unrealircd/doc/RELEASE-NOTES

UnrealIRCd 3.4-beta4 Release Notes
===================================

This is the fourth 'beta' version of UnrealIRCd 3.4. We plan to have a
'stable' UnrealIRCd 3.4 release by Q4 2015.

IMPORTANT REMARKS:
* The ending of the 'alpha' stage means that most features we want are
  in 3.4 now. During 'beta' stage we will work towards getting a stable
  IRC server.
* Linking with 3.2.x servers is supported but not very well tested.
  Note that if you have SSL enabled then this requires version 3.2.10.3
  or later on the 3.2.x side.

Therefore:
* You should never run 3.4-beta4 as a production server
* We do not recommend linking 3.4-beta4 to a production 3.2.x network (yet)

Please do:
* Install 3.4-beta4 to play around, show to your friends, have fun with
  the latest features and improvements, test things.
* Report any problems, bugs, issues and other feedback on
  https://bugs.unrealircd.org/ so we can improve 3.4.x!

Finally:
* If you are moving from 3.2.x then be sure to read 'CONFIGURATION CHANGES'
  which explains the new directory structure and how to make UnrealIRCd
  convert your existing 3.2.x configuration file to the 3.4.x format.

==[ DOCUMENTATION ]==
UnrealIRCd 3.4.x documentation is now located in a wiki online at:
* https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/
The old unreal32docs.*html files have been removed.

==[ CONFIGURATION CHANGES ]==
UnrealIRCd 3.4 uses a new directory structure.

*NIX: If you are not on Windows then this means you must now choose a
      target directory to install UnrealIRCd to. ./Config will ask this
      and it's ~/unrealircd by default (eg: /home/nerd/unrealircd).
      You also need to run 'make install' after 'make' now.
      After compiling, you should leave your Unreal3.4-beta4 directory
      and change to ~/unrealircd as everything takes place there.
      For example to start UnrealIRCd you run './unrealircd start'
      (again, from the /home/xxxx/unrealircd directory).

The new directory structure is as follows (both on Windows and *NIX):
conf/      contains all configuration files
logs/      for log files
modules/   all modules (.so files on *NIX, .dll files on Windows)
tmp/       temporary files
data/      persistent data such as ircd.tune
cache/     cached remote includes

It is possible to use your existing 3.2.x configuration file, but it needs
to be 'upgraded' to the new 3.4.x syntax. UnrealIRCd can do this for you.
Simply place your unrealircd.conf (and any other .conf's you use) in the
conf/ directory and then:
* On *NIX run './unrealircd upgrade-conf' (from /home/xxxx/unrealircd)
* On Windows simply try to boot and watch all the errors, click OK and
  you will be asked if UnrealIRCd should upgrade your configuration file.
On either OS, after running the step from above, simply start UnrealIRCd
again and it should boot up fine with your converted configuration file(s).

Note: UnrealIRCd can only convert *working* 3.2.x configuration files!
If your 3.2.x configuration contains mistakes or errors then the upgrade
process will likely fail or the resulting config file will fail to load.

You may still be interested in the configuration changes, they are
listed on: https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Upgrading_from_3.2.x

==[ GENERAL INFORMATION ]==
* Below you will see a summary of all changes. Changes may be tagged when
  a change was made in a specific version, e.g. "(A3)" means 3.4-alpha3
  and "(B1)" means 3.4-beta1.
  For a complete list of changes (600+) use 'git log' or have a look at:
  https://github.com/unrealircd/unrealircd/commits/unreal34

==[ NEW ]==
* We moved a lot of functionality, including most channel modes, user
  modes and all extended bans into 145 separate modules.
  This makes it...
  A) possible to fully customize what exact functionality you want to load.
     You could even strip down UnrealIRCd to get something close to the
     basic RFC1459 features from the 1990s. (No idea why you would want
     that, but it's possible)
  B) easier for coders to see all source code related to a specific feature
  C) possible to fix bugs and just reload rather than restart the IRCd.

