Add the homepage URL in the doc, and reformat a few paragraphs

7 files changed, 818 insertions, 799 deletions

diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 1a3937e..f08fba0 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -51,6 +51,6 @@ Biboumi is Free Software.
 Biboumi is released under the zlib license.
 Please read the COPYING file for details.
 
-.. _INSTALL: INSTALL.rst
-.. _the documentation: doc/biboumi.1.rst
+.. _INSTALL: doc/install.rst
+.. _the documentation: https://doc.biboumi.louiz.org
 .. _contributing: CONTRIBUTING.rst
diff --git a/doc/admin.rst b/doc/admin.rst
index df7d554..af67042 100644
--- a/doc/admin.rst
+++ b/doc/admin.rst
@@ -1,7 +1,298 @@
+###########################
 Administrator documentation
-===========================
+###########################
+
+Usage
+=====
+
+Biboumi acts as a server, it should be run as a daemon that lives in the
+background for as long as it is needed.  Note that biboumi does not
+daemonize itself, this task should be done by your init system (SysVinit,
+systemd, upstart).
+
+When started, biboumi connects, without encryption (see :ref:`Security`), to the
+local XMPP server on the port ``5347`` and authenticates with the provided
+password.  Biboumi then serves the configured ``hostname``: this means that
+all XMPP stanza with a `to` JID on that domain will be forwarded to biboumi
+by the XMPP server, and biboumi will only send messages coming from that
+hostname.
+
+Configuration
+=============
+
+Configuration happens in different places, with different purposes:
+
+- The main and global configuration that specifies vital settings for the
+  daemon to run, like the hostname, password etc. This is an admin-only
+  configuration, and this is described in the next section.
+- A TLS configuration, also admin-only, that can be either global or
+  per-domain. See `TLS configuration`_ section.
+- Using the :ref:`ad-hoc commands`, each user can configure various
+  settings for themself
+
+Daemon configuration
+--------------------
+
+The configuration file is read by biboumi as it starts. The path is
+specified as the only argument to the biboumi binary.
+
+The configuration file uses a simple format of the form ``option=value``
+(note that there are no spaces before or after the equal sign).
+
+The values from the configuration file can be overridden by environment
+variables, with the name all in upper case and prefixed with `BIBOUMI_`.
+For example, if the environment contains “BIBOUMI_PASSWORD=blah", this will
+override the value of the “password” option in the configuration file.
+
+Sending SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2 or SIGHUP (see kill(1)) to the process will force
+it to re-read the configuration and make it close and re-open the log
+files. You can use this to change any configuration option at runtime, or
+do a log rotation.
+
+Options
+-------
+
+A configuration file can look something like this:
+
+.. code-block:: ini
+
+  hostname=biboumi.example.com
+  password=mypassword
+  xmpp_server_ip=127.0.0.1
+  port=5347
+  admin=myself@example.com
+  db_name=postgresql://biboumi:password@localhost/biboumi
+  realname_customization=true
+  realname_from_jid=false
+  log_file=
+  ca_file=
+  outgoing_bind=192.168.0.12
+
+
+Here is a description of all available options
+
+hostname
+~~~~~~~~
+
+Mandatory. The hostname served by the XMPP gateway.  This domain must be
+configured in the XMPP server as an external component.  See the manual
+for your XMPP server for more information.  For prosody, see
+http://prosody.im/doc/components#adding_an_external_component
+
+password
+~~~~~~~~
+
+Mandatory. The password used to authenticate the XMPP component to your
+XMPP server.  This password must be configured in the XMPP server,
+associated with the external component on *hostname*.
+
+xmpp_server_ip
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The IP address to connect to the XMPP server on. The connection to the
+XMPP server is unencrypted, so the biboumi instance and the server should
+normally be on the same host. The default value is 127.0.0.1.
+
+port
+~~~~
+
+The TCP port to use to connect to the local XMPP component. The default
+value is 5347.
+
+db_name
+~~~~~~~
+
+The name of the database to use. This option can only be used if biboumi
+has been compiled with a database support (Sqlite3 and/or PostgreSQL). If
+the value begins with the postgresql scheme, “postgresql://” or
+“postgres://”, then biboumi will try to connect to the PostgreSQL database
+specified by the URI. See
+https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/libpq-connect.html#idm46428693970032
+for all possible values. For example the value could be
+“postgresql://user:secret@localhost”. If the value does not start with the
+postgresql scheme, then it specifies a filename that will be opened with
+Sqlite3. For example the value could be “/var/lib/biboumi/biboumi.sqlite”.
+
+admin
+~~~~~
+
+The bare JID of the gateway administrator. This JID will have more
+privileges than other standard users, for example some administration
+ad-hoc commands will only be available to that JID.
+
+If you need more than one administrator, separate them with a colon (:).
+
+fixed_irc_server
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If this option contains the hostname of an IRC server (for example
+irc.example.org), then biboumi will enforce the connexion to that IRC
+server only.  This means that a JID like ``#chan@biboumi.example.com``
+must be used instead of ``#chan%irc.example.org@biboumi.example.com``. The
+`%` character loses any meaning in the JIDs.  It can appear in the JID but
+will not be interpreted as a separator (thus the JID
+``#channel%hello@biboumi.example.com`` points to the channel named
+``#channel%hello`` on the configured IRC server) This option can for
+example be used by an administrator that just wants to let their users
+join their own IRC server using an XMPP client, while forbidding access to
+any other IRC server.
+
+persistent_by_default
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If this option is set to `true`, all rooms will be persistent by default:
+the value of the “persistent” option in the global configuration of each
+user will be “true”, but the value of each individual room will still
+default to false. This means that a user just needs to change the global
+“persistent” configuration option to false in order to override this.
