BUDRO'S BOT TIPS (EGGDROP BOT-HELP PAGE) LET'S GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE First, before I begin, I would like to thank Robey Pointer for writing the eggdrop botscripts, that allow us to have channel protection on the EFNET (ERIS FREENET). Kudos also go to websites www.xcalibre.com & www.sodre.net/eggdrop for providing guidance and help to new botowners. WHERE DO I GET A BOT? The first thing a new botowner needs to ask themselves, do I really need a bot? If the answer is yes, this is how you proceed. Check the websites for a UNIX botshell. You should contemplate running a minimum of two botshells. The reason, botshells do go down from time to time. One of my resources for eggdrop botshell listing information is http://www.shellcentral.com/eggshelLs.html . Once you have your shell account/accounts set up, it is time to begin the work of getting your eggdrop started. LET'S GET STARTED - How to set up the bot. You need to figure out, what is the best botscript to run, and where to put it. My sources for latest eggdrop scripts or old botscripts is www.xcalibre.com & www.sodre.net/eggdrop. Download your botscript to windows files. In addition to the botscript you will need to download an FTP system as well as a telnet program. Upload the eggdrop botscript to your UNIX shell. Put botscript in file mode in your shell. For ease of understanding we will say you made a file/directory called egg. I will use one of my shells as an example. My shell pathway usr/home/budro/egg. FTP into your shell and upload the botscript (for this manual 1.1.5) to the shell. Once you have uploaded eggdrop 1_1_5_tar.gz to the shell, you must de-compress the compressed bot script. To start the compression you have to unzip the botscript. So telnet into your shell. You have to get to the file where the botscript is loaded. All commands must be typed in lower case letters and are highlighted in this write up in red. Type cd, enter, then cd egg. The 1.1.5 botscript is located here so type ls or ls-a to read the directory contents. The botscript is eggdrop 1_1_5_tar.gz. So now type gunzip eggdrop1_1_5_tar.gz. You will not get a message unless you have a typing error. Do ls or ls-a again. You will see eggdrop 1_1_5_tar. You have to enter the file to get the file contents de-compressed or set in the shell directory. Type: tar -xvf eggdrop1_1_5_tar. You will see the shell letting go of a lot of data. When it is done cycling and back to your log-in, type cd eggdrop1.1.5, this will put you in that directory. Type: ./configure, and bot configuring will begin. Once configuring is done, the script will ask you, do you want to make the bot. In this case type: make and the shell will make the bot. In most cases this will take a while, unless you have a UNIX shell processor that is extremely fast. Once the bot is made, you need to configure the bot's config.exe. CONFIGURING THE CONFIG.EXE Once the botscript is de-compressed, you can go into the file by clicking on the egg folder using FTP and find the config.exe for the bot. You can edit it one of two ways. Either FTP a copy of it to your windows files, or edit it with pico on your shell by telneting to the shell. My preference, and the easiest, is to do it in windows, and send a copy of the finished (edited) config back to your shell through FTP. The easiest way to handle file transfer is to use FTP to your shell. It is quicker and much simpler, and I recommend using WS-FTP. It is (I feel), the best FTP out on the web. In editing the config, it is extremely important to make sure the pathway to the config.exe is set correctly or the bot will not launch. If you use the supplied config follow all instructions closely. Set the botnick (name of your bot), and alternate nick. Set the channel or channels; set the V-host, IP, of the shell, set user files; set user notes, etc. Flood settings in the provided config are normal and shouldn't be changed. At the beginning of each setting is the # sign. This prevents the shell processor from picking up data that is not necessary, and would cause error messages in your config. Do not remove any of them unless you want that command to be active. Also delete the die command statement or the bot will never launch. The config comes with pre-set TCL scripts, you can add others as you need to. This will be covered later in anoher section of the manual. One note for your information - if you should use a shell with pre-compiled configs the de-compressing a botscript becomes unnecessary as the shell has pre-compiled bot data, then all you have to do is edit the config, then launch the bot (background process). BOT LAUNCHING If you have made it this far, we are ready to launch your eggdrop. If it is pre-compiled, the launch command could be several things: Example: - eggdrop - m botnick(config.exe) or Some other command evident in the UNIX shell readme.txt file. I prefer compiling my own bots, so I search for UNIX shells allowing that. The initial launch command on your bot config (or named your bots nick) would be: ./eggdrop -m config.exe(botnick). Since it is the initial launch, you need the -m to activate the user file, and have the bot set up as a new bot. After initial launch you can drop the -m. You have already edited your config so you should have preset servers. The bot will cycle its server list till it connects to a server. You should be in your channel waiting for the bot to arrive. Once the bot enters the channel, message the bot so it recognizes you as the owner. (Command is: /msg botnick hello). The bot will recognize you as the owner and acknowledge you with insructions. You will ened to set a password on the bot, and the command is: /msg botnick pass password. The bot will set the pass and you can DCC the bot. Make sure you are the first to msg the bot hello or the bot might set another nick as the owner. TCL SCRIPTS TCL scripts can be found at www.xcalibre.com or www.sodre.net/eggdrop. They are very easy to setup. When you find the TCL script you want, upload it to your shell by FTP. Gunzip the TCL script using the command: gunzip whatever.tcl.gz. If you use ls command in the directory of the shell, then the script will say whatever.tcl. Send this TCL back to your windows side of FTP. Edit the TCL if necessary and upload the script to your /scripts directory. Insert the line: source scripts/whatever.tcl into your config file. Rehash the bot and you are all set. BOT PARTY LINE Now you are he owner of the bot and have to start setting up the bot's user files with all the bans and users for your channel. Rather than go through all commands, eggdrop has been written to