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Category Archives: Networks

freenodes ircd-seven is in the final testing stage

ircd-seven, the IRCd that is going to replace the aged hyperion IRCd currently in use on freenode, is in the final stages of testing.

After being in the public testing phase for over one year, it seems it is finally ready to go into production use on the network.

In an announcement, freenode staff write that after “extensive testing by users and staff, we are now preparing for the switch-over which is taking place at the end of this month” and that they’d like to thank “those of you who have helped test, those who have botted the testnet and in particular those who have helped us find and iron out bugs”.

Those who make use of bots on freenode are advised to “take these last couple of weeks to make sure that they work with the new ircd, so as to not experience disappointment on switch-over for the production network”.

Closing the announcement they write that if “all going well, the switch-over is scheduled for Saturday January 30th 2010″.

GameSurge celebrates 6th birthday

GameSurge, a network that is mainly catering to gamers, is celebrating its 6th birthday on the 3rd of February.

In the announcement on their homepage they write that they are “pleased to announce that on February 3, 2010, we will be celebrating our 6th birthday” and that the “continuous success of this network is all in part due to you, our loyal user base. To show our deep appreciation for your support, we will be giving away numerous prizes to lucky, random users on Friday, February 5, 2010 6PM Pacific time.”

To take part in the drawing you “MUST be at least 14 years of age and MUST be in #gamesurge on the day and time of the draw. If you are selected, you will be required to provide proof of age” so prepare to show some sort of ID if you win.

Happy 6th birthday GameSurge – all the best from IRC-Junkie :)

IRCtoo has "Open Link Month"

IRCtoo, a network founded on 1st of April 2001, now has an “Open Link Month” in January.

Network founder driz explains what this means: “Basically, we’re allowing hub admins to hand out C/N lines to anyone at their discretion” and the only requirements to receive those are “that the servers run our modified version of Bahamut IRCD, a Blitzed Open Proxy Monitor (both available at http://www.irctoo.net/release/), and time synchronization such as NTPD”

IRCtoos currently has servers in the U.S., Canada and Israel and is looking for links from all over the world – provided the server has decent specs.

The modifications they’ve included in their IRCd, amongst others, are client-side SSL and a network-wide spamfilter.

So, if you have some resources to donate to a network, give it a try.

Freenode under DDoS

What many have suspected has now been confirmed – the root cause of the many netsplits on the freenode IRC network during the last days have been caused by ongoing DDoS attacks on their sponsors.

Freenode staffer JonathanD writes in their blogpost that they are experiencing a “heavy DDoS against several locations at which some of our servers are hosted. The attack is ongoing and cause a lot of disruption, both to users of the network and unfortunately to projects/companies/individuals whos infrastructure is hosted at the same locations as us” but also writes that they are “working hard to try curb the attacks as best they can.”

He also writes that they will keep their staffblog updated on the issues and recommends that “users of the network will also be able to receive (infrequent) status updates via global notice and slightly more frequent updates via wallops for those who have chosen to go +w (/umode +w or /mode yournick +w) will enable wallops in your irc client should you wish to see these.”

In closing he apologizes for “the inconvenience this no doubt causes for you and your project(s) and we would like to thank you all (in particular, our very generous and dedicated sponsors) for the patience and support while the issues are still ongoing.”

Freenode issues

Not only was (and is) Freenode being hit by some bored kiddy – to add insult to the injury they’re currently experiencing major stability issues, resulting in many netsplits throughout the day.

As JonathanD writes in their most-recent blogpost they’ve been “facing some fairly major splits today as there have been issues between some of our major hubs” and that they’ve “rerouted these and are working on tracing down the cause of any other splits” and that their “staff are already hard at work on these issues and will resolve them as quickly as possible”.

The following global notices have been sent on the network to let the users know what is going on:

[Global Notice] Hi all, we appear to be having some connectivity issues with our main US hub, as a result of this we are temporarily without  services, if this affects your channel please contact staff in #freenode for assistance. We’re looking into the issues as we speak. Thank you for your patience.

[Global Notice] Hi all, we’re having some major issues with connectivity at the DC hosting one of our hidden hubs, I’m going to re-route around it,  which will cause about twice as much noise as the splits already made. Apologies for the inconvenience.

JonathanD also notes that “these and other issues are a large part of the reason for the upcoming migration to ircd-seven, and we still need your help in that regard.” They are “still in need help testing the new ircd and working out the bugs”, so if you feel like being part of the solution he asks you to “have a look at this posting for information on how you can test the new ircd.”