UnrealIRCd 6.0.1.1

If you are already running UnrealIRCd 6 then read below on the changes between 6.0.0 and 6.0.1(.1). Otherwise, jump straight to the summary about UnrealIRCd 6 to learn more about UnrealIRCd 6.

Fixes:

  • In 6.0.1.1: extended bans were not properly synced between U5 and U6. This caused missing extended bans on the U5 side (MODE was working OK, this only happened when linking servers)
  • Text extbans did not have any effect (+b ~text:censor:*badword*)
  • Timed bans were not expiring if all servers on the network were on U6
  • Channel mode +f could place a timed extban with ~t instead of ~time
  • Crash when unloading any of the vhoaq modules at runtime
  • ./unrealircd upgrade not working on FreeBSD and not with self-compiled cURL
  • Some log messages being wrong (CHGIDENT, CHGNAME)
  • Remove confusing high cpu load warning

Enhancements:

  • Error on unknown snomask in set::snomask-on-oper and oper::snomask.
  • TKL add/remove/expire messages now show [duration: 60m] instead of the [expires: ZZZ GMT] string since that is what people are more interested in and is not affected by time zones. The format in all the 3 notices is also consistent now.

UnrealIRCd 6 comes with a completely redone logging system (with optional JSON support), named extended bans, four new IRCv3 features, geoip support and remote includes support built-in.

Additionally, things are more customizable such as what gets sent to which snomask. All the +vhoaq channel modes are now modular as well, handy for admins who don't want or need halfops or +q/+a. For WHOIS it is now customizable in detail who gets to see what.

A summary of the features is available at What's new in UnrealIRCd 6. For complete information, continue reading the release notes below. The sections below contain all the details.

Upgrading from UnrealIRCd 5

The previous stable series, UnrealIRCd 5, will no longer get any new features. We still do bug fixes until July 1, 2022. In the 12 months after that, only security issues will be fixed. Finally, after July 1, 2023, all support will stop.

If you want to hold off for a while because you are cautious or if you depend on 3rd party modules (which may not have been upgraded yet by their authors) then feel free to wait for a 6.0.1 or 6.0.2 release.

If you are upgrading from UnrealIRCd 5 to 6 then you can use your existing configuration and files. There's no need to start from scratch. However, you will need to make a few updates, see Upgrading from 5.x to 6.x.

