README file for FICS - Free Internet Chess Server

Please report any changes back to chess@ics.onenet.net. The code is
very volatile right now, so keep gratuitous changes to a minimum.  DO NOT
send mail about the code to Richard Nash.  He is no longer working on the 
FICS project.  (We thank him for all his past work!)

HOW TO START YOUR CHESS SERVER

A. INTRODUCTION
  First off, you should be familiar with programming in C and with the
nuances of the system on which you will be running the server. The
documentation is sparse, so often the code is the best place to go to find
the answers.

B. Compiling the code
  1. cd FICS
  2. Edit the file config.h to set the directories where the program's 
     data can be found.  
  3. Copy the Makefile for your system to Makefile. At the time of writing
     this there are only a few machines represented, so you may have to edit. 
     If you create a new Makefile that works on your machine, please mail
     it back to the above address so that we can include it in the distribution.
     NB. You may have to # out dfree.c and dfree.o in the makefile - they are
      for debug perposes only (sun4).
  4. type 'makedepend' type 'make'
  5. If it doesn't compile, well...do your best. If you modify the code to
     get it to compile on your machine, use #ifdef's wisely and send the
     changes back to us so that we can include them in the distribution.
     Also check the code for already defined ifdefs.
  6. Once code is built, start the server with "fics", the default port
     is 5000.  To specify another, use "fics -p #".  login as AdminGuy
     with no password and set his password.  :-)  Good luck.


C. Registering with the ratings server.
*** THERE IS NO RATINGS SERVER IN OPERATION AT PRESENT ***
** The procedures below were for FICS 1.0 and are now obsolete **
** Distributed ratings may come in a later version **

  If you want to be hooked in with the distributed ratings server, and I
hope everyone does, send mail to XXXXXXXXXXX to get your password and to
confirm to and from email addresses.

D. Configuring for the ratings server.
  Once you have your email address, the servers email address and your secret
code, copy the file config/hostinfo.client.format to config/hostinfo.client.
Then edit that file and replace the appropriate entry with the correct
information. Here is what an example should look like.

client fics_client@foobar.com
fics_server@XXXXXXX.XXX MyPassword 0 0

  The next part is a little tricky, and you may need root privileges on your
machine to do it. The goal here is this... To get the contents of the mail
sent to fics_client piped into the fics_mailproc program. If there is no way
you are getting root privileges, go right to way #4.

1. One way is to create a mail alias that does it.

 Here is the pertanent line from my aliases file.

fics_client: "|/Users/nash/Source/FICS/FICS-distrib/fics_mailproc client"

The '|' character causes mail to fics_client to get sent to the program that
follows. The 'client' parameter to the fics_mailproc program is important
because the fics_mailproc program is two-faced. It can run as a client or as
the server.

  Once you are set up, the ratings server should send you accounts for all
of the registered network players.

2. Another way is to create a user called fics_client with the same UID as
   the user you will be running FICS as. This is to allow fics and 
   fics_mailproc to have the same uid. Then, in /etc/crontab put an entry
   that periodically calls the 'mailproc' program. Here is my entry:
0,15,30,45 * * * * nash /Users/nash/Source/FICS/FICS-distrib/mailproc /usr/spool/mail/fics_client "/Users/nash/Source/FICS/FICS-distrib/fics_mailproc client"

3. Yet another way is to simply run mailproc by hand when you want mail to
   be picked up. In a C-shell this works:
while (1)
  /Users/nash/Source/FICS/FICS-distrib/mailproc /usr/spool/mail/fics_client "/Users/nash/Source/FICS/FICS-distrib/fics_mailproc client"
  sleep 900
end

4. There is yet one more way to set up a connection to the rating's server
   if there is no way to get the mail client set up. It may be lest reliable
   than the mail way of doing things because it doesn't have store and 
   forward capability if network errors occur during transmission. But it
   will probably work. The mailproc program can be a daemon wait for 
   connections on a port and then send what it gets to a program. For
   example:
mailproc 5001 "/Users/nash/Source/FICS/FICS-distrib/fics_mailproc client"
   Will wait for the server to connect and send the mail directly. Of course
   you will need to set this up with the server administrator so that he
   knows to send directly rather than through mail.

E. Adding local players.
  Of course this is your server and you have the write to include or exclude
players as you like. To add a player user the fics_addplayer function or
use addplayer when logged in as an ADMIN. To remove a player, just put *
in the password field of their file. They won't be able to log in.