echoIRCd

A from-scratch IRC daemon written in native Rust. The architecture is inspired by InspIRCd's shape — commands as objects, modes as handler objects, modules with lifecycle hooks — but every line is original Rust, not a port or a translation. Design goals: #![forbid(unsafe_code)], dependency-light (the only external crate is openssl, for TLS), and lock-free (a single core thread owns all state).

Status: early but capable. It boots, registers clients, and speaks a large chunk of the IRC + IRCv3 protocol (see What works). Not battle-tested yet.

Run it

cp echoircd.conf.example echoircd.conf   # then edit: oper pass, cloak_key, TLS paths
cargo run --release                      # reads ./echoircd.conf
# point a client at it, e.g.  /server 127.0.0.1 6667

Config is plain key = value (see echoircd.conf.example). Your real echoircd.conf is gitignored because it holds secrets (oper password, cloak key, link password) — never commit it. For TLS, generate a cert/key into tls/ (the example config has the one-liner).

Architecture

A single core thread owns every User and Channel, so command and module code is plain single-threaded logic over &mut Server — no Arc<Mutex<…>> anywhere. I/O lives on cheap per-connection threads that talk to the core over mpsc channels (a reader turns wire → events, a writer turns lines → wire). TLS connections use one polling thread each (an openssl session can't be split across reader+writer threads).

Where this improves on the C++ original it's inspired by: Uid handles instead of raw User* (no use-after-free, no cull list), an Extensible typemap instead of void* module data (freed automatically on drop), &str slices instead of char*, and compiled-in trait objects instead of a fragile .so ABI.

The two extension points

• Commands (src/command.rs, src/coremods/) — a handler declares name, min_params, before_reg and handle(&mut Server, uid, params), registered in command_table(). Adding a command is one struct + one table line.
• Modes (src/mode.rs) — channel/user modes are handler objects (ChanMode / UserMode) in a table; adding a mode never touches the parser.
• Modules (src/module.rs, src/modules/) — lifecycle hooks. Pre-hooks (on_user_register, on_pre_command, on_pre_message) return a ModResult and can Deny; notify-hooks fire from a queue after the command.

What works

• Registration (CAP/NICK/USER), PING/PONG with idle + registration timeouts, welcome burst (001–005) + ISUPPORT.
• JOIN/PART/NAMES/TOPIC/KICK/INVITE, PRIVMSG/NOTICE/TAGMSG, NICK, WHO/WHOIS/WHOWAS, LIST, AWAY, QUIT, MOTD/LUSERS.
• Full mode set as handler objects: prefixes +qaohv, lists +beI, and +klmntispzONCTcSRMGu plus flood/rate modes +f/+j/+F, redirect +L, word filter +g, and acting extbans m:/c:/n:.
• IRC operators: OPER/KILL/WALLOPS/REHASH/GLOBOPS, SAJOIN/SAPART/ SANICK/SAMODE/SATOPIC/SAKICK, CHGHOST/CHGIDENT/SETHOST/SETIDENT, KLINE/GLINE/ZLINE + STATS, snomasks (+s), DIE/RESTART.
• IRCv3: CAP negotiation, server-time, message-tags + msgid, multi-prefix, away-notify, account-notify, extended-join, chghost, userhost-in-names, echo-message, invite-notify, setname, extended-monitor, SASL (PLAIN, relayed to services), WATCH/MONITOR, SILENCE.
• TLS (openssl) with sslinfo; keyed-SHA-256 host cloaking (+x); services-ready accounts (SVSLOGIN/SVSLOGOUT, account-gated +r/+R/+M) — the ircd is ready for an external services package, it is not one itself.
• Server-to-server linking: handshake, UID/FJOIN netburst, cross-server users and channels, nick-collision handling, netsplit.
• An antimixedutf8 anti-spam module (blocks mixed-script look-alike spam).

Provenance

echoIRCd is original Rust. InspIRCd is a reference for behaviour and API shape only — no code is copied or translated. scripts/native-rust-guard.sh enforces this (no unsafe, no C/FFI, openssl-only deps, no copy/translation wording).

License

See the repository for licensing.