  Have a look at modules.default.conf which contains the "default" set of
  modules that you can load if you just want to load all functionality.
  If you want to customize the list of modules to load then simply make
  a copy of that file, give it a different name, and include that one
  instead. Since the file is fully documented, you can just comment out
  or delete the loadmodule lines of things you don't want to load.
* Oper permissions have changed completely: (A4+)
  * All previous oper levels/ranks no longer exist (Netadmin, Admin, ..)
  * oper::flags has been removed. Instead you must specify an operclass
    in oper::operclass (for example, 'operclass netadmin').
  * In operclass block(s) you define the privileges. You can now control
    exactly what an IRCOp can and cannot do.
    Have a look at operclass.default.conf which ships with UnrealIRCd,
    it contains a number of default operclass blocks suitable for the
    most common situations. See also the operclass block documentation:
    https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Operclass_block
  * If you ask UnrealIRCd to convert your 3.2.x configuration file then
    it will try to select a suitable operclass for the oper. This will
    not always 100% match your current oper block rights, though.
  * Channel Mode +A (Admin Only) has been removed. You can use the new
    extended ban ~O:<operclass>. This allows you to, for example, create
    an operclass 'netadmin' only channel: /MODE #chan +iI ~O:netadmin*
  * set::hosts has been removed, use oper::vhost instead.
  * Since oper levels have been removed you no longer see things like
    "OperX is a Network Administrator" in /WHOIS by default.
    If you want that, then you can set oper::swhois to
    "is a Network Administrator" (or any other text).
* Entirely rewritten I/O and event loop. This allows the IRCd to scale
  more easily to tens of thousands of clients by using kernel-evented I/O
  mechanisms such as epoll and kqueue.
* Memory pooling has been added to improve memory allocation efficiency
  and performance.
* On-connect DNSBL/RBL checking via the new blacklist block. (B1)
* The Windows version now has IPv6 support too. (B3)
* On all OS's we compile with IPv6 support enabled. You can still
  disable IPv6 at runtime by setting set::options::disable-ipv6. (B3)
* The local nickname length can be modified without recompiling the IRCd
* Channel Mode +d: This will hide joins/parts for users who don't say
  anything in a channel. Whenever a user speaks for the first time they
  will appear to join. Chanops will still see everyone joining normally
  as if there was no +d set.
* If you connect with SSL/TLS with a client certificate then your SSL
  Fingerprint (SHA256 hash) can be seen by yourself and others through
  /WHOIS. The fingerprint is also shared with all servers on the network.
* ExtBan ~S:<certificate fingerprint> for ban exceptions / invex. This
  can be used like +iI ~S:000000000etc.
* bcrypt has been added as a password hashing algorithm and is now the
  preferred algorithm (A3)
* './unreal mkpasswd' will now prompt you for the password to hash (A3)
* Protection against SSL renegotiation attacks (A3)
* When you link two servers the current timestamp is exchanged. If the
  time differs more than 60 seconds then servers won't link and it will
  show a message that you should fix your clock(s). This requires
  version 3.4-alpha3 (or later) on both ends of the link (A3)
* Configuration file converter that will upgrade your 3.2.x conf to 3.4.x.
  On *NIX run './unreal upgrade-conf'. On Windows simply try to boot and
  after the config errors screen UnrealIRCd offers the conversion. (A3)
* The IRCd can now better handle unknown channel modes which expect a
  parameter. This can be useful in a scenario where you are slowly
  upgrading all your servers.
* If you want to unset a vhost but keep cloaked then use /MODE yournick -t
* A "crash reporter" was added. When UnrealIRCd is started it will check
  if a previous UnrealIRCd instance crashed and (after booting a new
  instance) it will spit out a report and ask if you want to submit it
  to the UnrealIRCd developers. Doing so will help us a lot as many bugs
  are often not reported. Note that UnrealIRCd will always ask before
  sending any information and never do so automatically. (B3)
* SSL: Support for ECDHE has been added to provide "forward secrecy". (B4)

