stormloader's weblog

TCL (Tool Command Language)

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:42:43 +0000

Tcl (originally from “Tool Command Language”, but nonetheless conventionally rendered as “Tcl” rather than “TCL”; pronounced as “tickle” or “tee-cee-ell”) is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally “born out of frustration”-according to the author-with programmers devising their own (poor quality) languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl quickly gained wide acceptance on its own and is generally thought to be easy to learn, but powerful in competent hands. It is most commonly used for rapid prototyping, scripted applications, GUIs and testing. Tcl is used extensively on embedded systems platforms, both in its full form and in several other small-footprinted versions. Tcl is also used for CGI scripting and as the scripting language for eggdrop bots.

Tcl is a very powerful but easy to learn dynamic programming language, suitable for a very wide range of uses, including web and desktop applications, networking, administration, testing and many more. Open source and business-friendly, Tcl is a mature yet evolving language that is truly cross platform, easily deployed and highly extensible.

Tk is a graphical user interface toolkit that takes developing desktop applications to a higher level than conventional approaches. Tk is the standard GUI not only for Tcl, but for many other dynamic languages, and can produce rich, native applications that run unchanged across Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and more.

If you want to start learning Tcl, you should download ActiveTcl from Activestate.

My personal tcl archives for eggdrop 1.6.18

floodcontrol.tcl – simple channel flood control (lite version) including dcc command, protecting channel from massive flood and locking channel for some period of time, this tcl was created on July 2007 for DALnet network only. Its a quick and intelligent channel flood protection. It has repeat flood protection, char flood protection, long txt msg flood protection, tsunami flood protection, CTCP flood protection. The full version of this tcl (which is more powerful and has many features more than lite version. Including some botnet ability to perform channel locking and protection.) was build and hosted for Hostinginside Shell and Web Hosting called Sentinel FloodGuard Tcl, implemented and tested on DALnet IRC network only. Other Sentinel Guard tcl are: Sentinel ChanGuard, Sentinel SpamGuard, Sentinel BotCommand, Sentinel Channel Notes, Sentinel Join msg.

actionreverse.tcl – simple Tcl to demonstrate automated action message reply in IRC to makes your bot looks alike a person not a bot anymore, it will makes your bot replying on each action in private message or in channel, including dcc command to config your bot, implemented and tested on DALlnet network. This Tcl is equipped with built in own flood prevention to stop your bot from flooding irc server with action msg.

Shell Providers/Shell Account

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:40:17 +0000

A shell account is a personal account that gives a user access to a Unix shell on another machine, usually through ssh (and historically telnet.) With a shell account one can log into a remote server and run commands on it. It is very useful when one wants to try out another operating system, to get more out of IRC for example by running an IRC robot such as Eggdrop, to host a website, or to use some E-mail services. Most servers allow users to connect at all times 24/7. There is a possibility to attach the programs by using the GNU screen terminal multiplexer.

It is worth noting that most free shell providers do not allow IRC bots or IRC Bouncers. For this functionality, users might have to buy a shell from a commercial provider. Commercial shell accounts usually cost from 2 USD/month and up.

Often there are policies in place on shell accounts that limit processes.

A number of shell providers disappear very fast because of the abusive behaviour of their members.

Eggdrop

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:37:22 +0000

Eggdrop is the most advanced, most popular, and best supported IRC bot. Many of the bots that are run by normal IRC users (as opposed to the bots run by IRC Operators, which are usually the network services like ChanServ and NickServ) are eggdrops. Due to its popularity, the eggdrop has a plethora of different scripts available for inclusion, most of them written by users. The additional features provided include such things as trivia games, file distribution mechanisms (usually via the DCC protocol) and random insults of other users on the channel. It also features such uses as a botnet, which allows one to link multiple bots together to act in a coordinated fashion, i.e., sharing information about users, performing actions when other bots die (shut down), and setting a ban on a person in each channel synchronously. People connected to any bot on the botnet via DCC CHAT or telnet are also able to communicate with each other within the botnet on various channels (channel 0, the default, is referred to as the “party line”), in a sort of miniature IRC.

Eggdrop was originally written in December of 1993 by Robey Pointer, for the EFnet channel #gayteen. Eggdrop started out as an efficient substitute for cEvin, Jamie’s IRC bot which was reaching limitations due to its script based design. Eggdrop is written in the C programming language, and features an interface for scripts that allows the user to enhance the functionality of the bot. The language used in the script interface is Tcl. If you’ve never used a bot before, you’ll find Eggdrop provides a staggering array of options for channel management, and can easily be expanded further to provide even more functions. The Eggdrop code is free for anyone to download and use.

