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Anope releases RC1 of new 1.8 stable branch

On Sunday, 26th October the Anope project announces the release of release candidate 1 of their new stable branch, version 1.8 of their widely used IRC services package.

The announcement on their website also mentions that “Apart from updates to language files there are no changes since the last development release (1.7.24).”

However, all users of the last stable release, 1.6.5, should prepare to test the new version since they plan to stop supporting it when 1.8 becomes final.

A detailed changelog can be found here.

Thanks to Chaz & Viper for the tip!

Denora IRC-Statistics version 1.4.1 released

Changes in the latest version include improved Charybdis support, Nefarious and other P10 IRCD improvements, compiling on Windows has been fixed, some other minor fixes which are unnamed and an as vaguely described “potential security issue in string handling has been adressed”.

Compiling on Windows with SQL enabled has been a “last minute fix” so the developers consider this a test release for Windows and appreciate any feedback via their bugtracker

The homepage of the project is located here

ChatSpike Migrates to Atheme IRC Services

“ChatSpike is migrating to Atheme IRC Services (from ircservices 5 which we have been using since we started, 6 years ago)” Brain said to IRC-Junkie.

W00t explains why IRC Services no longer serves the network. “IRC services was and is a big influence on the IRC landscape, to me. It was one of the first packages to be OSS’d, it was actively developed over a long timeframe, and incorporated user feedback. It supported a wide range of IRC daemons, and was also one of the earliest packages to get modules support”

Its age was showing in the flexibility however, w00t, who is also a developer of Atheme IRC services explains: “some features have taken us hundreds of lines of code to write, including database handling and other horrific and repetitive code. Atheme has a more streamlined design that lets us tackle this in a RAD style, meaning new toys take a lot less time to get from the ideas stage to the point where our users can play with them.”

Additionally the maintainer of IRCservices Andy Church will be leaving the project soon making future updates too unsure for Chatspike’s needs.

Another reason to switch to Atheme is its better integration with the networks IRCd, InspIRCd. “In atheme [...] we can add and customize things specifically *for* ChatSpike a few light years quicker than we could in the past, new commands, new website integration features, anything becomes feasible instead of a pain in the ass.”

IRC Defender 1.5 Released

IRC Defender is a security package written in Perl made for small to medium sized networks. Its written in Perl and fully modular.

It took some time to release version 1.5. Developer Thunderhacker explains: “InspIRCd became far more popular than he (Brain, ed.) expected and development of Defender got pushed to the side.  Shortly after I took over I went back to school, so my schoolwork pushed its development aside.  Now that school is out for the summer I will be doing a lot more development.”

Although newer versions are always available over SVN the team recommends stable releases if stability is important.

IRC-Junkie asked what’s new in the release. “Along with the addition of a couple of modules this release fixes many bugs that have been found over the months.  Aside from that not much of the functionality has changed.”

“As Defender is primarily a services package for ChatSpike, I am currently working on modifying the InspIRCd link module for their new 1.2 release.  There is a copy of the partially completed module in SVN. I will keep it updated nightly with any progress I make on it.”

Finally Thunderhacker likes to express a few thanks, “I’d also like to add a thanks to everyone who has helped with development.  I have credited everyone in the changelog and also in comments on SVN commits.  In particular I’d like to thank satmd and w00t for their help with support in the help channel during my absence and also OUTsider for his work on the P10 link module as he has become an unofficial developer of that part of Defender.”

Thanks to Greg for the tip.

EFnet Enables SSL Connections

“EFnet has recently enabled SSL connections on a select few servers,” EFnet admin Taliz wrote to IRC-Junkie. “irc.efnet.ch, irc.pte.hu and irc.blessed.net are allowing SSL clients to connect on ports 9999, 7000, 7001 and 6697.”

The developers of the Ratbox IRCd added it to the code after continuous requests. “The option to support SSL connections is part of ratbox 3, which is currently in beta stage. Hence only a few servers support it yet, namely irc.efnet.ch, irc.pte.hu & irc.blessed.net. However irc.eversible.com is running a special solution also accepting SSL, using the older ratbox 2. Also irc.efnet.ch and irc.pte.hu are running separate ircds for the SSL clients, to not disrupt regular clients while bugfixing etc.”

According to Taliz, around 200 clients are using the feature right now, but its growing as the word is spreading around.

Finally, Taliz ends with a small warning. “Until ratbox 3 goes “stable”, you may expect more frequent restarts due to bugs being worked out.”