What's new in UnrealIRCd 6

Below are the brief release highlights for UnrealIRCd 6. The full release notes are available here and cover more new features and other changes.

• 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.
  • Logging to a channel in UnrealIRCd 6.0.2 and later.
• 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.
• Special users can get higher flood rates, different max-channels-per-user, etc.
• UnrealIRCd admin webpanel using the JSON-RPC interface (6.0.6+)
• 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
• CLI improvements. In UnrealIRCd 6.0.2+ the ./unrealircd rehash command now shows rehash warnings/errors, so you can see if the rehash succeeded. The rest of the Command Line Interface has been improved as well and several options are now available on Windows too.
• Code cleanups. Again lots of code cleanups have been done and module API changes.
• Documentation: a new Security article outlines all the security features of UnrealIRCd in one place

If you are upgrading from UnrealIRCd 5.x to UnrealIRCd 6.x, then read Upgrading from 5.x. 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.

See also

• The release notes for UnrealIRCd 6
• What's new in UnrealIRCd 5 (the previous series!)