melange chat server for linux --> configuration file
Author: Christian Walter
Description: melange chat server for linux, online documentation --> configuration file
Keywords: config, configuration, file, configfile, configuration file, melange, chat, server, linux, java, client, free, download, vienna, christian, walter

MELANGE USER GUIDE 1.10 - INDEX |

WHAT'S THIS FILE FOR ? In the config file, you can set some default settings, change the behaviour of your server, enable the admin features and set the security profile. If you are runnig more than one server on different ports, you can use different configfiles for each server. All of the parameters are optional. If you don't use a configfile or use an empty file, melange will start with default parameters. NOTE: You have to change the entrys before you start the server. If you changed some values while melange is running, you have to restart the server, to make changes take effect. That means shutting down and restarting, not kill -HUP, but this should be no problem, cause most of the parameters can be changed using administrator commands. CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX Following commands are currently supported:
COMMAND | PARAMETER | DESCRIPTION | VERSION
PASSWD | password | Set the password for the administrator login here. If you don't use this command, or if you leave the default password (default: changethis) unchanged, you will not be able to use the administrator commands, once the server is running. That means, if you want to use commands like user kick out, you have to set YOUR password here ! | 0.92
ANONYMOUS | yes/no | If you set this parameter to no, no user is allowed to change to the anonymous channel. Use this command, if you don't want your guests to use the anonymous channel. Default is yes. | 0.93-2
ALLOWCHANNELS | yes/no | If you set this parameter to no, no user is allowed to open a new channel. If it is set to no, only the chat-administrator can do this. Default is yes. | 0.93-2
UNIQUE | yes/no | If you set this parameter to yes, every user has to chose a unique nickname. Default is no. | 1.10
GUESTLOGIN | yes/no | If you set this parameter to yes and the UNIQUE parameter is also enabled, users can use the nickname guest instead of a unique nickname. If it's disabled really EVERY user has to have a different nickname. Default is yes. | 1.10
CHANGENICKS | yes/no | Use this command to allow/disallow users to change their nicknames once they are connected. If you don't want to allow your guest to change their names set this parameter to no. Default is yes. | 1.10
KICKOUTTIME | time | Use this parameter, if you want to change the time (in sec) a host is banned (and can therefore not connect to the server), after he has been kicked out by the administrator. The default setting is 3600 (1 hour). If you set this value to 0, a user can immediatly connect again, after he has been kicked out. | 0.94
IDLETIME | time | Using this command, you can change the default value of the IDLETIME parameter. (Default is 0, this means off). This paramter sets the time after a user is kicked out of the chat if he doesn't say a word for time seconds. If the time is set to 0 users will not be kicked out even if they don't say a word for days. NOTE: Users are not kicked exactly at the time you set via time but when the first new user after time is over connects to the chat. (This is to speed up the server). The admin user will NEVER be kicked out of the chat-system. | 1.10
LOGFILE | filename | Use this parameter if you want to use another logfile than the default one (default is: /var/log/melange.log). This is also usefull, if you are running more than one server, and want to have seperate logfiles. | 0.94
MSGLOGFILE | filename or ON | Use this parameter if you want to enable an additional logfile which logs only the messages (instead of all sysmessages, commands, servermessages, etc. in the default logfile) and if a user connects/disconnects to the server. If you specify a filename, this name is used, if you only set the parameter to ON the default logfile is used. (default is: /var/log/melange_msg.log). | 1.10
LOGLEVEL | level | Use this parameter to set the Loglevel at startup. Currently levels 0 to 4 are supported, where 0 doesn't write anything to the logfile, 4 logs every data received from the server (should only be used for debugging). Levels 1-3 are the "default" level, where 3 logs every small warning, 1 nearly no warning. Default is 3. | 0.99a
SYSCHANNEL | cid and name | By default there are two system channels available at startup. (These are MAIN (0) and ANONYMOUS (1)). If you want to create additional system channels, which should be available at startup use this command. You can use this command as often as you need. For example: SYSCHANNEL 10 hello, will create a channel with channel id 10, and with channelname "hello". | 0.93-2
GROUP | GroupID, GroupPassword | Use this parameter to create a group with the GroupID groupID and the group's password GroupPassword. | 1.10
SETGROUP | cid, grpid | Use this parameter to change the group of a system-channel with the channel-number cid to the groupID given with the grpid. NOTE: The system-channels must already exist at this time, that means you have to use the associated SYSCHANNEL parameter before the SETGROUP parameter. | 1.10
SYSMSG | on/off | This parameter enables or disables the "system-messages" feature. This feature is used and needed by the "real-time" clients. If you want to use such clients, make sure you set this parameter to on. | 1.01
PROFILE | allow/deny | This parameter is used to set the default security profile for your server. If you set this parameter to deny, nobody can connect to your server. (You have to specify who is allowed to connect, seperatly). This is usefull, if you want to run the chatserver for a team/group and don't want others to be allowed to connect. The default value is allow. In this case everybody can connect to the server. (You have to specify who is not allowed to connect, seperatly). This value must be set before the first ALLOW/DENY commands. | 0.94
ALLOW | mask | If you set the PROFILE to deny, you have to specify who is allowed to connect to the server. (Other, nobody can connect, and this does not make much sense). You do this by setting a mask. A desciption of the mask, can be found later on this page. You can use this command as often as you need (to specify more than one host). | 0.94
DENY | mask | Similar to the ALLOW command, if you set the PROFILE to allow, you CAN specify host who are NOT allowed to connect to the server. (If you don't use this command, everybody can connect). You do this by setting a mask. A desciption of the mask, can be found later on this page. You can use this command as often as you need (to specify more than one host). | 0.94
#### COMMENTS Comments start with a "#". As soon this char is found in a line, no data BEHIND this sign is analysed, even if it is a command. #### DESCRIPTION OF THE ALLOW/DENY HOST MASK You use the mask to specify host(s) to be allowed/not allowed to connect to your server. A mask can be a hostname (e.g. max.meier.com) or an IP (e.g. 192.192.192.192). It can also include wildcards. For example, if you don't want to chat with persons from Microsoft you can use DENY microsoft.com. NOTE: There are no * or ? or some other wildcards used. Melange uses a substring search to test if a host is allowed or not allowed to connect. For example if you use DENY xyz no host which has the substring xyz in his name can connect. It does also work with IPs. For example if you set DENY 192.168.0 no host with an IP between 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.0.255 can connect, also no host between 0.192.168.0 and 255.192.168.0. If you use DENY 192.168.0. (Note: there is a dot at the end !) only the hosts between 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.0.255 are not allowed to connect.

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