Services

Services on IRC are a piece of software that usually provides NickServ and ChanServ bots. NickServ is used to register a nick name, so only you can use it. ChanServ is used to register a channel and will ensure that even if you leave or if a server is restarted, the channel is still owned by you and some settings are preserved (bans, topic, and so on). Services usually store all these settings in a database.

Most networks run services, and to make the best out of UnrealIRCd we also expect you to. That being said, it is perfectly possible to run a minimal network without services.

Supported services packages
The following services software is compatible with UnrealIRCd 4:
 * Anope: this is by far the most popular choice among UnrealIRCd users. It provides NickServ, ChanServ, OperServ, BotServ, etc. It is feature-packed and is extensible through modules. Works both on *NIX (Linux) and Windows.
 * Atheme - a possible alternative, no longer maintained
 * DeepServices (Orion): Alternative services with LiveSQL-Support
 * More?

Information for service developers
Programmers who are developing services may be interested in reading our server to server protocol.