+
+If it is set to false (the default value), all rooms are not persistent by
+default.
+
+Each room can be configured individually by each user, to override this
+default value. See :ref:`Ad-hoc commands`.
+
+realname_customization
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If this option is set to “false” (default is “true”), the users will not be
+able to use the ad-hoc commands that lets them configure their realname and
+username.
+
+realname_from_jid
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If this option is set to “true”, the realname and username of each biboumi
+user will be extracted from their JID.  The realname is their bare JID, and
+the username is the node-part of their JID.  Note that if
+``realname_customization`` is “true”, each user will still be able to
+customize their realname and username, this option just decides the default
+realname and username.
+
+If this option is set to “false” (the default value), the realname and
+username of each user will be set to the nick they used to connect to the
+IRC server.
+
+webirc_password
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Configure a password to be communicated to the IRC server, as part of the
+WEBIRC message (see https://kiwiirc.com/docs/webirc).  If this option is
+set, an additional DNS resolution of the hostname of each XMPP server will
+be made when connecting to an IRC server.
+
+log_file
+~~~~~~~~
+
+A filename into which logs are written.  If none is provided, the logs are
+written on standard output.
+
+log_level
+~~~~~~~~~
+
+Indicate what type of log messages to write in the logs.  Value can be
+from 0 to 3.  0 is debug, 1 is info, 2 is warning, 3 is error.  The
+default is 0, but a more practical value for production use is 1.
+
+ca_file
+~~~~~~~
+
+Specifies which file should be used as the list of trusted CA when
+negociating a TLS session. By default this value is unset and biboumi
+tries a list of well-known paths.
+
+outgoing_bind
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+An address (IPv4 or IPv6) to bind the outgoing sockets to.  If no value is
+specified, it will use the one assigned by the operating system.  You can
+for example use outgoing_bind=192.168.1.11 to force biboumi to use the
+interface with this address.  Note that this is only used for connections
+to IRC servers.
+
+identd_port
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The TCP port on which to listen for identd queries.  The default is the
+standard value: 113. To be able to listen on this privileged port, biboumi
+needs to have certain capabilities: on linux, using systemd, this can be
+achieved by adding `AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE` to the unit
+file. On other systems, other solutions exist, like the portacl module on
+FreeBSD.
+
+If biboumi’s identd server is properly started, it will receive queries from
+the IRC servers asking for the “identity” of each IRC connection made to it.
+Biboumi will answer with a hash of the JID that made the connection. This is
+useful for the IRC server to be able to distinguish the different users, and
+be able to deal with the absuses without having to simply ban the IP. Without
+this identd server, moderation is a lot harder, because all the different
+users of a single biboumi instance all share the same IP, and they can’t be
+distinguished by the IRC servers.
+
+To disable the built-in identd, you may set identd_port to 0.
+
+policy_directory
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+A directory that should contain the policy files, used to customize
+Botan’s behaviour when negociating the TLS connections with the IRC
+servers. If not specified, the directory is the one where biboumi’s
+configuration file is located: for example if biboumi reads its
+configuration from /etc/biboumi/biboumi.cfg, the policy_directory value
+will be /etc/biboumi.
+
+
+TLS configuration
+-----------------
+
+Various settings of the TLS connections can be customized using policy
+files. The files should be located in the directory specified by the
+configuration option `policy_directory`_.  When attempting to connect to
+an IRC server using TLS, biboumi will use Botan’s default TLS policy, and
+then will try to load some policy files to override the values found in
+these files.  For example, if policy_directory is /etc/biboumi, when
+trying to connect to irc.example.com, biboumi will try to read
+/etc/biboumi/policy.txt, use the values found to override the default
+values, then it will try to read /etc/biboumi/irc.example.com.policy.txt
+and re-override the policy with the values found in this file.
+
+The policy.txt file applies to all the connections, and
+irc.example.policy.txt will only apply (in addition to policy.txt) when
+connecting to that specific server.
+
+To see the list of possible options to configure, refer to `Botan’s TLS
+documentation <https://botan.randombit.net/manual/tls.html#tls-policies>`_.
+In addition to these Botan options, biboumi implements a few custom options
+listed hereafter:
+- verify_certificate: if this value is set to false, biboumi will not check
+the certificate validity at all. The default value is true.
+
+By default, biboumi provides a few policy files, to work around some
+issues found with a few well-known IRC servers.
+
+
+Security
+========
+
+The connection to the XMPP server can only be made on localhost.  The
+XMPP server is not supposed to accept non-local connections from
+components. Thus, encryption is not used to connect to the local
+XMPP server because it is useless.
+
+If compiled with the Botan library, biboumi can use TLS when communicating
+with the IRC servers.  It will first try ports 6697 and 6670 and use TLS
+if it succeeds, if connection fails on both these ports, the connection is
+established on port 6667 without any encryption.
+
+Biboumi does not check if the received JIDs are properly formatted using
+nodeprep.  This must be done by the XMPP server to which biboumi is
+directly connected.
+
+Biboumi does not provide a way to ban users from connecting to it, has no
+protection against flood or any sort of abuse that your users may cause on
+the IRC servers. Some XMPP server however offer the possibility to restrict
+what JID can access a gateway. Use that feature if you wish to grant access
+to your biboumi instance only to a list of trusted users.
+
 
-.. toctree::
-   :maxdepth: 2
 
-   configuration
diff --git a/doc/configuration.rst b/doc/configuration.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index 7eb037d..0000000
--- a/doc/configuration.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,279 +0,0 @@
-Usage
-=====
-
-Biboumi acts as a server, it should be run as a daemon that lives in the
-background for as long as it is needed.  Note that biboumi does not
-daemonize itself, this task should be done by your init system (SysVinit,
-systemd, upstart).
