Server technical requirements.

All NationCHAT server applications must be accompanied by authorization to run the server. This authorization must come from the NOC (Network Operations Center) or Network Administration of the HOSTING network. Such authorization may not be from the domain administrative, technical, or billing contact, as in many cases these are not the individuals responsible for the site or the associated network. Rather, the responsible party must be the administrative/technical contact for the AUTONOMOUS SYSTEM. Please note that a route and autonomous system object must be present in the RADB routing registry!

The NOC contact provided on the server link application will be contacted by the Routing Committee. The contact will then have 8 days to reply to the request for authorization. If verifiable authorization is received during that time, the application will be processed and reviewed by the Routing Committee. If the NOC contact fails to respond within 8 days, the application will be automatically declined.

The following is an extract from the text of the NOC contact authorization request:

All NationCHAT servers must meet certain minimum hardware standards in order to efficiently operate on the NationCHAT IRC Network. The bare minimum standards are as follows: minimum 1 GB RAM or higher highly recommended.

• For x86-based machines, a minimum of 600 MHz is required. For Sparc, the machine should be a Ultra-10 or better. Other platforms should run a comparable, or better, system.
• The Operating System kernel must be configured to allow a minimum of 4096 open file descriptors per process, and must support at least 4000 NationCHAT user connections.
• The server must be a DEDICATED machine to serve as an IRC server. IRCU should be listening on (at least) port 6667.
• No other services open to the Internet (as in "0.0.0.0/0") may be run on such a machine. Servers MUST NOT be running useless services for an IRC server like: inetd, rpc.statd, apache, telnetd, webmin, ftpd, etc.
• Any service running on the server other than ircu and sshd (like snmpd, sendmail/postfix, zebra/quagga or even syslogd) must be filtered or listening on localhost or you're out of band network only.
• It is also quite obvious that the SSH service should be firewalled or listening only on your out of band network. We recommend that you use a firewall on the machine and even at any upstream level so that you can limit access and to a certain extent, some attacks on the machine.
• Further it is required that the server run a NTP daemon for time synchronization. New client servers will have one week from the beginning of their test link to properly configure ntpd on their server, since they will not have the proper IP addresses prior to the approval of their application. Until they have ntpd running and synchronized with at least one NationCHAT hub, they must leave RELIABLE_CLOCK turned off. If more than one week is required, the test link admin must contact the Routing Committee secretary, who may, at his or her discretion, extend the time for fulfillment of this requirement. However, the server must have ntpd properly configured prior to the vote for full link status.
• When a user connects to NationCHAT, a DNS reverse lookup request is made. Since these kinds of lookups are quite time hungry, optimizing their speed is necessary for any middle-sized server (2000-8000 clients). It is recommended that the server run the latest version of any cache-only name server (bind8/bind9/djbdns/...) and accept requests from ONLY localhost.

The admin of the prospective server must have at least a general competence with Unix and the running of an IRC server, to include at least a basic understanding of the server configuration file, and use of the C compiler and associated utilities for the particular platform in use. The Routing Committee will offer general guidance in the configuration of the server, but will not "hand-hold" an admin on every detail.