Eggdrop help via IRC is available in #eggdrop on Undernet. On IRCnet and DALnet, support is available in #eggdrop. On QuakeNet support is available in #eggdrop.support. Eggdrop help is also available on EFnet and freenode in the channel #egghelp. (The EFnet channel #eggdrop is not a help channel as of May 2006.) Eggdrop help is also available on UniBG in the channel #EggFAQ There is also a help channel for Tcl programming, and the Eggdrop specific extensions to Tcl on most major networks called #tcl.

Some features of Eggdrop:

Designed to run on Linux, *BSD, SunOs, Windows, Mac OS X, etc …

Extendable with Tcl scripts and/or C modules

Support for the big five IRC networks (Undernet, DALnet, EFnet, IRCnet, and QuakeNet)

The ability to form botnets and share partylines and userfiles between bots

Some benefits of Eggdrop:

The oldest IRC bot still in active development (Eggdrop was created in 1993)

Established IRC help channels and web sites dedicated to Eggdrop

Thousands of premade Tcl scripts and C modules

Best of all … It’s FREE!

Download eggdrop 1.6.18 – latest development of eggdrop.

Eggdrop is not a simple bot, so don’t expect it to run inside 100KB of memory. The bot is quite complex and packed with features, making it the Microsoft OfficeT (a la resource hog) of IRC bots. If you’re after a smaller and tighter but less customisable bot, consider EnergyMech. You need to specify your eggdrop tasks, each bot has it own task, this is the best thing you should know, more bot you have, more task you have, don’t think to run a game Tcl and many protection Tcl with one eggdrop, it will consume more CPU and Ram resources and it will makes your bot look stupid because it will act slowly on each event on your channel and maybe can disconnecting your bot from network. With many bot, you can perform many tasks eq: bot for game, bot for flood protection, anti spam bot, channel protection bot, advertising bot, etc. A server with IntelR PentiumR 4 and 1GB of ram should be good enough to run your bot on every irc network.

So, you want an Eggdrop bot for your channel? The first thing you’ll need is a shell account. You can search shell hosting/providers via google search or you can try our server : Hostinginside.

Psotnic/Psotnik

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:30:13 +0000

psotnic is an IRCnet bot written in C++. The main goal of the project was to create a fast, stable and easy to use bot. Psotnic is a homonym to Polish word psotnik, which means “rascal” or “urchin”.

List of features:

anti-idle

7 CTCP emulation types

kick4 and kick6

IPv6 support

clone check: host, ident, /24 ipv4 class, /64 ipv6 prefix, proxies (*!~*@*.isp.com)

SOCKS5 support

vanilla BNC support

shitlist (shits are enforced upon addition)

alternative slave support

module loading (each one is protected with MD5 sum)

3 types of owners (permanent (+x), super owner (+s), owner (+n))

channel modes protection (only +n can change channel modes)

master can only op one person per mode

encrypted links between bots (blowfish)

encrypted config file and userlist (blowfish)

auto-limit

limit override protection (mass invite protection)

ban and limit enforcing

user level based protection (user gets kicked if he harms user with higher level)

mass, remote and slave joins

channel flags support

dynamic invites, bans and exempts

was op test

keepnick

no trust between bots

very fast oping (does not use botnet for oping) algorythm

getop (nearly not used for oping), getkey, getinvite, unban

all features can be controlled via .set and .chset command

channel locking (+i) when number of bots on channel reaches bellow critical level

CIDR ban support

bots can be updated via partyline

15 characters long nicknames support

reop (+R) mode support

on join host resolver (Linux only, since 0.2.3)

config can be edited via partyline (since 0.2.3)

omnipresent hashtables make bot less CPU consuming (since 0.2.3)

new random number generator makes (xor shift) decision algorithm less CPU consuming (since 0.2.3)

source code (since 0.2.6)

ident spoofing for oidentd (since 0.2.8)

SSL support for IRC and partyline connections (since 0.2.9)

Energymech

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:24:28 +0000

The EnergyMech is a powerful IRC bot written in the C programming language and distributed according to the GNU General Public License software license. History before 1997 is unclear but the current version was branched off the original EnergyMech written by Polygon. Development since 1997 has mainly been the work of Proton, since then many alterations and improvements has been made. The EnergyMech of today is a powerful IRC bot with its ease of use and many customizable features.

Some of the original features gave the EnergyMech a reputation as a hacking tool. Nowadays those particular features have been restricted or removed in order to stifle the use of the bot for evil/abusive purposes.

Like the vladbot-family of bots, the bot can run more than one client connection from a single process. This enables a number of improvements such as information sharing between the clients, quicker responses and saving resources on the host system. It has common features such as userlists, shitlists, channel protection, DCC partyline, botnet and lots more.

