README

  Please, at least SKIM this document before asking questions. In fact,
  READ IT if you've never successfully set up an Eggdrop bot before.

NOTICE

  Make SURE that you select your +n (owner) users wisely. They have 100%
  access to your bot and account. ONLY GIVE THIS POWER TO SOMEONE YOU
  TRUST COMPLETELY!

WHAT IS EGGDROP?

  Eggdrop is the world's most popular Internet Relay Chat (IRC) bot; it
  is freely distributable under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  Eggdrop is a feature-rich program designed to be easily used and
  expanded upon by both novice and advanced IRC users on a variety of
  hardware and software platforms.

  An IRC bot is a program that sits on an IRC channel and performs
  automated tasks while looking just like a normal user on the channel.
  Some of these functions include protecting the channel from abuse,
  allowing privileged users to gain op or voice status, logging channel
  events, providing information, hosting games, etc.

  One of the features that makes Eggdrop stand out from other bots is
  module and Tcl and Python scripting support. With scripts and modules
  you can make the bot perform almost any task you want. They can do
  anything: from preventing floods to greeting users and banning
  advertisers from channels.

  You can also link multiple Eggdrop bots together to form a botnet.
  This can allow bots to op each other securely, control floods
  efficiently and even link channels across multiple IRC networks. It
  also allows the Eggdrops share user lists, ban/exempt/invite lists,
  and ignore lists with other bots if userfile sharing is enabled. This
  allows users to have the same access on every bot on your botnet. It
  also allows the bots to distribute tasks such as opping and banning
  users. See doc/BOTNET for information on setting up a botnet.

  Eggdrop is always being improved and adjusted because there are bugs
  to be fixed and features to be added (if the users demand them and
  they make actually sense). In fact, it existed for several years as
  v0.7 - v0.9 before finally going 1.0. This version of Eggdrop is part
  of the 1.9 tree. A valiant effort has been made to chase down and
  destroy bugs.

  This README file contains information about how to get Eggdrop,
  command line options for Eggdrop, what you may need to do when
  upgrading from older versions, a list of frequently asked questions,
  how to set up a crontab, some boring legal stuff, some basics about
  git usage and some channels where you might get help with Eggdrop.

HOW TO GET EGGDROP

There are two official methods to download Eggdrop source code.
Alternately, Eggdrop also comes as a docker image.

FTP

  The latest Eggdrop stable source code is always located at
  https://geteggdrop.com. You can also download the current stable,
  previous stable, and development snapshot at
  https://ftp.eggheads.org/pub/eggdrop/source

Git Development Snapshot

  Eggdrop developers use git to manage the Eggdrop codebase for
  development. If you are interested in trying out the VERY LATEST
  updates to Eggdrop, you can use git to obtain most recent code from
  the Eggheads repository. BE WARNED, the development branch of Eggdrop
  is not to be considered stable and may (haha) contain significant bugs
  still being worked on.

  To obtain Eggdrop via the git repository (hosted by GitHub), you can
  either clone the repository via git or download a development
  snapshot.

  To clone the repository, simply type:

      git clone https://github.com/eggheads/eggdrop.git 

  Otherwise, you can download the development snapshot as a tar archive
  from:

    https://github.com/eggheads/eggdrop/archive/develop.tar.gz

Docker

  You can pull the official Eggdrop Docker image via:

      docker pull eggdrop:latest

  Additional Eggdrop Docker documentation can be found at
  https://hub.docker.com/_/eggdrop

SYSTEM PRE-REQUISITES

  Before you can compile Eggdrop, Tcl must be installed on your system.
  Many systems have Tcl installed on them by default (you can check by
  trying the command "tclsh"; if you are given a '%' for a prompt, it
  is, and you can type 'exit' to exit the Tcl shell. However, Eggdrop
  also requires the Tcl development header files to be installed. They
  can often be installed via an OS package manager, usually called
  something similar to 'tcl-dev' for the package name. You can also
  download Tcl source from
  https://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/download.html.

