IRC Nickname Registration

The FUMBBL IRC Server allows you to register an account. This is necessary if you want to have op or voice status in any channel on this server. Usually, the account is connected to your nickname, but it does not need to be.

How to register?

To create your account, you issue the following command:

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com register <nickname> <password>

You need to replace <nickname> and <password> with your information. The brackets should not be part of the command. For example, to register the account "Christer" with the password "secret", you would use the following command:

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com register Christer secret

The password you choose has to have at least 1 digit in it and a length of 6 characters to be accepted.

You only need to register once.

Authenticating

When you register, you will be signed in to your account automatically, but you will be logged out when you close down your IRC client. When you log back on, you will need to authenticate with authserv again. To do this, you issue the following command:

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com auth <nickname> <password>

Again, you replace <nickname> and <password> with the information you used when you registered. Also, the brackets are not used here either. You might find it useful to add this command in your perform/startup scripts so it is executed automatically everytime you log on. Refer to the manual of your IRC client on how to do this.

Hostmasks

By default, authserv will only allow you to authenticate from the location where you signed up. This helps to keep your account safe from other people using it.

However, in certain cases, this default hostmask causes problems. For example, if you sign up from an internet cafe or from a friend's home you may not be able to authenticate with authserv from your own home and instead receive this error message:

-authServ- Your hostmask is not valid for account <nickname>.

This tells you that the location from where you are signed up right now is not a location which you have allowed the account to log in from. To fix this, you need to set up something called a hostmask for all locations where you want to be able to log in from.

To add a hostmask, you use the following command:

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com addmask <ident@host>

The <ident@host> parameter is again used without the brackets. It identifies who can authenticate to your account and is split into two parts:

• ident - This is your user name, which is set up in your IRC client.
• host - This is the host you want to allow.

Ok, so you don't have a clue what this means? Don't worry, it's easier than it sounds.

To find out both of these values, you can issue the following command:

/whois <nickname>

Replace <nickname> with the nickname you are connected with right now (again, no brackets). This will show you a couple of lines, where the first one is the important one. It will look something like this:

Christer is ~christer@192.168.0.11 (Christer Kaivo-oja) or Christer is ~christer@dialin2.fumbbl.com (Christer Kaivo-oja)

You will notice the email-like part of this message. This part is the ident and host you are currently connected as. It is important to notice the difference between the numerical (192.168.0.11) and alphabetical (dialin2.fumbbl.com) type hosts, because you will very often get similar, but not identical, addresses every time you connect to the internet.

Ok, so now you know your ident and host. How do we figure out the mask to use?

A mask is sort of like one of those things you cover your face with, in the sense that it covers some parts and lets other parts be visible. You do remember that your host may change, right? So what we want to do is to "mask" the part that changes, and only look at the fixed parts. The proper way to do this is different between the two types (numerical and alphabetical) of hosts:

• numeric - In a numerical host, you want to hide the last number. So in the example we've used here, your hostmask should be 192.168.0.* which means that you can sign up from any address that starts with 192.168.0.
• alphabetic - In an alphabetic host, you want to hide the first part(s). In the alphabetical example above, you would want to use *.fumbbl.com as the hostmask. However, in other cases, you might want to filter out more than the first "word". A good rule of thumb is to keep the last two (aol.com, ntl.com, t-dialin.net, etc) to be sure that you will be covered the next time you sign in.

Now we're almost done. Since the hostmask command asks you to provide an ident (the part before the @ sign), you will need to figure out the ident name your IRC client is configured with. This is very unlikely to be important, you you can happily just type in * instead of your ident, since this is a mask in the same way as the host.

Here are some examples of hostmask commands you can use:

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com addmask *@192.168.* This allows you to authenticate from any address that starts with 192.168.

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com addmask *@*.aol.com This allows you to authenticate from any aol.com address.

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com addmask *@* This allows you to authenticate from anywhere. Use with caution, since this means that this security measure is completely taken out. However, if you're going on a trip for a week or two and don't know what hosts you'll be connected from, this is a good idea to set up for the duration of your trip.

A few other useful commands related to hostmasks:

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com accountinfo Shows your current account info, including your current list of hostmasks

/msg authserv@services.fumbbl.com delmask <ident@host> Removes an existing hostmask from your list. Use this to remove the *@* hostmask when you return from your trip.