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ircd/crypt/README

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+/************************************************************************
+ *   IRC - Internet Relay Chat, ircd/crypt/README
+ *   Copyright (C) 1991 Nelson Minar
+ *
+ *   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.
+ */
+
+The change implemented here is that the operator password in irc.conf
+is no longer stored in plaintext form, but is encrypted the same way
+that user passwords are encrypted on normal UNIX systems. Ie, instead
+of having
+
+	O:*:goodboy:Nelson
+
+in your ircd.conf file, you have
+
+	O:*:sCnvYRmbFJ7oI:Nelson
+
+You still type "/oper Nelson goodboy" to become operator. However, if
+someone gets ahold of your irc.conf file, they can no longer figure
+out what the password is from reading it.  There are still other
+security holes, namely server-server passwords, but this closes one
+obvious problem.
+
+So how do you generate these icky looking strings for passwords?
+There's a simple program called mkpasswd to do that for you.  Just run
+mkpasswd, and at the prompt type in your plaintext password.  It will
+spit out the encrypted password, which you should then just copy into
+the irc.conf file. This should be done only when adding new passwords
+to your irc.conf file. To change over your irc.conf file to use
+encrypted passwords, define CRYPT_OPER_PASSWORD in config.h. You will
+need to recompile your server if you already compiled it with this
+feature disabled. Once compiled, edit the Makefile in this directory
+and chang "IRCDCONF" to your irc.conf file. Then "make install" in this
+directory to replace all the operator passwords in your irc.conf file
+with the encrypted format.
+
+Choose your passwords carefully. Do not choose something in a
+dictionary, make sure its at least 5 characters. Anything past 8
+characters is ignored.
+
+One thing to note about crypt() passwords - for every plaintext, there
+are 4096 different passwords. Some valid encryptions of "goodboy"
+include t1Ub2RhRQHd4g sCnvYRmbFJ7oI and Xr4Z.Kg5tcdy6. The first
+two characters (the "salt") determine which of the 4096 passwords
+you will get. mkpasswd chooses the salt randomly, or alternately
+will let you specify one on the command line.
+
+see also - crypt(3)