  Eggdrop also requires openssl (and its development headers) in order
  to enable SSL/TLS protection of network data. The header files are
  often called something similar to 'libssl-dev'. While not advised,
  this requirement can be removed by compiling using
  ./configure --disable-tls, but you will not be able to connect to
  TLS-protected IRC servers nor utilize secure botnet communication.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Some components of Eggdrop relies on a variety of third-party libraries,
documented here.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Functionality                   Package             Minimum Version
  ------------------------------- ------------------- -------------------
  Tcl interpreter (required)      Tcl Dev Library     8.5.0

  Secure communication            OpenSSL             0.9.8

  Python module                   Python              3.8.0

  Compression module              zlib                Any
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

QUICK STARTUP

  Please see the Install file after you finish reading this file.

UPGRADING

  The upgrade process for Eggdrop is very simple, simply download the
  new source code and repeat the compile process. You will want to read
  the NEWS for any new configuration file settings you want to add.
  Please see Upgrading for full details.

COMMAND LINE

  Eggdrop has some command line options - not many, because most things
  should be defined through the config file. However, sometimes you may
  want to start up the bot in a different mode and the command line
  options let you do that. Basically, the command line for Eggdrop is:

      ./eggdrop [options] [config-file]

  The options available are:

    -t: Don't background, use terminal. Your console will drop into an

        interactive partyline session, similar to a DCC chat with the
        bot. This is useful for troubleshooting connection issues with
        the bot.

    -c: Don't background, show channel info. Every 10 seconds your screen

        will clear and you will see the current channel status, sort of
        like "top".

    -m: Create userfile. If you don't have a userfile, this will make Eggdrop

        create one and give owner status to the first person that
        introduces himself or herself to it. You'll need to do this when
        you first set up your bot.

    -h: Show help, then quit.

    -v: Show version info, then quit.

  Most people never use any of the options except -m and you usually
  only need to use that once.

AUTO-STARTING EGGDROP

Systems go down from time to time, taking your Eggdrop along with it.
You may not be not around to restart it manually, so you can instead use
features of the operating system to automatically restart Eggdrop should
it quit for any reason. Eggdrop comes with an autobotchk shell script
that can create either a systemd or crontab entry. The systemd option
will monitor your Eggdrop and a) start it when the machine boots and b)
restart the Eggdrop if it crashes for any reason. The (older) crontab
option will check (by default) every 10 minutes to see if your Eggdrop
is still running, and attempt to restart it if it is not.

  To auto-generate a systemd job, from the Eggdrop install directory,
  simply run:

      ./scripts/autobotchk <Eggdrop config file> -systemd

  To auto-geneerate a script to check Eggdrop's status and run it via a
  crontab entry, simply run:

      ./scripts/autobotchk <Eggdrop config file>

  This will crontab your bot using the default setup. If you want a list
  of autobotchk options, type './autobotchk'. A crontab example with
  options would be:

      ./scripts/autobotchk <Eggdrop config file> -noemail -5

  This would setup crontab to run the botchk every 5 minutes and not
  send you an email saying that it restarted your bot.

DOCUMENTATION

  We're trying to keep the documentation up to date. If you feel that
  anything is missing here or that anything should be added, etc, please
  create an issue, or better yet a pull request, at
  https://www.github.com/eggheads/eggdrop Thank you!

OBTAINING HELP

  You can obtain help with Eggdrop in the following IRC channels:

    -   Libera Chat - #eggdrop (official channel), #eggheads
        (development discussion)
    -   DALnet - #eggdrop
    -   EFnet - #egghelp
    -   IRCnet - #eggdrop
    -   QuakeNet - #eggdrop.support
    -   Undernet - #eggdrop

  If you plan to ask questions in any of the above channels, you should
  be familiar with and follow IRC etiquette:

    -   Don't type using CAPITAL letters, colors or bold.
    -   Don't use "!" and "?" excessively.
    -   Don't /msg people without their permission.
    -   Don't repeat or paste more than 4 lines of text to the channel.
    -   Don't ask to ask- just state your question, along with any
        relevant details and error messages

Copyright (C) 1997 Robey Pointer Copyright (C) 1999 - 2025 Eggheads
Development Team
