.com/fullchain.pem /etc/inspircd/ssl/cert.pem
    sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/irc.example.com/privkey.pem /etc/inspircd/ssl/key.pem
   

3. Ensure that the InspIRCd user has the required permissions for the files.

    sudo chown -R irc:irc /etc/inspircd
   

4. Open the InspIRCd configuration file again (/etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf), and add the following lines beneath the existing bind tag. These lines watch a given port for SSL connections, identify the certificate and key files and the specifications to use with them, and load InspIRCd’s GnuTLS module for handling SSL connections.

   File: /etc/inspircd/inspircd.conf

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7

   <bind address="" port="6697" type="clients" ssl="gnutls"> <gnutls certfile="/etc/inspircd/ssl/cert.pem" keyfile="/etc/inspircd/ssl/key.pem" priority="SECURE192:-VERS-SSL3.0"> <module name="m_ssl_gnutls.so">

Connect to the IRC Server Using SSL

To connect to the IRC server now, you need to use port 6697. In WeeChat, you can do this in one of two ways:

1. Change the alias’s address settings to specify the new port. This assumes that the alias has SSL enabled, which is the case by default. This is the simplest option.

   /set irc.server.example-irc-alias.addresses irc.example.com/6697
   

2. Alternatively, you can delete the existing alias and create a new one using the appropriate port and specifying SSL. While it is not necessary to delete the existing alias first, doing so frees the alias for reuse. It also removes inoperative connection information, since the IRC server no longer accepts connections on the default port used by the existing alias.

   /server del example-irc-alias
   /server add example-irc-alias irc.example.com/6697 -ssl
   

   You can then connect to the IRC server. WeeChat’s notifications indicate that SSL is being used for the connection.

    /connect example-irc-alias
   

Set Up Automatic Renewals

Certificates from Let’s Encrypt expire after 90 days. Certbot automatically renews your certificate, but the renewed certificate needs to be copied to the inspircd folder. The following steps show you how to set up a Cron job to copy the certificate files automatically.

You can learn more about using Cron in the Schedule Tasks with Cron guide.

1. Make a /etc/inspircd/cron directory. Using your preferred text editor, create and open a copy-inspircd-certs.sh in that directory. The Nano text editor is used in this example.

    sudo mkdir /etc/inspircd/cron
    sudo nano /etc/inspircd/cron/copy-inspircd-certs.sh
   

2. Enter the following lines in the copy-inspircd-certs.sh file.

   File: /etc/inspircd/cron/copy-inspircd-certs.sh

   1 2 3 4 5

   # !/bin/bash cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/debian-test.nathanielps.com/fullchain.pem /etc/inspircd/ssl/cert.pem cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/debian-test.nathanielps.com/privkey.pem /etc/inspircd/ssl/key.pem chown -R irc:irc /etc/inspircd

   The first line defines what program is used to execute the script. The remaining lines duplicate the ones used above for copying the certificate files into the inspircd directory and ensuring the InspIRCd user has the required permissions for them. The sudo portion of the commands has been removed since the cron job is to be run by the root user.

3. Make the file executable.

    sudo chmod +x /etc/inspircd/cron/copy-inspircd-certs.sh
   

4. Open the root user’s crontab. You are prompted to select a text editor; select whichever you prefer.

    sudo crontab -e
   

5. Add the job to the crontab by entering the following line:

    0 0 * * * /etc/inspircd/cron/copy-inspircd-certs.sh
   

Next Steps

Your IRC server is now up and running and ready for a community. Check out the #irchelp website for more information about using and running an IRC server. You can also refer that channel to get ideas for more you can do with your new server. You can also use the IRC Networks and Server Lists to find existing IRC communities and see how other popular IRC servers operate.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• InspIRCd configuration options
• IRC help website
• IRC networks and server lists