Enhancements

  • Completely new log system and snomasks overhaul
    • Both logging and snomask sending is done by a single logging function
    • Support for JSON logging to disk, instead of the default text format. JSON logging adds lot of detail to log messages and consistently expands things like client with properties like hostname, connected_since, reputation, modes, etc.
    • The JSON data is also sent to all IRCOps who request the unrealircd.org/json-log capability. The data is then sent in a message-tag called unrealircd.org/json-log. This makes it ideal for client scripts and bots to do automated things.
    • A new style log { } block is used to map what log messages should be logged to disk, and which ones should be sent to snomasks.
    • The default logging to snomask configuration is in snomasks.default.conf which everyone should include from unrealircd.conf. That is, unless you wish to completely reconfigure which logging goes to which snomasks yourself, which is also an option now.
    • See Snomasks on the new snomasks - lots of letters changed!
    • See FAQ: Converting log { } block on how to change your existing log { } blocks for disk logging.
    • We now have a consistent log format and log messages can be multiline.
    • Colors are enabled by default in snomask server notices, these can be disabled via set::server-notice-colors and also in oper::server-notice-colors
  • Almost all channel modes are modularized
    • Only the three list modes (+b/+e/+I) are still in the core
    • The five level modes (+vhoaq) are now also modular. They are all loaded by default but you can blacklist one or more if you don't want them. For example to disable halfop: blacklist-module chanmodes/halfop;
    • Support for compiling without PREFIX_AQ has been removed because people often confused it with disabling +a/+q which is something different.
  • Named extended bans
    • Extbans now no longer show up with single letters but with names. For example +b ~c:#channel is now +b ~channel:#channel.
    • Extbans are automatically converted from the old to the new style, both from clients and from/to older UnrealIRCd 5 servers. The auto-conversion also works fine with complex extbans such as +b ~t:5:~q:nick!user@host to +b ~time:5:~quiet:nick!user@host.
  • New IRCv3 features:
    • MONITOR: an alternative for WATCH to monitor other users ("notify list").
    • draft/extended-monitor: extensions for MONITOR, still in draft.
    • invite-notify: report channel invites to other chanops (or users) in a machine readable way.
    • setname: notify clients about realname (gecos) changes.
  • GeoIP lookups are now done by default
    • This shows the country of the user to IRCOps in WHOIS and in the "user connecting" line.
    • By default the geoip_classic module is loaded, for which we provide a mirror of database updates at unrealircd.org. This uses the classic geolite library that is now shipped with UnrealIRCd
    • Other options are the geoip_maxmind and geoip_csv modules.
  • Configure WHOIS output in a very precise way
    • You can now decide which fields (eg modes, geo, certfp, etc) you want to expose to who (everyone, self, oper).
    • See set::whois-details for more details.
  • We now ship with 3 cloaking modules and you need to load 1 explicitly via loadmodule:
    • cloak_sha256: the recommended module for anyone starting a new network. It uses the SHA256 algorithm under the hood.
    • cloak_md5: for anyone who is upgrading their network from older UnrealIRCd versions. Use this so your cloaked host bans remain the same.
    • cloak_none: if you don't want any cloaking, not even as an option to your users (rare)
  • Remote includes are now supported everywhere in the config file.
    • Support for https:// fetching is now always available, even if you don't compile with libcurl support.
    • Anywhere an URL is encountered on its own, it will be fetched automatically. This makes it work not only for includes and motd (which was already supported) but also for any other file.
    • To prevent something from being interpreted as a remote include URL you can use 'value' instead of "value".
  • Invite notification: set set::normal-user-invite-notification yes; to make chanops receive information about normal users inviting someone to their channel. The name of this setting may change in a later version.
  • Websocket: you can add a listen::options::websocket::forward 1.2.3.4 option to make unrealircd accept a Forwarded (RFC 7239) header from a reverse proxy connecting from 1.2.3.4 (plans to accept legacy X-Forwarded-For and a proxy password too). This feature is currently experimental.

Changes

  • TLS cipher and some other information is now visible for remote clients as well, also in [secure: xyz] connect line.
  • Error messages in remote includes use the url instead of a temporary file
  • Downgrading from UnrealIRCd 6 is only supported down to 5.2.0 (so not lower like 5.0.x). If this is a problem then make a copy of your db files (eg: reputation.db).

Removed

  • /REHASH -motd and -opermotd are gone, just use /REHASH

Breaking changes

See https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Upgrading_from_5.x, but in short:

You can use the unrealircd.conf from UnrealIRCd 5, but you need to make a few changes:

  • You need to add include "snomasks.default.conf";
  • You need to load a cloaking module explicitly. Assuming you already have a network then add: loadmodule "cloak_md5";
  • The log block(s) need to be updated, use something like: 
    log {
        source {
            !debug;
            all;
        }
        destination {
            file "ircd.log" { maxsize 100M; }
        }
}

Module coders (API changes)

  • Be sure to bump the version in the module header from unrealircd-5 to unrealircd-6
  • We use a lot more const char * now (instead of char *). In particular parv is const now and so are a lot of arguments to hooks. This will mean that in your module you have to use more const too. The reason for this change is to indicate that certain strings should not be touched, as doing so is dangerous or could have had side-effects that were unpredictable.
  • Logging has been completely redone. Don't use ircd_log(), sendto_snomask(), sendto_ops() and sendto_realops() anymore. Instead use unreal_log() which handles both logging to disk and notifying IRCOps.
  • Various struct member names changed, in particular in ConfigEntry and ConfigFile, but also channel->chname is channel->name now.
  • get_channel() is now make_channel() and creates if needed, otherwise use find_channel()
  • The Extended Ban API has been changed a lot. We use a BanContext struct now that we pass around a lot. You also don't need to do +3 magic anymore on the string as it is handled in another layer. When registering the extended ban, .flag is now .letter, and you also need to set a .name to a string due to named extended bans. Have a look at the built-in extban modules to see how to handle the changes.
  • ModData now has an option MODDATA_SYNC_EARLY. See under Server protocol.
  • If you want to lag someone up, don't touch client->since, but instead use: add_fake_lag(client, msec)
  • Some client/user struct changes, with client->user->account (instead of svid) and client->uplink->name being the most important ones.
  • Possibly more, but above is like 90%+ of the changes that you will encounter.