-
-When started, biboumi connects, without encryption (see :ref:`Security`), to the
-local XMPP server on the port ``5347`` and authenticates with the provided
-password.  Biboumi then serves the configured ``hostname``: this means that
-all XMPP stanza with a `to` JID on that domain will be forwarded to biboumi
-by the XMPP server, and biboumi will only send messages coming from that
-hostname.
-
-Configuration
-=============
-
-The configuration file is read by biboumi as it starts. The path is
-specified as the only argument to the biboumi binary.
-
-The configuration file uses a simple format of the form ``option=value``
-(note that there are no spaces before or after the equal sign).
-
-The values from the configuration file can be overridden by environment
-variables, with the name all in upper case and prefixed with `BIBOUMI_`.
-For example, if the environment contains “BIBOUMI_PASSWORD=blah", this will
-override the value of the “password” option in the configuration file.
-
-Sending SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2 or SIGHUP (see kill(1)) to the process will force
-it to re-read the configuration and make it close and re-open the log
-files. You can use this to change any configuration option at runtime, or
-do a log rotation.
-
-Options
--------
-
-A configuration file can look something like this:
-
-.. code-block:: ini
-
-  hostname=biboumi.example.com
-  password=mypassword
-  xmpp_server_ip=127.0.0.1
-  port=5347
-  admin=myself@example.com
-  db_name=postgresql://biboumi:password@localhost/biboumi
-  realname_customization=true
-  realname_from_jid=false
-  log_file=
-  ca_file=
-  outgoing_bind=192.168.0.12
-
-
-Here is a description of all available options
-
-hostname
-~~~~~~~~
-
-Mandatory. The hostname served by the XMPP gateway.  This domain must be
-configured in the XMPP server as an external component.  See the manual
-for your XMPP server for more information.  For prosody, see
-http://prosody.im/doc/components#adding_an_external_component
-
-password
-~~~~~~~~
-
-Mandatory. The password used to authenticate the XMPP component to your
-XMPP server.  This password must be configured in the XMPP server,
-associated with the external component on *hostname*.
-
-xmpp_server_ip
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-The IP address to connect to the XMPP server on. The connection to the
-XMPP server is unencrypted, so the biboumi instance and the server should
-normally be on the same host. The default value is 127.0.0.1.
-
-port
-~~~~
-
-The TCP port to use to connect to the local XMPP component. The default
-value is 5347.
-
-db_name
-~~~~~~~
-
-The name of the database to use. This option can only be used if biboumi
-has been compiled with a database support (Sqlite3 and/or PostgreSQL). If
-the value begins with the postgresql scheme, “postgresql://” or
-“postgres://”, then biboumi will try to connect to the PostgreSQL database
-specified by the URI. See
-https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/libpq-connect.html#idm46428693970032
-for all possible values. For example the value could be
-“postgresql://user:secret@localhost”. If the value does not start with the
-postgresql scheme, then it specifies a filename that will be opened with
-Sqlite3. For example the value could be “/var/lib/biboumi/biboumi.sqlite”.
-
-admin
-~~~~~
-
-The bare JID of the gateway administrator. This JID will have more
-privileges than other standard users, for example some administration
-ad-hoc commands will only be available to that JID.
-
-If you need more than one administrator, separate them with a colon (:).
-
-fixed_irc_server
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-If this option contains the hostname of an IRC server (for example
-irc.example.org), then biboumi will enforce the connexion to that IRC
-server only.  This means that a JID like ``#chan@biboumi.example.com``
-must be used instead of ``#chan%irc.example.org@biboumi.example.com``. The
-`%` character loses any meaning in the JIDs.  It can appear in the JID but
-will not be interpreted as a separator (thus the JID
-``#channel%hello@biboumi.example.com`` points to the channel named
-``#channel%hello`` on the configured IRC server) This option can for
-example be used by an administrator that just wants to let their users
-join their own IRC server using an XMPP client, while forbidding access to
-any other IRC server.
-
-persistent_by_default
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-If this option is set to `true`, all rooms will be persistent by default:
-the value of the “persistent” option in the global configuration of each
-user will be “true”, but the value of each individual room will still
-default to false. This means that a user just needs to change the global
-“persistent” configuration option to false in order to override this.
-
-If it is set to false (the default value), all rooms are not persistent by
-default.
-
-Each room can be configured individually by each user, to override this
-default value. See :ref:`Ad-hoc commands`.
-
-realname_customization
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-If this option is set to “false” (default is “true”), the users will not be
-able to use the ad-hoc commands that lets them configure their realname and
-username.
-
-realname_from_jid
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-If this option is set to “true”, the realname and username of each biboumi
-user will be extracted from their JID.  The realname is their bare JID, and
-the username is the node-part of their JID.  Note that if
-``realname_customization`` is “true”, each user will still be able to
-customize their realname and username, this option just decides the default
-realname and username.
-
-If this option is set to “false” (the default value), the realname and
-username of each user will be set to the nick they used to connect to the
-IRC server.
-
-webirc_password
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-Configure a password to be communicated to the IRC server, as part of the
-WEBIRC message (see https://kiwiirc.com/docs/webirc).  If this option is
-set, an additional DNS resolution of the hostname of each XMPP server will
-be made when connecting to an IRC server.
-
-log_file
-~~~~~~~~
-
-A filename into which logs are written.  If none is provided, the logs are
-written on standard output.
-
-log_level
-~~~~~~~~~
-
-Indicate what type of log messages to write in the logs.  Value can be
-from 0 to 3.  0 is debug, 1 is info, 2 is warning, 3 is error.  The
-default is 0, but a more practical value for production use is 1.
