And another one in the IRCd updates list – this time it’s Unreal.

After it has been announced that Stskeeps will leave the project behind there has been quite some uproar as it is one of the most widely used IRCd’s today.

The announcement was quickly followed up by nate, who explained that he will indeed continue development on version 3.3.x so the project is far away from being dead but he also noted that “Its still going to be a few months off before any code is here for base uses” as he is “the only one working on 3.3 right now”.

Today Syzop announced the availability of 3.2.8-rc1 which, as he stated in the announcement, “should NOT be used at production servers” but is meant to “allow members from the public to test if there are any major release critical bugs (eg: crash bugs) present, so they can be corrected before the real 3.2.8 release.”

Major Changes, taken from the summary are:

* Zip links issue (Overflowed unzipbuf)
* Crash issue with 3rd party modules that introduce new channelmodes w/parameters
* Mac OS X: Various issues which prevented the IRCd from booting up
* A few rare crash issues, including a crash when linking to another server

Minor fixes include:

* CGI:IRC: Several IPv6 issues, both on IPv6 IRCd's and CGI:IRC gateways
* IP masks in oper::from::userhost sometimes didn't match when they should
* (G)ZLINE's on IPv6 users were sometimes rejected
* CHROOTDIR works again

Notable new features introduced with this release are slow spamfilter detection, where the IRCd checks the time a spamfilter takes to execute each time it is matched and warns about slow executing ones and maybe even disables it if a certain threshold is reached – this will prevent the IRCd from coming to grinding halt if the RegEx is malformed or poorly written.

Away notifications with WATCH opens up the possibility to have Instant Messaging like notifications for users going /away or coming back – although none of the clients currently support this it’s nice to see some innovation in a protocol as old as IRC.

Clients like mIRC, Klient and possibly others can make use of UHNames where the IRCd sends full nick!ident@host masks to be used for the clients internal access list.

Changed behaviour in this release includes the removal of the part reason when someone banned /part’s – this will prevent them from having a last payback for getting banned.

The full changelog can be found in the announcement – downloads are available for Windows, Windows with SSL and as Sourcecode.

Syzop also mentioned that “If you’re willing to help some more, maybe you could help out in the Unreal3.2 testing forum as well, to test specific test-items, be sure to read the first post (‘READ THIS! (how to use)’).”

Happy testing!

In an announcement on the IRCd’s website, Stskeeps posts his “resignation letter”:

“So, after a long wait, I’ve decided to pull out of the UnrealIRCd project – which I started back in 1999. My reasons for this is that IRC has reached a point where it’s growing increasingly difficult to do anything remotely inventive, restricted by the lack of cooperation in the IRCd community and amongst networks & clients, and lack of people interested in helping out with doing the actual code. And when it’s not possible to do anything inventive, it just isn’t exciting anymore, and it’s a drag to code on.”

After Stskeeps pulling out and Syzop being forced to go inactive again, there are two people left developing for a 3.2.8 version of the popular IRCd. Stskeeps says that he wishes them “the best of luck” and that it would have been “selfish of me to shut down the project when there’s still people active within it, so this isn’t a shut down notice, but I’ve decided I don’t have time for maintaining the project anymore, contribute to, or participate in it. So the fate of the project is in their hands now.”

Being asked about Unreal4, a fork of InspIRCd, Stskeeps replies that it is “completely dead” and very probably not going to see the light of the day. But not all hope is lost for the future of UnrealIRCd, there’s a 3.3 branch still in development which is a rewrite of the existing codebase.

Closing his posting he writes: “I would like to thank the people that have helped out with contributions both code, support, donations, infrastructure and time through these many years. A testament to this would be http://searchirc.com/ircd-versions , which illustrates how strong Unreal still is, even with inactive development for quite a while. And the fact that Unreal started out with being a fringe IRCd noone really used, to being the most used IRCd on the internet.

For myself, I’m no longer going to answer support questions with regards to UnrealIRCd, or hang out at the channels anymore. I’ll be on freenode if any of those who know me personally would like to hang out still.”

Thanks to Stskeeps and nate for letting me bug you & all the best for the future both to you and Unreal.