==[ CHANGED ]==
* Numerics have been removed. Instead we now use SIDs (Server ID's) and
  UIDs (User ID's). SIDs work very similar to server numerics and UIDs 
  help us to fix a number of lag-related race conditions / bugs.
* The module commands.so / commands.dll has been removed. All commands
  (those that are modular) are now in their own module.
* Self-signed certificates are now generated using 4096 bits, a SHA256
  hash and validity of 10 years. (A2)
* Building with SSL (OpenSSL) is now mandatory (A2)
* The link { } block has been restructured, see
  https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Upgrading_from_3.2.x#Link_block (A3)
* Better yet, check out our secure server linking tutorial:
  https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Tutorial:_Linking_servers
* If you have no set::throttle block you now get a default of 3:60 (A3)
* password entries in the conf no longer require specifying an auth-type
  like password "..." { md5; };. UnrealIRCd will now auto-detect. (A3)
* You will now see a warning when you link to a non-SSL server. (A3)
* Previously we used POSIX Regular expressions in spamfilters and at
  some other places. We have now moved to PCRE Regular expressions.
  They look very similar, but PCRE is a lot faster.
  For backwards-compatibility we still compile with both regex engines. (A3)
* Spamfilter command syntax has been changed, it now has an extra option
  to indicate the matching method:
  /SPAMFILTER [add|del|remove|+|-] [method] [type] ....
  Where 'method' can be one of:
  * -regex: this is the new fast PCRE2 regex engine
  * -simple: supports just strings and ? and * wildcards (super fast)
  * -posix: the old regex engine for compatibility with 3.2.x.  (A3)
* If you have both 3.2.x and 3.4.x servers on your network then the
  3.4.x server will only send spamfilters of type 'posix' to the 3.2.x
  servers because 3.2.x servers don't support the other two types.
  So in a mixed network you probably want to keep using 'posix' for
  a while until all your UnrealIRCd servers are on 3.4.x. (A3)
* set::oper-only-stats now defaults to "*"
* oper::from::userhost and vhost::from::userhost are now called
  oper::mask and vhost::mask. The usermask@ part is now optional and
  it supports two syntaxes. For one entry you can use: mask 1.2.3.*;
  For multiple entries the syntax is: mask { 192.168.*; 10.*; };
* Because having both allow::ip and allow::hostname in the same allow
  block was highly confusing (it was an OR-match) you must now choose
  between either allow::ip OR allow::hostname. (A3)
* cgiirc block is renamed to webirc and the syntax has changed (A4)
* set::pingpong-warning is removed, warning always off now (A4)
* More helpful configuration file parse error messages (A4)
* You can use '/OPER username' without password if you use SSL
  certificate (fingerprint) authentication. The same is true for
  '/VHOST username'. (A4)
* You must now always use 'make install' on *NIX (A4)
* Changed (default) directory structure entirely, see the section
  titled 'CONFIGURATION CHANGES' about 100 lines up. (A4)
* badword quit { } is removed, we use badword channel for it. (A4)
* badwords.*.conf is now just one badwords.conf
* To load all default modules you now include modules.default.conf.
  This file was called modules.conf in earlier alpha's.
  The file has been split up in sections and a lot of comments have
  been added to aid the user in deciding whether to load or not to
  load each module. (A4)
* Snomask +s is now (always) IRCOp-only. (A4)
* Previously there was little logic behind what modes halfops could
  set. Now the idea is as follows: halfops should be able to help out
  in case of a flood but not be able to change any 'policy decission
  modes' such as +G, +S, +c, +s. Due to this change halfops can now
  set modes +beiklmntIMKNCR (was: +beikmntI). (A4)
* If no link::hub or link::leaf is specified then assume hub "*". (B1)
* SWHOIS (Special whois title) has been extended in a number of ways:
  * We now "track" who or what set an swhois. This allows us to
    remove the swhois received via oper/vhost on de-oper/de-vhost.
  * You can now have multiple swhois lines
  * Multiple oper::swhois and vhost::swhois items are supported. (B1)
* When trying to link two servers without link::outgoing::options::ssl
  (which is not recommended) we try to use STARTTLS in order to
  'upgrade' the connection to use SSL/TLS anyway. This can be disabled
  via link::outgoing::options::insecure. (B2)
* SSLv3 has now been disabled for security. This also means you can
  only link 3.4.x with 3.2.10.3 and later because earlier versions
  used SSLv3 instead of TLS due to an OpenSSL API mistake. (B4)

