Bram Matthys
172ace9750
This is mainly due to licensing. The libmaxminddb library uses the Apache license, which meant if we would compile it in by default it would effectively transform our "GPLv2 or later" to "GPLv3 or later". Our implementation is ISC licensed, so we can include and enable it by default and keep things at "GPLv2 or later". This is also why we used geoip_classic in the first place as default and compiled in, and not the mmdb variant. The mmdb.c is based on the specification, using the Go implementation as a reference during development (ISC licensed), initially implemented with the help of Claude Opus 4.6. After that substantial changes were made to make it match UnrealIRCd's style and to make things less error prone: C style changes, allocation and zero termination of strings in the library, auto-NULL in variadic functions so the caller cannot forget NULL there (similar to our unreal_log/do_unreal_log), using enums as the return type instead of int (similar to curl), adding doxygen docs, etc. This also means the old mmdb library dependency has been dropped, including from configure/autoconf. At the moment we still use the geoip classic library by default, including those DB files. The idea is we will switch over sometime later after this current new MMDB stuff has received more testing. This also makes us more flexible, since .mmdb files have become the de-facto standard for pretty much all geoip vendors.
About UnrealIRCd
UnrealIRCd is an Open Source IRC Server, serving thousands of networks since 1999. It runs on Linux, OS X and Windows and is currently the most widely deployed IRCd with a market share of 37%. UnrealIRCd is a highly advanced IRCd with a strong focus on modularity and security. It uses an advanced and highly configurable configuration file. Other key features include: full IRCv3 support, SSL/TLS, cloaking, JSON-RPC, advanced anti-flood and anti-spam systems, GeoIP, remote includes, and lots of other features. We are also particularly proud on our extensive online documentation.
Versions
- UnrealIRCd 6 is the stable series since December 2021. It is the only supported version.
- For full details of release scheduling and EOL dates, see UnrealIRCd releases on the wiki
How to get started
Follow the installation guide on the wiki. See:
Documentation and Support
You can find all documentation online at: https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/
We also have a good FAQ: https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/FAQ
If you are in need of support, you can pop up on #unreal-support on irc.unrealircd.org
or ask your question on the forums.
Supported systems
We try to support all major *NIX systems: all Linux distros but also NetBSD, OpenBSD and macOS, provided the OS version was released within the past ~5 years.
We use a private BuildBot instance to test each commit. The tested systems are (others are likely to work too):
- Linux: Debian (10, 11, 12, 13), Ubuntu (18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, 26.04)
- FreeBSD: 15
- Windows: Visual Studio 2019
UnrealIRCd is architecture-agnostic. Most of the BuildBot workers run on x64 but we also have some on x86 and arm64 to ensure these work as well.
Other links
- https://www.unrealircd.org - Main website
- https://bugs.unrealircd.org - Bug tracker
- https://fosstodon.org/@unrealircd - Mastodon
- https://twitter.com/Unreal_IRCd - Twitter