Installing (Windows)

Installing UnrealIRCd on Windows is easy. After installation you will have to configure UnrealIRCd (and learn how to do so). Even if you are completely new to UnrealIRCd then all these steps to get the IRCd up and running shouldn't take more than 30 minutes in total.

Download and install

Surf to https://www.unrealircd.org/ and click Downloads. Pick your branch, download the installer and run it.

The defaults are normally fine. UnrealIRCd will install to C:\Program Files\UnrealIRCd 6 by default

Creating a configuration file

1. Your UnrealIRCd directory contains a number of folders. The conf folder is where your configuration file will go into, navigate into that folder now. The conf folder contains a subdirectory called examples which contains example.conf. Copy this file to your conf directory and rename it to unrealircd.conf.
2. Open the conf\unrealircd.conf file with an editor such as notepad. Even better, use an editor which shows line numbers, like Notepad++.
3. Read the Configuration file syntax article. It will only take a few minutes and will save you a lot of trouble in next step(s)!
4. Walk through the unrealircd.conf block by block / line by line and edit the settings to suit your needs. This takes 10 - 20 minutes.
5. Boot UnrealIRCd. How exactly depends on what choice you made during the setup:
   • If you installed in GUI mode (this is most common), go to Start -> All Programs -> UnrealIRCd -> UnrealIRCd
   • If you installed as a Service (advanced) then start the UnrealIRCd service. Either via the windows services panel, via net start, or via C:\Program Files\UnrealIRCd 6\bin\unrealvc start (you will need elevated admin privileges for that).
6. If you run in GUI mode then it will show you on the screen if you have any errors. (If you run as a service then you will see nothing, in that case check logs\service.log).
   Do you have any errors? Don't worry, this is quite likely. Just edit your unrealircd.conf, fix them (see the FAQ for common problems), and try starting UnrealIRCd again.
7. Up and running? Connect with an IRC client to your server and have fun. See next section too.

Further reading

• If the server is running and you change any configuration files (or MOTD) then be sure to REHASH to make the changes take effect.
• There is a Command Line Interface to do basic tasks
• See the FAQ if you have any problems. A lot of common problems are answered there.
• Read the IRCOp guide to learn more about how to do server administrative tasks.
• See Features for various available features on UnrealIRCd and Configuration for all possible things you can configure on UnrealIRCd.

Compiling from source

If you want to compile from source then see the Compiling UnrealIRCd on Windows page. Note that this is for advanced users and is not part of a normal installation.