ProxIRC

ProxIRC is a proxy which enables the simultaneous use of irc and instant messaging services (MSN, right now) all by only using your favorite irc client. It is licensed under the under the General Public License (GPL).

Project Description

I'm not inspired right now so I will just paste what I submited to sourceforge when I suggested the project. Here it goes:

ProxIRC aims to be (and in fact, already suports some features) a proxy through which one can connect to an IRC server while also being able to connect to other instant messaging systems. Right now partial support is offered for Microsoft's MSN through another GPL library libMSN. And it is being developed in c++. Currently the only OS platform tested is a debian linux system though I'd like it could work in any unix like OS, and that's why I'm already using automake and autoconf tools. However the irc client might be any, not limited to unix available ones. Status of connected users in the MSN is made thanks to a virtual channel created by the proxy. When a user wants to talk to a friend from msn, only has to /join #friend and talk. The rest of the channels are provided by a true IRC server and directly forwarded by the proxy. In fact, only messages outgoing from the irc client (which may be anyone) are parsed to look for information intended to the proxy. Information not useful for the proxy is thus forwarded to the IRC server.

News

0.5 Version - 29/12/2002

New release with some bugfixes and some new features. Let's look at them:

Some include headers have been reordered. Now it seems to work under FreeBSD

It has been reported that instead of -lpthread, -pthread it should be used under FreeBSD in Makefile.an Feedback needed to see if there are other solutions.

Sometimes with a known contact connects the join event isn't triggered (it might be because of libmsn) however now when one of those users try to talk to us they're automatically joined to msn_info channel.

Commands which might be invoked in the msn_info channel have been added. Try to write HELP on the channel to see a list of them. You might add or remove contacts. And you might set/unset the ability to automatically accept a new contact request. Then if you don't want him/her you might REMOVE the contact. If AUTOAUTH is OFF, however you'll be notified that someone is trying to add you in it's contact list.

0.4 Version - 24/12/2002

Santy Claus came early tonight to bring us the fourth and most stable release! Now the problem with high CPU consumption is solved. Also the proxy automagically detects when you set yoursef 'away'. I also hope now there won't be any problems compiling under FreeBSD, please report any problems when compiling in your platform as I only test it under debian GNU/Linux. Finally, take care when you download from cvs now as I've removed the autoconf and automake generated files so the following must be executed before compiling: aclocal, autoconf, automake. Then ./configure and make. Have a lot of fun! As SuSE guys say ;)

0.3 Version - 01/12/2002

Third release. This version includes a nice source code rewriting as now it can be considered object oriented :) Now multiple simultaneous connections can be handled by the proxy and changing the nick shouldn't give any problems. Logging is by default printed to stderr but file logging segfaults :( It also supports some commmand line options: configuring server and port to which it has to connect and port to which it has to listen. In deep testing is needed!

0.2 Version

Second release. This one fixes some problems.. When a new user enters now it can be seen in the msn_info channel. Thus everything becomes more useable. A known bug exists when you change your nickname after connecting the proxy doesn't recognize it and thus disables you from talking. Next release will solve it. (Hope so ;-)

0.1 Version

First release of the daemon is 0.1 which I consider pre-alpha. I've successfully used it in some conversations, you can create a channel for each user you're talking to, use the /whois command to know in which state (whether away, online, eating...) the user is. There are some known bugs... when a new user connects while we are online the msn process will hang. Well, don't ask too much by now :)

Documentation

No documentation has been writen yet. Just to enable you to use it follow these instructions:

After uncompressing the package, you must run 'make' from the libmsn directory. Then from the main dir run ./configure. After that you may change the irc server to which the proxy will connect by editing the file proxirc.cc (this will be easier in the near future) and setting the IRC_SERVER and IRC_PORT variables. After that you can compile running 'make'.

Finally just run ./proxirc and use your favorite irc client to connect to the server. If you're running it on the same machine use '/server localhost'.

Once you're correctly connected to the real irc server (proxirc will have forwarded all the packets) you may /join msn_info (this will be the virtual channel used by the server to notify MSN events.) Please don't try to connect to MSN without joining this channel. Once in, use the following to connect to MSN: /msg msn@server.gw IDENTIFY username@hotmail password. You should see a couple of messages: connecting... and connected! And you'd see that your friends already logged in the messenger join the channel. To speak to them use /join nick and that's it! You should be able to speak to them and even more... you may hear from them! :-)

TIP: Use the command /whois msn_admin to know how many messenger users you are talking to (as msn_admin user will be on all your msn channels).

TIP: Use the command /whois username to know whether the user is away, eating... or just online.

SourceForge

Please visit the project's page at sourceforge!

Authors

Albert Cervera Areny - I'm currenly the only developer of this project (it shouldn't be difficult to hang it) but any new developer is welcome. You may contact me for bugs, ideas or just because you want to talk by emailing at albertcervera@users.sourceforge.net, chatting at MSN albertcervera@hotmail.com, or you may find me at irc-hispano (irc.redestb.es - for example) at #cat-linux.

I want to thank everybody who have helped me and those interested in the project. Special thanks go to Grant Swenson who tries to make it work under FreeBSD, and James Read who has also suffered the FreeBSD-ProxIRC headaches.

Screenshots

Believe me, I'd love to add some screenshots for my first project but I don't think they are very useful here... maybe I should add some 3d pluggins to make this section have any sense :)