Hello WHT!

Over the past while, i've been working on my own IRC server, and as of recently, been wanting to take it to the world kinda thing.
Before I do such a thing, though, I have a few questions I was hopin' some of you would answer =)

Does any of you know of a program that can, pretty much, spawn a massive amount of users on a single server to load test my server?
I would like the scripts to pretty much keep on joining an spam the temp channel as a test. I know this is a very odd request, as i'm
sure people will question if i'll use it for good or evil ;)

Next, what's one of the overall, better IRCd servers around? I've been using UnrealIRCD as of late, along side the irc service 'ircservices'. Can anyone
recommend anything better for either server? I'd like something that's tried & tested, yet still up-to-date.

As for the idea, to help get the server off the ground, I would provide each channel with a full blown (feature wise)
web space account (space & bandwidth will be based on the size of the channel). For a channel to get the space,
they would have to be around for x amount of time before a OPER/webmaster would grant the request (this is
to lower the amount of fake users signing up to try to score bandwidth).

Would such a Idea pose any interest to anyone on here?

Thanks!

~Francisco

*note* for the people who didn't do well in math, X is a integer that'll be planned out later on

"*note* for the people who didn't do well in math, X is a integer that'll be planned out later on"

havent got a clue what your talking about in the post, but thats funny

Unreal... Ok for newbies running small networks. Anything else and you are gonna notice cpu loads and high bandwidth. Not good for networks over 600.

Ultimate, not bad, not good...Nice features and generally does better than unreal with bandwidth and cpu loads. Does well until 7000 users i think.

quake.....prefored for large nets apperently. not quite sure why...i never liked it.

I personally love dancerircd. never tried it for large nets though.

Ultimate is usually best for medium nets.

Hope i helped alittle

and oh yeah... anope services.

Hmm, great, thanks :)

any input on the idea it self? The few people i gave the idea to, seemed to really like it. a few others were a little confused, heh'

~Francisco

ircd-hybrid, ircd-ratbox, comstud, and bahamut are pretty much the defacto standards for high capacity, stable, relatively low bandwidth IRCds. Using Unreal (or anything similar) for a network larger than about 5000 is pretty much a deathwish, especially when it comes to bandwidth consumption.

if i understand correctly, you're trying to start up another irc network, or rather server since it seems there is only one server at the moment. there are lots of irc networks, what would be the advantage of yours? if its just the webspace, why wouldnt people just go to an established network, (freenode, etc) and sign up for a free web hosting account somewhere else?

not trying to bash the idea, but no one likes to log onto yet another irc server especially if they're active somewhere else, and what you're competing against is servers which are known to be stable and that people know are going to stick around. no one wants to build up a channel if the network itself might disappear one day if the server owner forgets to pay the bills. just trying to present the questions that users would be sure to ask... best wishes if you're doing it for just for fun, but if you think people will flock to it just for the webspace, i doubt it will happen.

That's the thing i'd need to compete with. I'd have to try to put a tiny dent in quakenet, rizeon, addictz, and the likes. The advantage over the space i would provide, would be (hopefully) no ads, etc. I got enough to pay the rest of this years hosting, so that wouldn't be a big deal.

While, some of them are pretty stable, a lot of the bigger ones, have major split problems (when mircx was alive, it did at times, addictz does, rizon does, etc). One of the things with the big servers, is that they suffer from a lot of spam problems, etc. So much that i've actually just said screw it and didn't goto the networks anymore (and used BT or the likes for other things).

The server would grow to a network as the demand came about.

I'm at a odd stage right now, with my web project. The plan was to push the site (articles on the latest animes and such) as much as we could. For a while (during most, if not all, of the development) we had ~8 people who were wanting to work. The day I open, they all take off, never to be heard from again. So, now I have this site, designed for a staff of 8, being maintained and such, by a single person, heh'

I don't take one bit of your post as a bash, as you cover very valid questions and such :)

~Francisco

ouch! the 8 people leaving sucks :(

i recommend picking a niche and trying to promote within it for the server. dont rely solely on the webspace to do the promoting, be active in the community that you want to target.

also personable opers are a plus of small networks, so work it! :) be fair and reasonable and treat users with respect and that will go a long way.

also if you grow you will almost uncertainly face ddos attacks, so be prepared in advance and make sure your host can put off at least small attacks. big attacks are almost impossible to deal with (i remember one took dalnet out for quite a while).

good luck

Originally posted by mkc
ouch! the 8 people leaving sucks :(

i recommend picking a niche and trying to promote within it for the server. dont rely solely on the webspace to do the promoting, be active in the community that you want to target.

also personable opers are a plus of small networks, so work it! :) be fair and reasonable and treat users with respect and that will go a long way.

also if you grow you will almost uncertainly face ddos attacks, so be prepared in advance and make sure your host can put off at least small attacks. big attacks are almost impossible to deal with (i remember one took dalnet out for quite a while).

good luck

On the topic of the 8 people, ya, it really does suck. It's one thing if like, mid way, programming wise, they came to me and told me that they lost interest or something, then i could just adjust it easily. But, they left it till the time when i needed them the most, heh'

Since the server I have right now is small, I actively yack in all of them. Oper wise, since there's only 2 of them, and we're friends with all the people in there, it isn't too uncommon to get local kills for stupid stuff (heh, one was for "being too leet", good times ;)).
I'm well aware of DDOS attacks, and hopefully, if i go ahead with this idea, i'll be able to deal with them alright. There was a period when i ran a raganrok Online server, which ranked up a good 80 people in a single channel, so me and my friend had to smarten up, and be all pro (well, as much as we could) to deal with them all.

