Policy:Linking Guidelines

Revision as of 07:08, 4 March 2011

Thank you for your interest in helping DareNET!

We appreciate your interest and willingness to contribute your time and resources towards helping DareNET grow. We believe it is important for you to realize that DareNET does not operate the way most conventional IRC networks operate. Servers are maintained by their administrator, and our Infrastructure team remotely from central sites using SSH and SCP. Configuration files, MOTDs and other necessary files are normally generated via an automated script at a central location, and new servers are either staged as binary files or recompiled on the server account, depending on architecture and other factors.

As a general rule, we only provide an O-line for you, the server administrator. Any other individuals are asked to apply for a DareNET staff position, and their applications will receive the same consideration as those of other users. When a staff application is accepted, no minimum level of access or privilege is guaranteed or offered.

Regardless, hosting a DareNET server helps the network and the community and we appreciate that you are considering it.

System specifications and Connectivity requirements

Minimum bandwidth

The server being offered MUST be on a dedicated line, preferably on a multi-homed network in order to ensure high reliability and low latency. We cannot and will not accept servers running on a broadband or dial-up connection.

Software-related requirements

System configuration

Where possible we look for dedicated machines with root access, however, this is not a requirement. We will consider different setups; however, all servers must adequately address any and all security concerns and be sufficient to properly run ircd. We will require:

• Account Access. The server daemon (ircd-darenet) runs as a user program under a vanilla end-user account (frequently called "darenet"), with no setuid or special privilege. We require that our Infrastructure team have access to the account. Preferably, password logins should be disabled, and authentication done via SSH keys.

• Core File Limit. Our ircd code base continues to evolve, and we may require this handy debugging tool at times. DareNET servers will produce very large core files, so the limit should be accordingly high - at least 1GB or so.

Other requirements

Your hosting provider MUST allow IRC (specifically, the running of IRC servers connected to public IRC networks) on their network. We will verify this.

We also require that the proposed server administrator:

• has held a registered DareNET account for a reasonable length of time.
• ensure that we always have up-to-date contact information, on and offline.
• stay subscribed to the admins mailing list (low traffic, announcements only).
• endevaour to give us ample advance warning about network, hardware or software upgrades and maintenance which may affect the network.
• communicate unexpected downtown/maintenance ASAP.

Applying

Before applying to link/host a server, you should to look over our current policies. Please do not apply unless you are in full agreement with our policies and practices. It'll save us both a lot of time and headache. Additionally, we encourage you to consult with a member of our Infrastructure team prior to applying. Feel free to ask any questions you may have in #infrastructure (WebChat) or by emailing infrastructure@darenet.org. Regardless, the formal application process begins when you submit an email containing the following information to infrastructure@darenet.org.

• Contact Information -- Please include your full name, email address and telephone number. List the best times to contact you (including time zone). NOTE: The application MUST originate from the proposed server administrator.
• Sponsor -- Who should we credit for the server? Provide name(s) of organizations/individuals. If you'd like a link placed on our site, with logo, include that as well.
• Geographical Location of Server -- City, state/province and country.
• Hardware, Software, Bandwidth and Hosting -- Please describe the system you are offering to link/host, including where the machine is hosted and the type of arrangement you have with the hosting provider (e.g. co-located, sponsored, etc).
• IP Address -- This will allow us to perform latency and route checking.
• dmesg output -- Please paste the full output of "dmesg -a" (specifically, your kernel bootup messages). Since things printed to console get logged to the dmesg buffer (but aren't printed by the dmesg command), you may need to paste your dmesg.boot log instead. This will help us gather further information about your server hardware.

DareNET's Infrastructure team liaisons try to respond to all server application requests within 48 hours, unless other circumstances or team business dictate a longer period to elapse (allow at least one week). The Infrastructure team is in recess over major holiday periods, such as Christmas/Yule/Hanukkah and New Years. Application requests received during these periods may not receive a response until the team returns.

Please do not pester team members about when your application will be reviewed. This is both unnecessary, and wastes the time of the team members. The members of the infrastructure team are also very busy individuals in their own rights, and do not have time to review applications on the fly at the request of the applicant. As stated above, please allow up to one week. If you have a question about the content of the application itself, please email infrastructure@darenet.org.

All applications will be given the same considerations and we regret that we may not always be able to accept a server offer for whatever reason.