README

WebChat2.0 (C) Chris Chabot <chabotc@xs4all.nl> 2006-2007
Released under the GPLv2, See LICENCE for more information.


This is a comet / ajax chat application, which uses a custom
PHP (5.x) backend daemon that connects to a IRC server.


To run this application you need a few things:

1) A IRC server configured to allow many(!) connections from
localhost (or the host where the daemon resides). Normal IRC
servers are configured to allow only upto 3 connections from
the same IP address, so you need to change this to the ammount
of clients you want your webchat able to host (256-1024 is a 
reasonable number to start with). Also disable ident checking,
because everything will be comming from localhost, this is
pointless to do and only makes the process of connecting slower.
During development i've used hybrid-ircd so if you run into 
trouble, try using that ircd :-)

2) Run the PHP chat daemon, it functions as the gateway between
the browser based javascript frontend, and the irc backend, for
extra paranoia protection, you could run the chat daemon in a 
chroot envirioment, read one of the many FAQ's available on this 
topic (it involves making a directory structure, using ldd to see
what libs your php executable needs, copying those over, plus your
php cli binary) and then running something like:

# exec /usr/sbin/chroot /var/lib/php-chroot /usr/bin/php -Cq /chat/chat.php

3) A modern browser! The chat application should work with IE6, IE7 
and firefox.

4) A willingness to accept that this software isn't finished yet :-)
Feel free to mail sugestions, file bugs, write wiki pages, and send
patches!