help you. Once you are in your bot's party line do the command .help. The bot will bring up various commands in the help file that will help you to get your eggdrop working properly. For a particular command you need more info on :- do .help command and the bot will bring up information to help you. I will not cover commands here. If you need additional help DCC me or msg me in #40playland. If it is not extremely urgent email me: budro@bellatlantic.net PARTYLINE A partyline is just a miniature IRC live chat in a bots DCC window. Only users with a +p can use the partyline. An owner of eggdrop bots is wise to have all ops done through DCC and the partyline only. Users in the partyline can see and read each other's text. All commands by the botowner or master are done in the bots partyline. Don't use autoop, if you had set config correctly, autoop is not set to be active. Make ops use DCC and the partyline. ADDING USERS TO AND CHATTR COMMANDS I will cover basic chattr commands used in a 1.1.5 eggdrop bot: +o - channel operator +p - partyline user +f - friend to the bot +m - master status +n - owner status To add a user, do .adduser nick, The bot will add the hostmask from the user in the channel. You have to set chattr flags for the user. To make them an op you should give them +ofp flags. That will make them a channel operator, give them partyline access and a friend to the bot. BOTNET,USER-FILE SHARING, BOT LINKING A botnet is simply 2 or more bots that are linked together and have merged party lines. They form a miniature irc. When you link two or more bots together, what is said in one bot will show up in the partyline of the other linked bots. The advantage of linked bots is, you can add a user or put a ban in your hub bot, it will be seen by the other bots, and they will update their user file. To set up a botnet, you have to have previously set telnet port settings in your bot config files. First step in a botnet is to link 2 bots. Set one bot as a hub bot, by setting it in aggressive mode, set the other bot in a passive mode so it will be receptive to sharing user files. Remember to have at least set the bots you are linking 5 - 10 apart. You need to have the link. We will call the hub bot lamestbot, and passive bot as lamestshare. In lamestbot, do .+bot lamestshare. The hub bot will update the passive bot's hostmask. Then do .chattr lamestshare +opfs. The chattr will be +obfs. Then set the address .chaddr lamestshare hostname.com:portsetting, +s will tell the other bot to share its user files. In lamestshare do .+bot lamestbot. It will update hostmask. Do .chattr lamestbot +ofsh, .chattr will be +obfsh. The h designates the hub bot. +s means to share user files. Then do .chaddr lamestbot hostname.com:portsetting. Then do .link lamestshare in lamestbot party line. The hub bot, in aggressive mode will set up resync for passive bot and share all its user data. So do the same procedure with other bots and your botnet is formed. FAQ AND ERROR MESSAGES It is of course, impossible to cover all possible questions and errors that arise. I will try and cover some errors I have found that have come up, and if any others should arise that you can't handle, you can DCC me on efnet or come into my channel, #40Playland and discuss it. My email is budro@bellatlantic.net. 1. On launching, you may see "no user file available". The shell processor somehow going down and renaming the file could cause this. Just FTP to the shell and rename one of the user files to botnick.user as it is in the config and relaunch. Sometimes the bots will lose a user file during sharing. That is why there is a backup user file. You can rename it and relaunch. 2. No config.exe found. You may have mistyped the config name, or when up-dating the config on windows side, did not transfer it back to file/directory in UNIX shell. 3. TCL File in error. This may be caused by config file not correct, or a TCL loaded not edited properly. Make sure you do not uncomment lines you don't want seen as a command by your shell removing # sign from in front of a statement. SETTING UP A CRONTAB Most systems go down from time to time. These things cause your bot to disappear from IRC, and you have to restart it. A csh script called 'botchk' which will help keep the bot online. It will make the machine check every ten minutes to make sure your bot is still running. To use it, you have to add a line to your crontab. First, edit 'botchk' and change the directory and command line parameters so that it will be able to start up your bot. Then, add this line to your crontab: 0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * /home/mydir/botchk Naturally, you need to change the path to the correct path for botchk. If you've never used crontab before, here is a simple way to add that line: Create a new file called 'mycron' and put the above line into it. Then, from your shell prompt, type % crontab mycron That will create a new crontab entry for you, with a line that runs botchk every ten minutes. Botchk will then restart the bot when necessary (and send you email informing you). UNIX COMMANDS cd [dir] change current directory chmod [mode] [filename] ch cp [filename] [path/newfilename] copy file to new location ls list files in current directory mkdir [dir] make directory mv [filename] [path/filename] move file to new location pwd shows the path name of your current directory rm [file] remove file rmdir [dir] remove directory (use rm -r [dir] to remove a directory with files in it) chsh change the login shell df show how much disk space is available on system gzip [filename] compress file, use gunzip [filename] to uncompress man [command] display help on specific command ps [-flags] view processes, use ps -aux | grep username to view processes running from your account. kill [pid] kill process, use kill -9 [pid] to kill process without saving talk [user] pages user for chat, [user] is their email address on the server who see who is logged on the server ftp [host] FTP program irc Internet Relay Chat lynx web browser pine e-mail program pico [filename] text editor telnet [host] telnet SUMMARY In summary, I have tried to give you all the basic data you need to get your eggdrop up and going. You will, of course run into things that are, either, not covered here or brand new to you. I am available to help you, or you can get shell support, or use previously mentioned web resources www.xcalibre.com or www.sodre.net/eggdrop. For additional help: - contact budro by DCC, in my channel #40playland and or by email at budro@bellatlantic.net. Happy botting and good luck to all you new botowners!!!!! Bud, the botman