-
-ca_file
-~~~~~~~
-
-Specifies which file should be used as the list of trusted CA when
-negociating a TLS session. By default this value is unset and biboumi
-tries a list of well-known paths.
-
-outgoing_bind
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-An address (IPv4 or IPv6) to bind the outgoing sockets to.  If no value is
-specified, it will use the one assigned by the operating system.  You can
-for example use outgoing_bind=192.168.1.11 to force biboumi to use the
-interface with this address.  Note that this is only used for connections
-to IRC servers.
-
-identd_port
-~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-The TCP port on which to listen for identd queries.  The default is the
-standard value: 113. To be able to listen on this privileged port, biboumi
-needs to have certain capabilities: on linux, using systemd, this can be
-achieved by adding `AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE` to the unit
-file. On other systems, other solutions exist, like the portacl module on
-FreeBSD.
-
-If biboumi’s identd server is properly started, it will receive queries from
-the IRC servers asking for the “identity” of each IRC connection made to it.
-Biboumi will answer with a hash of the JID that made the connection. This is
-useful for the IRC server to be able to distinguish the different users, and
-be able to deal with the absuses without having to simply ban the IP. Without
-this identd server, moderation is a lot harder, because all the different
-users of a single biboumi instance all share the same IP, and they can’t be
-distinguished by the IRC servers.
-
-To disable the built-in identd, you may set identd_port to 0.
-
-policy_directory
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-A directory that should contain the policy files, used to customize
-Botan’s behaviour when negociating the TLS connections with the IRC
-servers. If not specified, the directory is the one where biboumi’s
-configuration file is located: for example if biboumi reads its
-configuration from /etc/biboumi/biboumi.cfg, the policy_directory value
-will be /etc/biboumi.
-
-
-TLS configuration
------------------
-
-Various settings of the TLS connections can be customized using policy
-files. The files should be located in the directory specified by the
-configuration option `policy_directory`_.  When attempting to connect to
-an IRC server using TLS, biboumi will use Botan’s default TLS policy, and
-then will try to load some policy files to override the values found in
-these files.  For example, if policy_directory is /etc/biboumi, when
-trying to connect to irc.example.com, biboumi will try to read
-/etc/biboumi/policy.txt, use the values found to override the default
-values, then it will try to read /etc/biboumi/irc.example.com.policy.txt
-and re-override the policy with the values found in this file.
-
-The policy.txt file applies to all the connections, and
-irc.example.policy.txt will only apply (in addition to policy.txt) when
-connecting to that specific server.
-
-To see the list of possible options to configure, refer to `Botan’s TLS
-documentation <https://botan.randombit.net/manual/tls.html#tls-policies>`_.
-In addition to these Botan options, biboumi implements a few custom options
-listed hereafter:
-- verify_certificate: if this value is set to false, biboumi will not check
-the certificate validity at all. The default value is true.
-
-By default, biboumi provides a few policy files, to work around some
-issues found with a few well-known IRC servers.
-
-
-Security
-========
-
-The connection to the XMPP server can only be made on localhost.  The
-XMPP server is not supposed to accept non-local connections from
-components. Thus, encryption is not used to connect to the local
-XMPP server because it is useless.
-
-If compiled with the Botan library, biboumi can use TLS when communicating
-with the IRC servers.  It will first try ports 6697 and 6670 and use TLS
-if it succeeds, if connection fails on both these ports, the connection is
-established on port 6667 without any encryption.
-
-Biboumi does not check if the received JIDs are properly formatted using
-nodeprep.  This must be done by the XMPP server to which biboumi is
-directly connected.
-
-Biboumi does not provide a way to ban users from connecting to it, has no
-protection against flood or any sort of abuse that your users may cause on
-the IRC servers. Some XMPP server however offer the possibility to restrict
-what JID can access a gateway. Use that feature if you wish to grant access
-to your biboumi instance only to a list of trusted users.
-
diff --git a/doc/description.rst b/doc/description.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index f2ca73c..0000000
--- a/doc/description.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-Biboumi is an XMPP gateway that connects to IRC servers and translates
-between the two protocols. It can be used to access IRC channels using any
-XMPP client as if these channels were XMPP MUCs.
diff --git a/doc/index.rst b/doc/index.rst
index 5830747..ca1bf0d 100644
--- a/doc/index.rst
+++ b/doc/index.rst
@@ -6,7 +6,13 @@
 Biboumi – XMPP gateway to IRC
 =============================
 
-.. include:: description.rst
+Homepage: https://biboumi.louiz.org
+
+Forge: https://lab.louiz.org/louiz/biboumi
+
+Biboumi is an XMPP gateway that connects to IRC servers and translates
+between the two protocols. It can be used to access IRC channels using any
+XMPP client as if these channels were XMPP MUCs.
 
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 2
diff --git a/doc/usage.rst b/doc/usage.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index 0e50d47..0000000
--- a/doc/usage.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,506 +0,0 @@
-Quick-start
------------
-
-When a user joins an IRC channel on an IRC server (see `Join an IRC
-channel`_), biboumi connects to the remote IRC server, sets the user’s nick
-as requested, and then tries to join the specified channel.  If the same
-user subsequently tries to connect to an other channel on the same server,
-the same IRC connection is used.  If, however, an other user wants to join
-an IRC channel on that same IRC server, biboumi opens a new connection to
-that server.  Biboumi connects once to each IRC servner, for each user on it.
-
-Additionally, if one user is using more than one clients (with the same bare
-JID), they can join the same IRC channel (on the same server) behind one
-single nickname.  Biboumi will forward all the messages (the channel ones and
-the private ones) and the presences to all the resources behind that nick.
