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Configuring IRCBridgeModule

IRCBridgeModule allows you to relay chat from your OpenSim region to an IRC channel and vice versa. You can use this module to

• make in-world chat available via a text-only interface such as IRC
• control objects from IRC channels
• use in-world objects to control bots attached via IRC
• ...

IRCBridge can be used in three modes:

• in traditional mode where we relay all in-world chat from all regions to a single IRC channel on a single server, or
• in multi-channel mode where we can relay in-world chat from a specific region to a specific channel (or even to a specific server)
• in object chat relay mode where we only relay chat to and from private in-world channels

In addition, we can send commands to IRCBridge from in-world objects to re-configure IRCBridge

Traditional IRCBridge mode

In the traditional IRCBridge mode ("traditional" because that was the original IRCBridge modus operandi) all in-world avatar chat from all regions is relayed to a specific IRC chat channel on a specific server. Chat from an avatar is reported by an OpenSim powered IRC bot in the IRC channel. Chat originating on the IRC channel is reported via "voice of god" in all regions (voice of god meaning that the in-world avatars will "hear" the chat but won't be able to see the originator anywhere in the region).

To configure IRCBridge for traditional mode operation use the following configuration section in your OpenSim.ini file (modifying as necessary, of course):

[IRC]
enabled = true ; you need to set this otherwise it won't connect
server  = some.irc.server.net
nick    = OpenSinBot
channel = #opensin
port = 6667
relay_chat = true
report_clients = true

commands_enabled = false
command_channel = 4711
access_password = WuffWuff

relay_private_channels = false
relay_private_channel_out = 4712
relay_private_channel_in = 4713


;fallback_region = name of "default" region
;MSGformat fields : 0=botnick, 1=user, 2=region, 3=message
; must start with "PRIVMSG {0} : " or irc server will get upset
;for <bot>:<user in region> :<message>
msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} :<{1} in {2}>: {3}"
;for <bot>:<message> - <user of region> :
;msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} : {1} [{2}]: {3}"
;for <bot>:<message> - from <user> :
;msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} : {3} - from {1}"

Let’s go through the list of configuration options:

Multi-channel mode

With multi-channel mode we can configure IRCBridge to relay chat from different regions into different IRC channels — or even into different IRC channels on different IRC servers!

The following OpenSim.ini configuration file extract configures IRCBridge to relay chat from region A into IRC channel #opensin-A-opensim.server.net

channel = "#opensim-[%region]-[%host]"

Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on here: IRCBridge allows us to apply run-time variable substitution (a quite powerful mechanism).

In all of these examples, the square brackets are eliminated by the substitution process. The '%' prefix indicates that this is a run-time variable. A value in square-brackets and not preceded by '%' indicates that the value may have been supplied as a value in the IRC ini configuration. For example, the existing mechanism for naming the channel could be made unnecessary complicated by specifying:

channel   = “[channelid]”
channelid = “#my-irc-channel”

The substitution process is exhaustive, so a configuration variable name may be constructed from run-time values.

To illustrate this, assume that the .ini file contains:

channel = “[#[%region]]”
#brief1 = “#chatter-1”
#brief2 = “#chatter-2”

Then region brief1 will be connected to channel #chatter-1, brief2 will be connected to #chatter-2, and all other regions will connect to channels with names identical to their region names. This is a trivial example, but becomes more meaningful when we consider all of the other parameters that might need to be unique per region (server, port etc). Using this mechanism we can create an ini file that has unique settings for all aspects of IRC for each region.

The following run-time values are available to this process:

Finally, a more comprehensive example of a configuration file; we are assuming that we have two regions, Wonky and Borked:

channel    = “[%region]”
server     = “[[%region]-server]”
port       = “[[%region]-port]”
nick       = “[[%region]-nick]”

Wonky-server = irc1.server.org
Wonky-port   = 1234
Wonky-nick   = WonkyBot

Borked-server = irc2.anotherserver.net
Borked-port   = 1234
Borked-nick   = BorkedBot

The Wonky region will connect to IRC channel #Wonky via port 1234 of IRC server irc1.server.org and IRCBridge will appear as WonkyBot. Our Borked region will connect to IRC channel #Borked via port 1234 of IRC server irc2.anotherserver.net using the nickname BorkedBot.

Object chat relay mode

In object chat relay mode IRCBridge relays messages from and to in-world channels.

To configure IRCBridge for this mode you need to use the following configuration:

[IRC]
enabled = true ; you need to set this otherwise it won't connect
server  = some.irc.server.net
nick    = OpenSinBot
channel = #opensin
port = 6667
relay_chat = false
report_clients = false

commands_enabled = false
command_channel = 4711

relay_private_channels = true
relay_private_channel_out = 4712
relay_private_channel_in = 4713

access_password = WuffWuff

;fallback_region = name of "default" region
;MSGformat fields : 0=botnick, 1=user, 2=region, 3=message
; must start with "PRIVMSG {0} : " or irc server will get upset
;for <bot>:<user in region> :<message>
msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} :<{1} in {2}>: {3}"
;for <bot>:<message> - <user of region> :
;msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} : {1} [{2}]: {3}"
;for <bot>:<message> - from <user> :
;msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} : {3} - from {1}"

The important configuration variables here are:

Your in-world objects then need to use LSL code along the following lines:

	llSay(command_channel, “access_password,from,message”);

to send messages to the IRC channel.

In-World configuration

The last feature worth mentioning is that you can control IRCBridge from in-world by sending commands on a specific command channel.

To enable this feature you need to use the following configuration instructions:

commands_enabled = true
command_channel = 4711

IRCBridge understands the following commands:

irc_admin XmlRpc method

IRCBridge supports one XmlRpc method that allows you to obtain the IRCBridgeconfiguration for a specific region. To enable this method you need to enable the [RemoteAdmin] module.

irc_admin expects two parameters:

it will return

here is sample python code showing how to invoke irc_admin:

import xmlrpclib
s = xmlrpclib.Server('http://opensim.zurich.ibm.com:9000/admin')
print s.irc_admin(dict(password = 'c00lstuff', region = 'zurela'))

      {'channel': '#opensim-lotus3d-zurela-opensim.zurich.ibm.com',
       'connected': True,
       'enabled': True,
       'nickname': 'lotus3dbot66',
       'port': '',
       'server': 'zurich.irc.ibm.com',
       'success': True,
       'user': "USER OpenSimBot 8 * :I'm an OpenSim to IRC bot"}

See also

IrcBridgeAlert is a simple region module to alert users entering the region that IRC is enabled.