/************************************************************************ * IRC - Internet Relay Chat, doc/NETWORKING * Copyright (C) 1994, Helen Rose * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) * any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. */ Author: Helen Rose hrose@kei.com Date: 3 March, 1994 *** Please read this before doing any connecting or writing to ask for connections. The information contained in this section is crucial to the way IRC is run. Note that any old documentation referring to ANet vs EFnet is out of date and no longer applies. ANet died so long ago that nobody can remember *when* it died. To qualify for a link on the irc network, several criteria must be met. These criteria include (but are not limited to): * A well established local irc userbase. A total of 100-150 local irc users. An average of 15-20 irc users over a 24 hour period is also acceptable. Note, these user counts are *unique, local* users. So one person running fifteen clients doesn't count, and one local person plus fifteen offsite people doesn't count. These are not arbitrary numbers, it takes at least this many users to equate the traffic of adding another server to the irc network. * A userbase that uses irc *all the time* (15 users on at once but just for a 3 hour period per day is not sufficient). * A good, fast, internet link. Absolutely *NO* SLIP lines. 56k lines are marginal, they usually cause more trouble than they are worth, so we recommend a T1 or better. It is well established that having a local irc server does not attract local irc users. Often, your best bet is to set up a local client that is accessible by everyone at your site, connect it to a nearby offsite server, and then see if the usage level goes up. (See appendix for list of open-client servers). To see how many users you have, on irc do /m x@monitor.us show site.name where site.name is your two-part domain name (eg "kei.com" or "bu.edu" or "mit.edu"). monitor will tell you how many users you have. Once this number gets over 125 or so, put the level it has reached in your note to operlist-request@kei.com. If you are in the United States and need a link, please mail to "operlist-request@kei.com" supplying the information listed below. (1) Find out if your system has /etc/ping (sometimes /usr/etc/ping) and ping the following hosts: server/machine name IP address Geographical Location csa.bu.edu 129.197.10.3 Boston, MA irc-2.mit.edu 18.180.0.2 Cambridge, MA polaris.ctr.columbia.edu 128.59.68.10 New York, NY poe.acc.virginia.edu 128.143.83.132 Charlottesville, VA irc.iastate.edu 129.186.150.1 Ames, IA dewey.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.135.3 Austin, TX irc.netsys.com 198.175.9.8 Palo Alto, CA w6yx.stanford.edu 36.55.0.50 Stanford, CA goren.u.washington.edu 140.142.63.1 Seattle, WA These are results of the typical /etc/ping command: (note that the machine I am running this from runs SunOS so I have to use ping -s ): 3:59pm hrose@csa : ~ % ping -s polaris.ctr.columbia.edu PING polaris.ctr.columbia.edu: 56 data bytes 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=0. time=137. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=1. time=163. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=2. time=110. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=3. time=111. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=4. time=78. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=5. time=82. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=7. time=83. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=8. time=91. ms 64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=9. time=159. ms [...] ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^ Size of packet hostname IP address packet number trip time ----polaris.ctr.columbia.edu PING Statistics---- 25 packets transmitted, 25 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 78/136/327 When you send pings to operlist-request, please only send the results (the above three lines)--we *don't* need each packet's time. Guidelines: Avg Time Connection is ======== ============= 0-20ms Optimal 20-40ms Excellent 40-70ms Very Good 70-90ms Average 90-110ms Acceptable 110ms-150ms Below Average 150ms-200ms Bad 200ms-300ms You're on a very slow link and it is unlikely you will be able to support a server successfully. ** *** WHERE TO FIND HELP!!! *** ** ** If you have any other questions about connecting to an irc server, please ** mail to operlist-request@kei.com. If you have problems mailing there, ** try mailing hrose@kei.com. ** ** *** WHERE TO FIND HELP!!! *** Appendix ======== Open client servers. USA: csa.bu.edu irc.colorado.edu irc.uiuc.edu Canada: ug.cs.dal.ca Europe: irc.funet.fi cismhp.univ-lyon1.fr disuns2.epfl.ch irc.nada.kth.se sokrates.informatik.uni-kl.de bim.itc.univie.ac.at Australia: jello.qabc.uq.oz.au