-There is no need to have multiple nicknames and multiple connections to be
-able to take part in a conversation (or idle) in a channel from a mobile client
-while the desktop client is still connected, for example.
-
-To cleanly shutdown the component, send a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal to it.
-It will send messages to all connected IRC and XMPP servers to indicate a
-reason why the users are being disconnected.  Biboumi exits when the end of
-communication is acknowledged by all IRC servers.  If one or more IRC
-servers do not respond, biboumi will only exit if it receives the same
-signal again or if a 2 seconds delay has passed.
-
-.. note:: If you use a biboumi that you have no control on: remember that the
- administrator of the gateway you use is able to view all your IRC
- conversations, whether you’re using encryption or not.  This is exactly as
- if you were running your IRC client on someone else’s server. Only use
- biboumi if you trust its administrator (or, better, if you are the
- administrator) or if you don’t intend to have any private conversation.
-
-Addressing
-----------
-
-IRC entities are represented by XMPP JIDs.  The domain part of the JID is
-the domain served by biboumi (the part after the `@`, biboumi.example.com in
-the examples), and the local part (the part before the `@`) depends on the
-concerned entity.
-
-IRC channels and IRC users have a local part formed like this:
-``name`` % ``irc_server``.
-
-``name`` can be a channel name or an user nickname. The distinction between
-the two is based on the first character: by default, if the name starts with
-``'#'`` or ``'&'`` (but this can be overridden by the server, using the
-ISUPPORT extension) then it’s a channel name, otherwise this is a nickname.
-
-There is two ways to address an IRC user, using a local part like this:
-``nickname`` % ``irc_server`` or by using the in-room address of the
-participant, like this:
-``channel_name`` % ``irc_server`` @ ``biboumi.example.com`` / ``Nickname``
-
-The second JID is available only to be compatible with XMPP clients when the
-user wants to send a private message to the participant ``Nickname`` in the
-room ``channel_name%irc_server@biboumi.example.com``.
-
-On XMPP, the node part of the JID can only be lowercase.  On the other hand,
-IRC nicknames are case-insensitive, this means that the nicknames toto,
-Toto, tOtO and TOTO all represent the same IRC user.  This means you can
-talk to the user toto, and this will work.
-
-Also note that some IRC nicknames or channels may contain characters that are
-not allowed in the local part of a JID (for example '@').  If you need to send a
-message to a nick containing such a character, you can use a jid like
-``%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com/AnnoyingNickn@me``, because the JID
-``AnnoyingNickn@me%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` would not work.
-And if you need to address a channel that contains such invalid characters, you
-have to use `jid-escaping <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0106.html#escaping>`_,
-and replace each of these characters with their escaped version, for example to
-join the channel ``#b@byfoot``, you need to use the following JID:
-``#b\40byfoot%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com``.
-
-
-Examples:
-
-* ``#foo%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` is the #foo IRC channel, on the
-  irc.example.com IRC server, and this is served by the biboumi instance on
-  biboumi.example.com
-
-* ``toto%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` is the IRC user named toto, or
-  TotO, etc.
-
-* ``irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` is the IRC server irc.example.com.
-
-Note: Some JIDs are valid but make no sense in the context of
-biboumi:
-
-* ``#test%@biboumi.example.com``, or any other JID that does not contain an
-  IRC server is invalid. Any message to that kind of JID will trigger an
-  error, or will be ignored.
-
-If compiled with Libidn, an IRC channel participant has a bare JID
-representing the “hostname” provided by the IRC server.  This JID can only
-be used to set IRC modes (for example to ban a user based on its IP), or to
-identify user. It cannot be used to contact that user using biboumi.
-
-Join an IRC channel
--------------------
-
-To join an IRC channel ``#foo`` on the IRC server ``irc.example.com``,
-join the XMPP MUC ``#foo%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com``.
-
-Connect to an IRC server
-------------------------
-
-The connection to the IRC server is automatically made when the user tries
-to join any channel on that IRC server.  The connection is closed whenever
-the last channel on that server is left by the user.
-
-Roster
-------
-
-You can add some JIDs provided by biboumi into your own roster, to receive
-presence from them. Biboumi will always automatically accept your requests.
-
-Biboumi’s JID
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-By adding the component JID into your roster, the user will receive an available
-presence whenever it is started, and an unavailable presence whenever it is being
-shutdown.  This is useful to quickly view if that biboumi instance is started or
-not.
-
-IRC server JID
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-These presence will appear online in the user’s roster whenever they are
-connected to that IRC server (see `Connect to an IRC server`_ for more
-details). This is useful to keep track of which server an user is connected
-to: this is sometimes hard to remember, when they have many clients, or if
-they are using persistent channels.
-
-Channel messages
-----------------
-
-On XMPP, unlike on IRC, the displayed order of the messages is the same for
-all participants of a MUC.  Biboumi can not however provide this feature, as
-it cannot know whether the IRC server has received and forwarded the
-messages to other users.  This means that the order of the messages
-displayed in your XMPP client may not be the same as the order on other
-IRC users’.
-
-History
--------
-
-Public channel messages are saved into archives, inside the database,
-unless the `record_history` option is set to false by that user (see
-`Ad-hoc commands`_). Private messages (messages that are sent directly to
-a nickname, not a channel) are never stored in the database.
-
-A channel history can be retrieved by using `Message archive management
-(MAM) <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.htm>`_ on the channel JID.
-The results can be filtered by start and end dates.
-
-When a channel is joined, if the client doesn’t specify any limit, biboumi
-sends the `max_history_length` last messages found in the database as the
-MUC history.  If a client wants to only use MAM for the archives (because
-it’s more convenient and powerful), it should request to receive no
-history by using an attribute maxchars='0' or maxstanzas='0' as defined in
-XEP 0045, and do a proper MAM request instead.
