construct/README.md

# IRC++d

<img align="right" src="https://i.imgur.com/mHGxDyC.png" />

### Internet Relay Chat daemon: *charybdis/5*<sup><img src="http://www.iconj.com/ico/p/s/ps5wyionii.ico" /></sup>

IRCd is a free and open source server which facilitates real-time communication over the
internet. It was started by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988 at the University of Oulu and [its
derivatives](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/IRCd_software_implementations.png)
underpinned the major IRC networks for decades. Eventually the project found itself
under the curation of William Pitcock et al, whom after 2005 further developed it under
the brand *Charybdis*.

In 2014 a new approach was proposed to reinvigorate real-time communication in lieu of growing
proprietary competition from opaque cloud services. This is known as the
[*Matrix Protocol*](https://matrix.org/docs/spec/): a superset of IRC that evolves it into a federation
of networks and provides a means for interoperability with the modern 21st century internet messaging
ecosystem.

**IRCd has been rewritten to implement the _Matrix Protocol_** using some of the latest techniques
available for modern C++ free software. Just like the first iteration of IRCd, the latest Charybdis
employs technologies in vogue for this era which provide a fulfilling experience for users and a
powerfully extensible environment for developers.

Charybdis is designed to be fast and highly scalable, and to be community
developed by volunteer contributors over the internet. This mission strives to make
the software easy to understand, modify, audit, and extend. It remains true to its
roots with its modular design and having minimal requirements. Even though almost all
of the old code has been rewritten, the same spirit and _philosophy of the
predecessor_ is still obvious throughout.

#### charybdis/5 federates your IRC network with the atheme/8 module

This is the first implementation of a Matrix homeserver written in C++; it serves
matrix clients over HTTP. The RFC1459 family of legacy grammars are employed to
translate matrix to and from legacy IRC networks supporting TS6 in a module called
**atheme/8**.

##### Link charybdis/4 to charybdis/5 by loading the atheme/8 module.


## Installation

Getting up and running with Charybdis is easy. A deployment can scale from as little as
a low-end virtual machine running a stock linux distribution to a large load balanced
cluster operating in synchrony.


#### Dependencies

**Boost** (1.61 or later) - We have replaced libratbox with the well known and actively
developed Boost libraries. These are included as a submodule in this repository.

**RocksDB** (based on LevelDB) - We replace sqlite3 with a lightweight and embedded database
and have furthered the mission of eliminating the need for external "IRC services"

*Other dependencies:* **sodium** (NaCl crypto), **OpenSSL**, **zlib**, **snappy** (for rocksdb)

*Build dependencies:* **gnu++14 compiler**, **automake**, **autoconf**, **autoconf2.13**,
**autoconf-archive**, **libtool**, **shtool**


#### Downloading Charybdis

`git clone https://github.com/charybdis-ircd/charybdis`
`cd charybdis`
`git checkout 5`
	- Verify you have the latest source tree and **are on the Matrix branch**.


### Building from git (production)

`./autogen.sh`
`./configure`
`make`
`sudo make install`


#### Building from git (DEVELOPER PREVIEW INSTRUCTIONS)

*This is only intended to allow development with dependencies that have not made
their way to mainstream systems yet.* **Not for release.**

The developer preview will install charybdis in a specific directory isolated from the
system. It will avoid using system libraries by downloading and building the dependencies
from the submodules we have pinned here and build them the way we have configured. You may
need to set the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` to the built libraries and/or maintain an intact build
directory.

`./autogen.sh`
`mkdir build`
- The install directory may be this or another place of your choosing.
- If you decide elsewhere, make sure to change the `--prefix` in the `./configure`
statement below.

`CXX=g++-6 ./configure --prefix=$PWD/build --enable-debug --with-included-boost=shared --with-included-rocksdb=shared`
- Many systems alias `g++` to an older version. To be safe, specify a version manually
in `CXX`. This will also build the submodule dependencies with that version.
- The `--with-included-*` will fetch, configure **and build** the dependencies included
as submodules. Include `=shared` for now until static libraries are better handled.

`make`
`make install`


### Platforms

[![Charybdis](http://img.shields.io/SemVer/v5.0.0-dev.png)](https://github.com/charybdis-ircd/charybdis/tree/master)
*This branch is not meant for production. Use at your own risk.*

| <sub> Continuously Integrated Host </sub>   | <sub> Compiler </sub>    | <sub> Third party </sub> | <sub> Status </sub> |
|:------------------------------------------- |:------------------------ |:------------------------ |:------------------- |
| <sub> Linux Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial </sub>      | <sub> GCC 6       </sub> | <sub> Boost 1.62 </sub>  | [![POSIX Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/charybdis-ircd/charybdis.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/charybdis-ircd/charybdis) |
| <sub> Linux Ubuntu 14.04 Xenial </sub>      | <sub> Clang 3.8   </sub> | <sub> Boost 1.62 </sub>  | [![POSIX Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/charybdis-ircd/charybdis.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/charybdis-ircd/charybdis) |
| <sub> Apple Darwin 15.5 </sub>              | <sub> LLVM 7.3.0  </sub> | <sub> Boost 1.62 </sub>  | [![POSIX Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/charybdis-ircd/charybdis.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/charybdis-ircd/charybdis) |
| <sub> Windows </sub>                        | <sub> mingw 3.5   </sub> | <sub> Boost 1.62 </sub>  | [![Windows Build Status](https://ci.appveyor.com/api/projects/status/is0obsml8xyq2qk7/branch/master?svg=true)](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/kaniini/charybdis/branch/master) |

## Tips

 * Please read doc/index.txt to get an overview of the current documentation.

 * Read the NEWS file for what's new in this release.

## Developers

 * Generate doxygen using `/usr/bin/doxygen tools/doxygen.conf` the target
 directory is doc/html. Browse to doc/html/index.html