Introduction
------------

This program is designed to proxy IRC connections, intercepting and proxying
both DCC CHAT and DCC SEND requests transparently to the user.

The program can be used in conjunction with the Linux transparent proxy
networking feature, and ipfwadm, to transparently proxy IRC sessions.  If
you aren't running Linux, you should be able to use the IPF package to get
the same functionality.


How do I install it?
--------------------

Edit the file tircproxy.h to suit your tastes and the local configuration.

Hopefully, no modification of the source will be needed, but anything you
might want to customize is near the top of tile file.  The program itself is
written in ANSI C using the portable Berkeley sockets interface so it should
compile on almost all machines without change.

Type './configure' and then 'make' at your favorite shell prompt.

If all goes well, the proxy should compile and you are ready to type 
'make install' (as root) to install the binary.

If it breaks on your system, let me know!


Testing it
----------

Test the binary by typing:

	tircproxy -d9 -s 7666 -MILRH irc.undernet.org 6667

And connect your IRC client to the machine you're using, on port 7666.  With
ircII this would might look like:

	irc Nickname localhost:7666

If everything works (and it should) you'll connect to the Undernet IRC
network, and will be able to follow tircproxy's actions by reading the
debugging output.


Further instructions
--------------------

Your next step should be to consult the Tircproxy manual for further
instructions.  If you have sgmltools installed, you can build the manual
with the command "make manual" - otherwise you should download it from the
tircproxy home page.  A variety of formats are available, thanks to the
wonders of sgml.


Paranoia
--------

Tircproxy is distribute with PGP signatures for the source files tircproxy.c
and tircproxy.h.  So if you bother to build it from the source, you can also
verify that it hasn't been tampered with by adding my public key(s) to your
keyring, and giving commands like:

	pgp < tircproxy.c.asc
	pgp < tircproxy.h.asc

GnuPG might work as well (probably depends on how patent-wary the people who
built your copy of GnuPG were).

Also available, from the tircproxy web site, are PGP signatures for the
source tarball and rpm files.


Credits & legal stuff
---------------------

I (the author) am Bjarni R. Einarsson <bre@netverjar.is>, a part-time member
of the technical staff at one of Iceland's larger ISPs, Multimedia Consumer
Services.  Feel free to visit their web page, http://www.mmedia.is/ or my
page at http://bre.klaki.net/.

It is thanks to my coworker, Sibbi (sibbi@scour.org), that this program now
works on NetBSD with the IPF package.  He likes it when people visit his
home page at http://www.scour.org/.  :-)


The latest version of this package should always be at the follwing URL
http://bre.klaki.net/programs/tircproxy/.


The first versions of tircproxy were heavily based on John Saunders'
<john@nlc.net.au> transparent HTTP proxy.  Without his excellent code, this
program would probably never have been written.


This program may be used and distributed according to the terms of the GNU
General Public License, version 2 or above.  As is stated in the license, I
make no guarantees about what this program will and won't do.  If it breaks
you get to keep both halves. 