-
-Note: the maxchars attribute is ignored unless its value is exactly 0.
-Supporting it properly would be very hard and would introduce a lot of
-complexity for almost no benefit.
-
-For a given channel, each user has her or his own archive.  The content of
-the archives are never shared, and thus a user can not use someone else’s
-archive to get the messages that they didn’t receive when they were
-offline. Although this feature would be very convenient, this would
-introduce a very important privacy issue: for example if a biboumi gateway
-is used by two users, by querying the archive one user would be able to
-know whether or not the other user was in a room at a given time.
-
-
-List channels
--------------
-
-You can list the IRC channels on a given IRC server by sending an XMPP
-disco items request on the IRC server JID.  The number of channels on some
-servers is huge so the result stanza may be very big, unless your client
-supports result set management (XEP 0059)
-
-Nicknames
----------
-
-On IRC, nicknames are server-wide.  This means that one user only has one
-single nickname at one given time on all the channels of a server. This is
-different from XMPP where a user can have a different nick on each MUC,
-even if these MUCs are on the same server.
-
-This means that the nick you choose when joining your first IRC channel on
-a given IRC server will be your nickname in all other channels that you
-join on that same IRC server.
-
-If you explicitely change your nickname on one channel, your nickname will
-be changed on all channels on the same server as well. Joining a new
-channel with a different nick, however, will not change your nick.  The
-provided nick will be ignored, in order to avoid changing your nick on the
-whole server by mistake.  If you want to have a different nickname in the
-channel you’re going to join, you need to do it explicitly with the NICK
-command before joining the channel.
-
-Private messages
-----------------
-
-Private messages are handled differently on IRC and on XMPP.  On IRC, you
-talk directly to one server-user: toto on the channel #foo is the same user
-as toto on the channel #bar (as long as these two channels are on the same
-IRC server).  By default you will receive private messages from the “global”
-user (aka nickname%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com), unless you
-previously sent a message to an in-room participant (something like
-\#test%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com/nickname), in which case future
-messages from that same user will be received from that same “in-room” JID.
-
-Notices
--------
-
-Notices are received exactly like private messages.  It is not possible to
-send a notice.
-
-Topic
------
-
-The topic can be set and retrieved seemlessly. The unique difference is that
-if an XMPP user tries to set a multiline topic, every line return (\\n) will
-be replaced by a space, because the IRC server wouldn’t accept it.
-
-Invitations
------------
-
-If the invited JID is a user JID served by this biboumi instance, it will forward the
-invitation to the target nick, over IRC.
-Otherwise, the mediated instance will directly be sent to the invited JID, over XMPP.
-
-Example: if the user wishes to invite the IRC user “FooBar” into a room, they can
-invite one of the following “JIDs” (one of them is not a JID, actually):
-
-- foobar%anything@biboumi.example.com
-- anything@biboumi.example.com/FooBar
-- FooBar
-
-(Note that the “anything” parts are simply ignored because they carry no
-additional meaning for biboumi: we already know which IRC server is targeted
-using the JID of the target channel.)
-
-Otherwise, any valid JID can be used, to invite any XMPP user.
-
-Kicks and bans
---------------
-
-Kicks are transparently translated from one protocol to another.  However
-banning an XMPP participant has no effect.  To ban an user you need to set a
-mode +b on that user nick or host (see `IRC modes`_) and then kick it.
-
-Encoding
---------
-
-On XMPP, the encoding is always ``UTF-8``, whereas on IRC the encoding of
-each message can be anything.
-
-This means that biboumi has to convert everything coming from IRC into UTF-8
-without knowing the encoding of the received messages.  To do so, it checks
-if each message is UTF-8 valid, if not it tries to convert from
-``iso_8859-1`` (because this appears to be the most common case, at least
-on the channels I visit) to ``UTF-8``.  If that conversion fails at some
-point, a placeholder character ``'�'`` is inserted to indicate this
-decoding error.
-
-Messages are always sent in UTF-8 over IRC, no conversion is done in that
-direction.
-
-IRC modes
----------
-
-One feature that doesn’t exist on XMPP but does on IRC is the ``modes``.
-Although some of these modes have a correspondance in the XMPP world (for
-example the ``+o`` mode on a user corresponds to the ``moderator`` role in
-XMPP), it is impossible to map all these modes to an XMPP feature.  To
-circumvent this problem, biboumi provides a raw notification when modes are
-changed, and lets the user change the modes directly.
-
-To change modes, simply send a message starting with “``/mode``” followed by
-the modes and the arguments you want to send to the IRC server.  For example
-“/mode +aho louiz”.  Note that your XMPP client may interprete messages
-begining with “/” like a command.  To actually send a message starting with
-a slash, you may need to start your message with “//mode” or “/say /mode”,
-depending on your client.
-
-When a mode is changed, the user is notified by a message coming from the
-MUC bare JID, looking like “Mode #foo [+ov] [toto tutu]”.  In addition, if
-the mode change can be translated to an XMPP feature, the user will be
-notified of this XMPP event as well. For example if a mode “+o toto” is
-received, then toto’s role will be changed to moderator.  The mapping
-between IRC modes and XMPP features is as follow:
-
-``+q``
-  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to ``owner``.
-
-``+a``
-  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to ``owner``.
-
-``+o``
-  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to  ``admin``.
-
-``+h``
-  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to  ``member``.
-
-``+v``
-  Sets the participant’s role to ``participant`` and its affiliation to ``member``.
-
-Similarly, when a biboumi user changes some participant's affiliation or role, biboumi translates that in an IRC mode change.
