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IRC Statistics Software Comparison

phrozen77 — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:11:49 +0000

Today we shall have a look at the various possibilities available for statistics of activity on IRC, should you decide you want to have some pretty graphs detailing the happenings in a channel or on a whole network.

Most programs presented in this article parse logfiles generated by a variety of IRC clients, with the exception of phpDenora/Denora which needs to be run as a network service to gather its stats. However, both solutions can supplement one another as one may gather and display information that the other does or even can not.

All screenshots show results generated from the same logfile so you can directly compare the output of each software – only the output of phpDenora is taken from a live network and does not represent the numbers shown in the other screenshots. Also, it should be noted that all programs have been tested in their default configuration and most provide a host of options that may output even more detailed and fancier statistics so YMMV.

mIRCStats

Language: Pascal
License: Shareware (Full Version starting from 12$/€)
Type: Log-parser
Logformats: irssi, mIRC, Trillian, Eggdrop, irssi, HydraIRC, ircle, BNC, miau, Winbot, XChat
Output: HTML
Support: Forum

mIRCStats IRC Statistics

mIRCStats is one of the older and more well-known packages out there but also the only one in this comparison that is licensed as shareware. However, with paying you get access to even more advanced output and graphing options and put food on the developers table

The statistics it outputs leave nothing to be desired, not even in the shareware version. mIRCStats supports a wide variety of IRC clients it can parse logs from and adding new parsers is trivial – just edit a textfile that defines how certain events “look” in the log. There even is an option to automatically upload the generated files via FTP to a server of your choice so the statistics will always be up-to-date.

One downside of mIRCStats is that it is a Windows-only program which means you’ll need an always-on Windows machine that will parse the log and generate the stats if you plan on periodic updates of your stats.

pisg (Perl IRC Statistics Generator)

Language: Perl
License: GPL
Type: Log-parser
Logformats: XChat, mIRC, Eggdrop, BitchX, irssi, virc98, dancer, Trillian, Grufti, mbot, Winbot, zcbot, muh, Energymech, ircII, psyBNC, ircle, infobot, axur, bobot++, oer, perlbot, Vision, pircbot, KVIrc, HydraIRC, sirc, moobot, supybot, blootbot, dircproxy, Konversation
Output: HTML
Support: #pisg

pisg IRC Statistics

pisg also is a logfile parser and, as the acronym suggests, is written in Perl which makes it multiplatform / multiOS.

The statistics it generates in its default configuration are detailed but beyond that pisg is very extendable and provides many options to further customize the output and statistics parsed and graphed by it – the documentation explains most if not all possible settings in detail. If you are using a client whose logformat is not in its extensive list of supported and supplied parsers you can create your own provided you have some knowledge of regular expressions.

With pisg, the parsing of logfiles can be automated by adding the command to cron or Task Scheduler and if you want to generate statistics for multiple channels you can easily do so by configuring it via its config-file instead of passing commandline arguments to the executable.

risg (Ruby IRC Statistics Generator)

Language: Ruby
License: MIT
Type: Log-parser
Logformats: irssi
Output: HTML, XML, Console
Support: #risg

risg IRC Statistics

risg, short for “Ruby IRC Statistics Generator”, also is a multiplatform / multiOS logfile parsing statistics generator programmed in Ruby.

Currently it only parses logfiles that are in irssis’ default format however parser-support is modular and one could create his own parser based on the supplied one for irssi.

Statistics graphed by risg are a bit plain and not as detailed as they could be, but given the low version number and the fact that the software still is considered to be in an “experimental stage of development” things might as well change in the future. The lack of documentation besides a basic setup and usage guide is probably also attributable to the early stage the software is in but all in all risg has potential.

Being a commandline-driven program, risgs’ statistics generation can be automated and its output can be modified, used and mangled limited only by its users imagination.

superseriousstats

Language: PHP
License: BSD
Type: Log-parser
Logformats: Eggdrop, irssi, mIRC
Output: HTML, MySQL
Support: #sss-support

SuperSeriousStats IRC Statistics

superseriousstats is of the “logfile parsing” variety too but, to add another programming language to the mix, is written entirely in PHP. It uses a MySQL database for data storage which opens up quite a few possibilities on how and where you can use it besides the full statistics website.

