.Dd October 21, 2023
.Dt README 7
.Os "Causal Agency"
.
.Sh NAME
.Nm pounce
.Nd IRC pouncer :3
.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Xr pounce 1
is a multi-client, TLS-only IRC bouncer.
It maintains a persistent connection
to an IRC server,
acting as a proxy and buffer
for a number of clients.
When a client connects,
any messages received
since it last disconnected
will be relayed to it.
Unlike some other bouncers,
.Nm
uses a single buffer
for all IRC messages,
which acts as a queue
from which each client
reads messages independently.
.
.Pp
.Nm
speaks regular modern IRC
to both servers and clients,
using the
.Sy server-time
extension to indicate
when messages originally occurred.
Clients identify themselves to
.Nm
by their IRC usernames.
See
.Xr QUIRKS 7
for notes on connecting
.Nm
with particular networks and clients.
.
.Sh RATIONALE
As a former
.Xr znc 1
user,
I was dissatisfied with the multi-client experience it offered.
I wanted to connect from both my laptop and my phone
and have full chat history on both.
With
.Xr znc 1 ,
my options were either having both clients
spammed with redundant history every time they connect,
or having one client consume the buffer
and the other get no history at all.
.
.Pp
With a multiple-consumer ring buffer,
each client has its own place in the history
and can be brought up to date independently.
Additionally,
by expecting clients to implement the
.Sy server-time
extension,
all events can be accurately replayed,
rather than being limited to messages.
.
.Sh INSTALLING
.Nm
requires
.Sy libtls ,
provided by either
.Lk https://git.causal.agency/libretls/about LibreTLS
(for OpenSSL)
or by LibreSSL.
.Nm
and
.Sy libtls
may be packaged for your system.
Check the Repology pages for
.Lk https://repology.org/project/pounce/versions pounce
and
.Lk https://repology.org/project/libretls/versions libretls .
.
.Pp
.Nm
primarily targets
.Ox ,
where it is sandboxed with
.Xr pledge 2
and
.Xr unveil 2 .
.Fx ,
Linux and macOS
are also supported.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\&./configure
make all
sudo make install
.Ed
.
.Pp
If installing
.Sy libtls
manually to
.Pa /usr/local ,
for example,
make sure
.Pa /usr/local/lib
appears in
.Pa /etc/ld.so.conf
or
.Pa /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*
and be sure to run
.Xr ldconfig 8
once the library is installed.
Set
.Ev PKG_CONFIG_PATH
for
.Nm ./configure
to find it.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig ./configure
.Ed
.
.Pp
On
.Ox
the recommended way to run
.Nm
is with the process supervisor
.Lk https://git.causal.agency/kitd kitd .
.
.Ss Additional Components
Additional functionality can be provided
by special-purpose clients connected to
.Nm .
.Bl -inset
.It Lk https://git.causal.agency/litterbox litterbox
provides logging and search.
.It Xr pounce-notify 1
provides notifications
by running an external command.
Configure with
.Fl \-enable-notify
to build.
.El
.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width "dispatch.c" -compact
.It Pa bounce.h
declarations and common functions
.It Pa bounce.c
configuration and event loop
.It Pa local.c
local server binding
.It Pa server.c
remote server connection
.It Pa client.c
remote client connections
.It Pa state.c
state shared between clients
.It Pa ring.c
buffer between server and clients
.It Pa config.c
.Xr getopt_long 3 Ns -integrated
configuration parsing
.It Pa xdg.c
XDG base directories
.It Pa dispatch.c
SNI socket dispatch
.El
.
.Sh CONTRIBUTING
The upstream URL of this project is
.Aq Lk https://git.causal.agency/pounce .
Contributions in any form can be sent to
.Aq Mt list+pounce@causal.agency .
For sending patches by email, see
.Aq Lk https://git-send-email.io .
Mailing list archives are available at
.Aq Lk https://causal.agency/list/pounce.html .
.
.Pp
Monetary contributions can be
.Lk https://liberapay.com/june/donate "donated via Liberapay" .
.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr calico 1 ,
.Xr pounce 1
.
.Pp
Central logging with full-text search:
.Lk https://git.causal.agency/litterbox "litterbox"
.
.Rs
.%A June McEnroe
.%T IRC Suite
.%U https://text.causal.agency/010-irc-suite.txt
.%D June 19, 2020
.Re