-
-Affiliation set to ``none``
-  Sets mode to -vhoaq
-
-Affiliation set to ``member``
-  Sets mode to +v-hoaq
-
-Role set to ``moderator``
-  Sets mode to +h-oaq
-
-Affiliation set to ``admin``
-  Sets mode to +o-aq
-
-Affiliation set to ``owner``
-  Sets mode to +a-q
-
-Ad-hoc commands
----------------
-
-Biboumi supports a few ad-hoc commands, as described in the XEP 0050.
-Different ad-hoc commands are available for each JID type.
-
-On the gateway itself
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-.. note:: For example on the JID biboumi.example.com
-
-ping
-^^^^
-Just respond “pong”
-
-hello
-^^^^^
-
-Provide a form, where the user enters their name, and biboumi responds
-with a nice greeting.
-
-disconnect-user
-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-
-Only available to the administrator. The user provides a list of JIDs, and
-a quit message. All the selected users are disconnected from all the IRC
-servers to which they were connected, using the provided quit message.
-Sending SIGINT to biboumi is equivalent to using this command by selecting
-all the connected JIDs and using the “Gateway shutdown” quit message,
-except that biboumi does not exit when using this ad-hoc command.
-
-disconnect-from-irc-servers
-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-
-Disconnect a single user from one or more IRC server.  The user is
-immediately disconnected by closing the socket, no message is sent to the
-IRC server, but the user is of course notified with an XMPP message.  The
-administrator can disconnect any user, while the other users can only
-disconnect themselves.
-
-configure
-^^^^^^^^^
-
-Lets each user configure some options that applies globally.
-The provided configuration form contains these fields:
-
-- **Record History**: whether or not history messages should be saved in
-  the database.
-- **Max history length**: The maximum number of lines in the history that
-  the server is allowed to send when joining a channel.
-- **Persistent**: Overrides the value specified in each individual
-  channel. If this option is set to true, all channels are persistent,
-  whether or not their specific value is true or false. This option is true
-  by default for everyone if the `persistent_by_default` configuration
-  option is true, otherwise it’s false. See below for more details on what a
-  persistent channel is. This value is
-
-On a server JID
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
- E.g on the JID chat.freenode.org@biboumi.example.com
-
-- **configure**: Lets each user configure some options that applies to the
-  concerned IRC server.  The provided configuration form contains these
-  fields:
-
-    - **Address**: This address (IPv4, IPv6 or hostname) will be used, when
-      biboumi connects to this server. This is a very handy way to have a
-      custom name for a network, and be able to edit the address to use
-      if one endpoint for that server is dead, but continue using the same
-      JID. For example, a user could configure the server
-      “freenode@biboumi.example.com”, set “chat.freenode.net” in its
-      “Address” field, and then they would be able to use “freenode” as
-      the network name forever: if “chat.freenode.net” breaks for some
-      reason, it can be changed to “irc.freenode.org” instead, and the user
-      would not need to change all their bookmarks and settings.
-    - **Realname**: The customized “real name” as it will appear on the
-      user’s whois. This option is not available if biboumi is configured
-      with realname_customization to false.
-    - **Username**: The “user” part in your `user@host`. This option is not
-      available if biboumi is configured with realname_customization to
-      false.
-    - **In encoding**: The incoming encoding. Any received message that is not
-      proper UTF-8 will be converted will be converted from the configured
-      In encoding into UTF-8. If the conversion fails at some point, some
-      characters will be replaced by the placeholders.
-    - **Out encoding**: Currently ignored.
-    - **After-connection IRC commands**: Raw IRC commands that will be sent
-      one by one to the server immediately after the connection has been
-      successful. It can for example be used to identify yourself using
-      NickServ, with a command like this: `PRIVMSG NickServ :identify
-      PASSWORD`.
-    - **Ports**: The list of TCP ports to use when connecting to this IRC server.
-      This list will be tried in sequence, until the connection succeeds for
-      one of them. The connection made on these ports will not use TLS, the
-      communication will be insecure. The default list contains 6697 and 6670.
-    - **TLS ports**: A second list of ports to try when connecting to the IRC
-      server. The only difference is that TLS will be used if the connection
-      is established on one of these ports. All the ports in this list will
-      be tried before using the other plain-text ports list. To entirely
-      disable any non-TLS connection, just remove all the values from the
-      “normal” ports list. The default list contains 6697.
-    - **Verify certificate**: If set to true (the default value), when connecting
-      on a TLS port, the connection will be aborted if the certificate is
-      not valid (for example if it’s not signed by a known authority, or if
-      the domain name doesn’t match, etc). Set it to false if you want to
-      connect on a server with a self-signed certificate.
-    - **SHA-1 fingerprint of the TLS certificate to trust**: if you know the hash
-      of the certificate that the server is supposed to use, and you only want
-      to accept this one, set its SHA-1 hash in this field.
-    - **Nickname**: A nickname that will be used instead of the nickname provided
-      in the initial presence sent to join a channel. This can be used if the
-      user always wants to have the same nickname on a given server, and not
-      have to bother with setting that nick in all the bookmarks on that
-      server. The nickname can still manually be changed with a standard nick
-      change presence.
-    - **Server password**: A password that will be sent just after the connection,
-      in a PASS command. This is usually used in private servers, where you’re
-      only allowed to connect if you have the password. Note that, although
-      this is NOT a password that will be sent to NickServ (or some author
-      authentication service), some server (notably Freenode) use it as if it
-      was sent to NickServ to identify your nickname.
-    - **Throttle limit**: specifies a number of messages that can be sent
-      without a limit, before the throttling takes place. When messages
-      are throttled, only one command per second is sent to the server.