The graphs and statistics sss generates aren’t overly fancy (did you expect anything else from software that calls itself “serious”?) but some customization options are provided so you can still tweak and fiddle with them. As with the previous packages, superseriousstats is to be used from the commandline and can be executed with any scheduling daemon – provided you have a recent version of PHP installed on the platform of your choice.

Extending the number of logformats / clients supported is just a matter of creating an appropiate parser for which you’d need to have at least a basic understanding of regular expressions.

Denora / phpDenora

Language: C / PHP
License: GPL
Type: Network Service
Logformats: -
Output: HTML, XML, MySQL
Support: #denora

phpDenora IRC Statistics

The combination of Denora and phpDenora is unique in that it is the only package in this comparison that must be run as a network service to gather its statistics.

The upside of this is that it can gather statistics and details the other packages can’t provide but on the flipside also means that you will need to have access to the IRC networks configuration or convince one of the admins to install it for you – otherwise you’re out of luck.

The statistics and graphs phpDenora displays are multifaceted & good-looking and due it being a network service it displays statistics for the whole network, not just one or a few channels. Denora introduces StatServ, a pseudoclient like NickServ, to the network that is able to display a selection of statistics in channel messages or notices to you.

Data parsed by Denora is available in a MySQL database or XML which makes it an ideal candidate for modeling the output your way. It should be noted that the successor for phpDenora, called MagIRC, is already in the works but is not anywhere near production-ready and therefore not suitable for most IRC nets.

Verdict:

All solutions generate useful and appealing results – one maybe a bit more than the other but in the end it’s all a matter of taste and largely depends on what you want to achieve.

If you’re looking to customize the output or scope of the graphs you should definately pick the solution that is written in the language you’re already familiar with or comfortable to learn.

What do you use to provide statistics on your network or channel?

IRC Statistics Software Comparison is a post from: IRC-Junkie.org - IRC News

This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Deutschland license.

Atheme IRC Services 5.2.0 released

phrozen77 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:13:13 +0000

The Atheme project just tagged version 5.2.0 of their IRC services package which contains quite a few interesting changes from the previous version, 5.1.1.

Atheme IRC Services Logo

Atheme 5.2.0 introduces a new database format called “OpenSEX” which is available as a technology preview in this release and will be mandatory once Atheme 6.0 is released. According to developer nenolod, the revised format was introduced to “remove legacy stuff and provide an extendable API“.

HostServ gained the OFFER command which allows opers to – surprise – offer vHosts to their users. All of ChanServ and NickServs SET commands are now seperate modules which can be loaded individually, allowing networks fine-grained choosing of which functionality they provide to their users.

When users register, NickServ can now make use of CrackLib which checks for weak passwords and either warns the user or even prevents registering when it determined the password isn’t secure.

The converter for databases from IRCServices has been improved and now is “generally more robust”. The rate-limiting feature has been expanded and now supports limiting commands to HostServ/Request, ChanServ/Register and NickServ/Register to prevent the services server from being overloaded.

The complete changelog can be found here and the download is available here.

Atheme IRC Services 5.2.0 released is a post from: IRC-Junkie.org - IRC News

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Anope IRC Services 1.9.2 released, adds InspIRCd 2.0 support [Update 2]

phrozen77 — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:19:16 +0000

chaz of the Anope project announced version 1.9.2 of their services package in the development branch.

New features since the release of 1.9.1-p1 are the “modestacker” which allows setting and removing several modes by services in one line, the binary databases have been replaced by flatfile plaintext ones and an option for persistent channels which keeps BotServ bots in the channel even when it is empty has been added.

Anope now supports linking over IPv6 and also reconnects automatically if it detects the uplink has died. Where it was only possible to have one encryption method of your users precious passwords, you can now set to have two or even more – useful if an application which interfaces with Anope only supports old and broken hashing algorithms like MD5. InspIRCd development also continued at a high pace and this release now supports linking to the 2.0 versions of their IRCd.

Finally, this release features something that closely resembles Live SQL: Anope reads from a special “commands” table which contains normal Anope commands and is executed as a FIFO-style queue. The database gets updated immediately when commands are issued and commands executed from SQL are also near-instant, however developer Adam says he has “an evil plan for that”. chaz writes in his announcement that this feature will be “further developed/re-engineered in 1.9.3″ but he says it’s a “good start”.

Since the whole Live SQL thing is a new feature and even though it was thoroughly tested, the announcement contains a few words that you should take precautions:

As always, we encourage early adopters of development releases to exercise caution and take frequent system back ups knowing full well it might destroy your plans on a Friday night. We have been running 1.9.2 on Teranova for some time now and only uncovered a few unseen bugs. (This was on both Unreal and subsequently our migration to InspIRCd 1.2).