In the very latest versions (3.x and up) the EnergyMech also supports such advanced features as Tcl scripting, DCC file transfers, IRC bouncer, botnet linking and userlist sharing, similar functions to that of the Eggdrop.

In 2007 the EnergyMech has an estimated user base of 10,000-15,000 running bots (around 25-35%).

One of the main ideas of the EnergyMech is that it should be easy both to setup and use. The popular eggdrop requires that TCL is installed on a system for it to compile sucessfully, the EnergyMech has no such requirements. A person that is familiar with UNIX would have no trouble installing an EnergyMech and getting it up and running.

Compiles and runs on most any standard UNIX!
The EnergyMech was developed primarily for Linux and Solaris, however it functions perfectly OK on most other types of unices with a few exceptions based on compile-time options. Successful compilations has been reported for AIX, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OSF/1 (DEC UNIX), SunOS 4.x and Solaris (SunOS 5.x).

Installs quickly, easy to configure and easy to run!
With a bit of experience, an EnergyMech normally doesn’t take more than a few minutes to download, compile, configure and run. With precompiled distributions it’s quite possible to get a mech up and running within a couple of minutes!

Run more than one bot in a process and link them with others!
The EnergyMech can be configured to link with other EnergyMechs, creating botnets with partyline, remote execution of commands and autoopping of bots to keep channels safer! Bots in the same process are virtually linked at all times. Advantages of multi-head bots.

Very low CPU and memory usage!
The EnergyMech has been designed to use only small amounts of memory and process time. This will enable you to run more bots without using up large amounts of resources.

IRC proxy services in the same process as the bot!
Yes indeed, there is no need to run any extra process in order to get an irc bouncer for your favourite virtual host!

What is IRC Bots?

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:20:40 +0000

An IRC bot is a program that sits in an IRC (see Internet Relay Chat articles) channel around the clock, keeping it open 24 hours a day. It looks just like a normal user on the channel, but is usually idle until it’s called upon to perform a particular function. A bot can contribute greatly to the stability of a channel by protecting it from takeovers and abusers, and providing a central location for storage of the channel op list and giving ops to those users when they join the channel. It can also perform many other useful functions, such as logging channel events, providing frequently-requested information, hosting trivia games, and so on. IRC bots are particularly well-used on IRC networks without channel registration services like ChanServ, such as EFnet and IRCnet, and on networks that may prevent channels from being registered due to certain registration requirements (minimum user count, etc.), such as Undernet or QuakeNet. Where bots are used for administrative functions such as this, they may need more access than a normal client connection allows. Some versions of IRC have a “Service” protocol that allows clients with these extra powers. Such server-sanctioned bots are called IRC services.

The historically oldest IRC bots were Bill Wisner’s Bartender and Greg Lindahl’s GM (Game Manager for the Hunt the Wumpus game). Over time, bots evolved to provide special services, such as managing channels on behalf of groups of users, maintaining access lists, and providing access to databases.

Often, an IRC bot is deployed as a detached program running from a stable host. It sits on an IRC channel to keep it open and prevents malicious users from taking over the channel. It can be configured to give channel operator status to privileged users when they join the channel, and can provide a unified channel operator list. Many of these features require that the bot be a channel operator. Thus, most IRC bots are run from computers which have long uptimes (generally running a BSD derivative or Linux) and a fast, stable Internet connection. As IRC has become popular with many dial-up users as well, special services have appeared that offer limited user-level access to a stable Linux server with a decent connection. The user may run an IRC bot from this shell account. These services are commonly known as shell providers.

A bot can also perform many other useful functions, such as logging what happens in an IRC channel, giving out information on demand (very popular in IRC channels dealing with user support), creating statistics, and so on. These functions are usually provided by user-writable scripts, often written in a scripting programming language such as Tcl or Perl, added to the bot in question. Channels dedicated to file sharing often use XDCC bots to distribute their files.

Bots are not always welcome. Some IRC networks forbid the usage of bots. One of the reasons for doing so is that each nickname connected to the network increases the size of the network database which is being kept in sync across all servers. Allowing for bots in large networks can cause a relevant amount of network traffic overhead which needs to be financed and may even lead to netsplits. This however is a shortcoming of the IRC technology, not the bots.

People that create an IRC bot use either the scripting language built into a client, or appropriate frameworks of a suitable programming language, or they use an existing bot implementation, and adapt it to their needs.

There are many types of bots out there, such as Acidblood, ComBot, EnergyMech, Psotnic, IncuBot, HackBot, and so on. Most of these are old and unsupported, leaving only one bot that has survived the test of time – the Eggdrop.

Hello world!

stormloader — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:33:24 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!