Thanks for the input =)

Anyone else got ideas to add to the mix? Possible extras taht would make us somewhat unique?

~Francisco

Addictz? so you want to allow warez?

Not sayin' i'll focus on warez or allow it, but just using them as a example of a big server. Most of the bigger networks (rizon, old dalNET, efNET, irchighway, etc) got warez on them - lots of it. Heck, I'm sure if you did enough hunting, you'd find it on quakenet.

~Francisco

Considering the nets in which you appear to wish to compete with, I highly suggest not using an ircd such as unreal/ultimate/viagra/etc these ircds tend to be bloated with oper friendly commands which make it easy and at times fun to be an oper. But when you actually look into these commands they tend to just be used for abuse. They also make the ircd program itself use much much higher load averages and bandwidth. I would suggest going with a standard bahamut or hybrid ircd. These tend to be less liked by many of the staff as they have less powers to abuse but they are proven to run alot smoother.

A suggestion as to get users is to focus on what type of users you want. Most networks users tend to be all from 1 particular group. Groups tend to be Anime/Warez/Porn/Chat/Gaming, these groups follow each other around as seen when mircx died most the channels went to 2 different networks. Channels tend to prefer to be in a place with channels similar to themselves.

As for using webhosting as your network gimic, things like this don't tend to work. As said people can get free webhosting if wanted. What you want to use as your gimic will depend on what type of people you want on your net. People like chat/game users might like the free webhosting but it wont make them flock to the net. Gaming/chat networks take alot of time and patience to be made. Things like warez/anime nets tend to grow faster but they want the network to prove stable and prove that it will not be gone a week later after attack. Nets that tend to prove things like this get warez/anime users very quickly but this also draws more attacks towards the net.

Anyways I would suggest trying to figure out what crowd you want and aim to get things they want. Good luck.

o ya as for services im a big fan of anope and run them on my net as well.

Hmm, i'll have to check out anope later on, if i take this under my wing :) Ya, anime and such take off really quick. I was on aniverse when it first took off, and like, within a year, any channel doing anything was on there. Warez is a ugly ugly thing when it comes to IRC. If i attracted any channels that were at all big, it could turn really ugly with the feds and such. If i follow this through, i'll need to fine tune (flat out overhaul?) the web hosting idea, mainly 'cuz I would have to give out some serious space/bandwidth to try to pull some people in.

Thanks to everyone for the input on this topic, hopefully it'll help pull me and my project in the right direction =)

I think i'm gonna go put in another opening in the employment spot in hopes of gettin' some workers for the site, heh'


~Francisco

ya I would definatly mark off webhosting, as for warez not many feds in my opinion worry about warez, and as for anime the only bad thing about anime is they almost all go with each other so problem would be getting a small portion to get started on your net. The biggest problem with warez tends to be dos and attacks in general.

anime and manga are major pains in the arse. I got a friend who runs a manga group, that was on mircx. His channel alone has 400 people in it on average. So, silly me goes 'oh, bring it over here!'. Then he informs me that i'd end up with 2000+ users since the whole manga community flocks like birds!

Anime is the same. When mircx died, rizon must've jumped ~8000+ users in the matter of a couple days. As for DDOS attacks, everything brings them on these days. If you do anime, soemone will get annoyed that you did something they didn't like - DDOS. If you do warez, then the software companies may just take the 'law' into their own hands and DDOS you too. Heck, even just doing a chat channel can get you script kiddied...

....
...

Screw this, i'm going back to articles! :D

~Francisco

14,000 to be correct, but i will admit warez attracts alot more dos then anything else rizon has.

I'd say pick bahamut for ircd and for services you can pay the folks who created the old "sirv" services -www.sirv.net?- to make you a custom services.

www.srvx.net <-- best services around, period

i dont care much for ircu :/

Hello. I am new to these forums and this is my first post ever. I had a question related to IRCD. Which IRCD is the best for small networks and how can it be setup? Do I need any subdomains for an IRCD? Is there anyone who can help or set up the IRCD him/her self without any fees?

If you want an IRCd that is going to hold up with a high volume of users, you would want ircd-hybrid, ircd-ratbox, IRCu, or bahamut. For services, I wouldn't deal with it. Just let your channel owners run their own bot nets. Far less headaches for you :)

Stuff like Unreal, Ultimate and Viagra are written for IRCd's with 1 - 800 users. Once above that, they start to eat more bandwidth then they should and run higher percentage of server loads.

Originally posted by gangster
Which IRCD is the best for small networks and how can it be setup? Do I need any subdomains for an IRCD? Is there anyone who can help or set up the IRCD him/her self without any fees?

Small IRCd, and being new, I would suggest using Unreal IRCd

No you do not, most providers can supply you a sub domain off their vHost list or you could go some place like afraid.org and create one yourself for free as all IRCd's come with a private IP address.

We would be happy to help you or after you try if you can not figure it out, do it for you at no extra fee. Our toolbox comes with many self install scripts, including Unreal, no uploading or compiling. You just type uIRCd and the script does the rest!

If I can answer any more questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for your reponse. I am buying a Virtual Dedicated Server next month for my shell hosting needs and for my friends. How can I resolve Vhosts so that they maybe used with eggdrops/BNC's. As Shelltopia said that you could get yourself a subdomain from afraid.org, can that subdomain be used as a vhost. I already have a couple of subdomains from afraid.org and I dont know what to do with them.

for large networks, I would suggest dancer. irc.freenode.net uses it.

regards,
M.