Server protocol

  • When multiple related SJOIN messages are generated for the same channel then we now only send the current channel modes (eg +sntk key) in the first SJOIN and not in the other ones as they are unneeded for the immediate followup SJOINs, they waste unnecessary bytes and CPU. Such messages may be generated when syncing a channel that has dozens of users and/or bans/exempts/invexes. Ideally this should not need any changes in other software, since we already supported such messages in the past and code for handling it exists way back to 3.2.x, but you better check to be sure!
  • If you send PROTOCTL NEXTBANS then you will receive extended bans with Named EXTended BANs instead of letters (eg: +b ~account:xyz), otherwise you receive them with letters (eg: +b ~a:xyz).
  • Some ModData of users is (also) communicated in the UID message while syncing using a message tag that only appears in server-to-server traffic, s2s-md/moddataname=value. Thus, data such as operinfo, tls cipher, geoip, certfp, sasl and webirc is communicated at the same time as when a remote connection is added. This makes it that a "connecting from" server notice can include all this information and also so code can make an immediate decission on what to do with the user in hooks. ModData modules need to set mreq.sync = MODDATA_SYNC_EARLY; if they want this. Servers of course need to enable MTAGS in PROTOCTL to see this.
  • The SLOG command is used to broadcast logging messages. This is done for log::destination remote, as used in doc/conf/snomasks.default.conf, for example for link errors, oper ups, flood messages, etc. It also includes all JSON data in a message tag when PROTOCTL MTAGS is used.
  • Bounced modes are gone: these were MODEs that started with a & which servers were to act on with reversed logic (add becoming remove and vice versa) and never to send something back to that server. In practice this was almost never used and complicated the code (way) too much.

Client protocol

  • Extended bans now have names instead of letters. If a client sends the old format with letters (eg +b ~a:XYZ) then the server will convert it to the new format with names (eg: +b ~account:XYZ)
  • Support for MONITOR and the other IRCv3 features (see Enhancements)

Below are the brief release highlights for UnrealIRCd 6

  • Completely new logging system:
    • The default snomask letters changed(!) and you can now define your own snomasks. Server notices now have color (which can be turned off).
    • The log messages on-disk and in snomasks are now identical and include a subsystem and event ID. This makes it uniform and easier to look up fault codes.
    • The log { } block is completely redone. You need to make some changes when upgrading from U5 to U6.
    • Optional JSON logging is available for easier parsing by bots and other automated programs.
  • Almost all channel modes are now modular. Only the three list modes +beI are not. This means that you can now, for example, decide not to load halfops via blacklist-module chanmodes/halfop;. The same can be done for chanowner and chanadmin.
  • Extended bans now have names instead of letters. Eg +b ~channel:#badchan instead of +b ~c:#badchan. They will automatically be converted when coming from clients and from/to older UnrealIRCd servers.
  • Configure WHOIS output in a very precise way. You can now decide which fields you want to expose to who through set::whois-details.
  • Remote includes are now always supported, even if not compiled with CURL support.
  • Geo IP lookups are now done by default.
    • By default the module geoip_classic is loaded, which automatically receives weekly updates via unrealircd.org. Other geoip libraries and formats are also possible.
    • The GEO information shows up in WHOIS, in connecting notices as [country: XX] and elsewhere
    • A new extended ban +b ~country:BE can be used by regular users.
    • It can also be used as an extended server ban, eg. GLINE ~country:BD 0 :Too much spam from this country or forcing SASL authentication for a country, eg: GLINE %~country:BD 0 :Too much spam from this country, please log in with a services account
  • More IRCv3 features: MONITOR, draft/extended-monitor, invite-notify, setname
  • Code cleanups. Again lots of code cleanups have been done and module API changes.

If you are upgrading from UnrealIRCd 5.x to UnrealIRCd 6.x, then read Upgrading from 5.x to 6. That article explains how to upgrade and also the effects if you run a 'mixed network", that is: with both UnrealIRCd 5 and UnrealIRCd 6 servers on the same network.



Thursday, December 16, 2021

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