==[ MODULE CODERS / DEVELOPERS ]==
* A lot of technical documentation for module coders has been added
  at https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/ describing things like how to
  write a module from scratch, the User & Channel Mode System, Commands,
  Command Overrides, Hooks, attaching custom-data to users/channels,
  and more. (A2+)
* For commands: do not read from parv[0] anymore, doing so will lead
  to a crash. Use sptr->name instead. This change is necessary as
  the "name" in parv[0] could possibly point to a UID/SID rather than
  a nick name. Thus, if you would send parv[0] to a non-UID or non-SID
  capable server this would lead to serious issues (not found errors).
* Added MOD_OPT_PERM_RELOADABLE which permits reloading (eg: upgrades)
  but disallows unloading of a module (A3)
* There have been *a lot* of source code cleanups (ALL)
* We now use the information from PROTOCTL CHANMODES= for parameter
  skipping if the channel mode is unknown. Also, when channel modes
  are loaded or unloaded we re-broadcast PROTOCTL CHANMODES=. (B1)
* The server protocol docs have been removed. The protocol is now
  documented at https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Server_protocol
  See also https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Server_protocol:Changes
  for a list of changes between the 3.2 and 3.4 server protocol.

==[ MAJOR BUGS FIXED ]==
* Crash bug on-boot in alpha1 (A2)
* IRCOp commands such as /GLINE were not always working (A2)
* link::outgoing::options::autoconnect did not work (A4)
* If the IRCd could not bind to any ports it started anyway (A4)
* alpha3 did not compile on x86 (32 bit) systems (A4)
* Multiple major crash bugs in earlier 3.4 alpha/beta versions caused
  by OOB read, OOB write, read-after-free, etc. (B2)
* Spamfilter 'u' not working, likely since alpha1 (B2)
* Secure server linking with sslclientcertfp was broken since alpha3,
  making our secure server linking tutorial on the wiki unusable. (B2)
* Windows version: if all clients on the server were completely idle
  then internal timers and such wouldn't be called correctly. (B2)
* Crash if SASL is enabled (and in use) [B3]
* Crash on outgoing server link attempt. [B4]
* Crash on boot with bind/listen errors. [B4]
* Compile problems on OpenBSD. [B4]
* Possible freeze when SSL client is connecting. [B4]
* Remote includes were broken. [B4]
* GLINE/KLINE/.. refused perfectly good bans. [B4]

==[ MINOR BUGS FIXED ]==
* Errors in example configuration files (A2)
* Some fixes in delayjoin (Channel mode +d) (A2)
* Deal with services who allow you to log in by account name (A3)
* Detect "IRCd not running" situations better (A4)
* './unrealircd restart' will now always try to start UnrealIRCd,
  so also if it wasn't running previously. (A4)
* alpha4's upgrade-conf could get confused by set::host block (B1)
* ExtBan ~a (account) did not work with +I (B1)
* On Windows we didn't create the data/ directory resulting in a
  "Unable to write tunefile" error in alpha4. (B1)
* A number of minor (<1K total) memory leaks on /REHASH. (B1)
* The new 3rd party modules compile and install script introduced in
  beta1 was not working correctly. (B2)
* Invalid output on './unrealircd mkpasswd <hashmethod>'

==[ REMOVED / DROPPED ]==
* Numeric server IDs, see above. (A1)
* PROTOCTL TOKEN and SJB64 are no longer implemented. (A1)
* Ziplinks have been removed. (A1)
* WebTV support. (A3)
* Channel Mode +j was removed and replaced by the configuration setting
  set::anti-flood::join-flood (default: 3 per 90 seconds). (B1)
* /CHATOPS: use /GLOBOPS instead which does the same
  /ADCHAT & /NACHAT: gone as we don't have such oper levels anymore
  Your opers should actually be in an #opers channel. If you also want
  special classes of oper channels like #admins then use +iI ~O:*admin*
* User modes:
  * +N (Network Administrator): see 'Oper permissions' under NEW as for why
  * +a (Services Administrator): same
  * +A (Server Administrator: same
  * +C (Co Administrator): same
  * +O (Local IRC Operator): same
  * +h (HelpOp): all this did was add a line "is available for help" in
    WHOIS. You can use a vhost block with vhost::swhois as a replacement
    or for opers just add an oper::swhois item.
  * +g (failops): we already have snomasks and the +o usermode for this
  * +v (receive infected DCC SEND rejection notices): moved to snomask +D