Networks that are running their services daemon on Windows will be missing out on the whole Live SQL business – apparently MySQL support on Windows is broken but it’ll be added when 1.9.3 is released.

Another thing to look forward to is that there will be a webinterface included in one of the upcoming releases and the developers note that they “welcome suggestions on our forum for functionality this could include”.

Probably trying to reduce the possibility to be hit by a similarly disastrous hack like it happened to the guys of the UnrealIRCd project, chaz writes that future releases “may include further security measures such as GPG/etc” in addition to the provided MD5Sums.

Even though the changelog seems rather short there have been changes to no less than 279 files with 31458 insertions and almost as much deletions according to this diff stat.

The announcement which includes the download link and further instructions regarding the upgrade process from 1.9.1 and MySQL-support can be viewed here.

[Update]: Anope 1.9.2-p1 has been released as a direct result from a few bugreports. Issues resolved include Windows-specific problems and fixes to the database converter – if you’ve experienced problems with either you’re advised to update.

The project is also seeking contributors for their upcoming releases – whether you’re a coder, webdev or a tester – if you feel like helping the project out you should get in touch with them.

[Update 2]: Patch release 2 has just been made available on the Anope website: InspIRCd 2.0 support has been extended, full m_customprefix (allows custom prefixes to be created) support being one of the added features in this release. Users of Anope 1.9.2 and 1.9.2-p1 are advised to upgrade since both versions contain a bug that may crash services when a nick expires.

Anope IRC Services 1.9.2 released, adds InspIRCd 2.0 support [Update 2] is a post from: IRC-Junkie.org - IRC News

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William “nenolod” Pitcock quits DroneBL

phrozen77 — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:49:03 +0000

William “nenolod” Pitcock, founder and long-time operator of the DroneBL DNSBL, announced via a posting on their mailinglist that he’ll discontinue his work on the service “due to time and emotional constraints” “effective immediately”.

DroneBL DNS Blacklist Logo

The DNS Blacklist is one of the few that is especially meant to be used for IRC Networks.

He writes that coming to the decision to quit having an active role was not an easy process but he deems the project mature enough that the community “can steer it’s future development focus” and notes that he’ll continue to provide hosting for the blacklist until the community has made appropriate “alternative hosting arrangements”.

nenolod hands over the operations part of the service to Alexander “OUTsider” Maassen which he says that many already know. nenolod notes that he shouldn’t be contacted about issues considering DroneBL anymore as he’d be unable to help from now on.

Closing the announcement, nenolod writes that it is now time for him to “begin work on other endeavours”.

IRC-Junkie wishes nenolod all the best, whatever those future endeavours might be

Oh and yes indeed, thanks for all the fish!

William “nenolod” Pitcock quits DroneBL is a post from: IRC-Junkie.org - IRC News

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Atheme services packages releases version 5.1.0

phrozen77 — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:44:11 +0000

The team developing the Atheme IRC services just tagged version 5.1.0 of their services package.

The new release brings a lot of bugfixes, feature additons and enhancements as well as a slew of modules that have been contributed to the project by other developers.

Also, a few changes have been made to the available IRCd protocols, mostly improvements and additions concerning InspIRCd support but also a new module which provides support for the Ithildin IRCd has been added. Support for the legacy hyperion daemon, previously used on freenode, has been dropped and support for ShadowIRCd has been updated.

Various helpfiles for the available *Serv’s have been added and updated, the same goes for all the added contributed modules. A taint subsystem has been added which “allows developers to programatically define unsupportable conditions”.

SaslServ has gained the AUTHCOOKIE SASL method which allows for integration with Iris, an AJAX IRC client that is a fork of and aims to be a drop-in replacement for qwebirc which is “designed to integrate with the Atheme IRC platform (including atheme-web) and with IRCv3 client protocol compliance in mind”.

NickServ was expanded with CERTFP support which allows for password-less authentication via SSL certificate fingerprints. The converter for Anope databases has been improved to support newer versions of Anope and has been reworked to be a bit more robust when handling encrypted passwords.

The download can be found here and the complete changelog is available here.

Atheme services packages releases version 5.1.0 is a post from: IRC-Junkie.org - IRC News

This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Deutschland license.