-      The default is 10. You can lower this value if you are ever kicked
-      for excess flood. If the value is 0, all messages are throttled. To
-      disable this feature, set it to a negative number, or an empty string.
-
-- **get-irc-connection-info**: Returns some information about the IRC server,
-  for the executing user. It lets the user know if they are connected to
-  this server, from what port, with or without TLS, and it gives the list
-  of joined IRC channel, with a detailed list of which resource is in which
-  channel.
-
-On a channel JID
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-E.g on the JID #test%chat.freenode.org@biboumi.example.com
-
-- **configure**: Lets each user configure some options that applies to the
-  concerned IRC channel.  Some of these options, if not configured for a
-  specific channel, defaults to the value configured at the IRC server
-  level.  For example the encoding can be specified for both the channel
-  and the server.  If an encoding is not specified for a channel, the
-  encoding configured in the server applies. The provided configuration
-  form contains these fields:
-  - **In encoding**: see the option with the same name in the server configuration
-  form.
-  - **Out encoding**: Currently ignored.
-  - **Persistent**: If set to true, biboumi will stay in this channel even when
-  all the XMPP resources have left the room. I.e. it will not send a PART
-  command, and will stay idle in the channel until the connection is
-  forcibly closed. If a resource comes back in the room again, and if
-  the archiving of messages is enabled for this room, the client will
-  receive the messages that where sent in this channel. This option can be
-  used to make biboumi act as an IRC bouncer.
-  - **Record History**: whether or not history messages should be saved in
-  the database, for this specific channel. If the value is “unset” (the
-  default), then the value configured globally is used. This option is there,
-  for example, to be able to enable history recording globally while disabling
-  it for a few specific “private” channels.
-
-Raw IRC messages
-----------------
-
-Biboumi tries to support as many IRC features as possible, but doesn’t
-handle everything yet (or ever).  In order to let the user send any
-arbitrary IRC message, biboumi forwards any XMPP message received on an IRC
-Server JID (see `Addressing`_) as a raw command to that IRC server.
-
-For example, to WHOIS the user Foo on the server irc.example.com, a user can
-send the message “WHOIS Foo” to ``irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com``.
-
-The message will be forwarded as is, without any modification appart from
-adding ``\r\n`` at the end (to make it a valid IRC message).  You need to
-have a little bit of understanding of the IRC protocol to use this feature.
diff --git a/doc/user.rst b/doc/user.rst
index 7cb97f5..027d30f 100644
--- a/doc/user.rst
+++ b/doc/user.rst
@@ -1,7 +1,517 @@
+######################
 End-user documentation
-======================
+######################
 
-.. toctree::
-   :maxdepth: 2
+Quick-start
+-----------
 
-   usage
+When a user joins an IRC channel on an IRC server (see `Join an IRC
+channel`_), biboumi connects to the remote IRC server, sets the user’s nick
+as requested, and then tries to join the specified channel.  If the same
+user subsequently tries to connect to an other channel on the same server,
+the same IRC connection is used.  If, however, an other user wants to join
+an IRC channel on that same IRC server, biboumi opens a new connection to
+that server.  Biboumi connects once to each IRC servner, for each user on it.
+
+Additionally, if one user is using more than one clients (with the same bare
+JID), they can join the same IRC channel (on the same server) behind one
+single nickname.  Biboumi will forward all the messages (the channel ones and
+the private ones) and the presences to all the resources behind that nick.
+There is no need to have multiple nicknames and multiple connections to be
+able to take part in a conversation (or idle) in a channel from a mobile client
+while the desktop client is still connected, for example.
+
+To cleanly shutdown the component, send a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal to it.
+It will send messages to all connected IRC and XMPP servers to indicate a
+reason why the users are being disconnected.  Biboumi exits when the end of
+communication is acknowledged by all IRC servers.  If one or more IRC
+servers do not respond, biboumi will only exit if it receives the same
+signal again or if a 2 seconds delay has passed.
+
+.. note:: If you use a biboumi that you have no control on: remember that the
+ administrator of the gateway you use is able to view all your IRC
+ conversations, whether you’re using encryption or not.  This is exactly as
+ if you were running your IRC client on someone else’s server. Only use
+ biboumi if you trust its administrator (or, better, if you are the
+ administrator) or if you don’t intend to have any private conversation.
+
+Addressing
+----------
+
+IRC entities are represented by XMPP JIDs.  The domain part of the JID is
+the domain served by biboumi (the part after the `@`, biboumi.example.com in
+the examples), and the local part (the part before the `@`) depends on the
+concerned entity.
+
+IRC channels and IRC users have a local part formed like this:
+``name`` % ``irc_server``.
+
+``name`` can be a channel name or an user nickname. The distinction between
+the two is based on the first character: by default, if the name starts with
+``'#'`` or ``'&'`` (but this can be overridden by the server, using the
+ISUPPORT extension) then it’s a channel name, otherwise this is a nickname.
+
+There is two ways to address an IRC user, using a local part like this:
+``nickname`` % ``irc_server`` or by using the in-room address of the
+participant, like this:
+``channel_name`` % ``irc_server`` @ ``biboumi.example.com`` / ``Nickname``
+
+The second JID is available only to be compatible with XMPP clients when the
+user wants to send a private message to the participant ``Nickname`` in the
+room ``channel_name%irc_server@biboumi.example.com``.
+
+On XMPP, the node part of the JID can only be lowercase.  On the other hand,
+IRC nicknames are case-insensitive, this means that the nicknames toto,
+Toto, tOtO and TOTO all represent the same IRC user.  This means you can
+talk to the user toto, and this will work.
+
+Also note that some IRC nicknames or channels may contain characters that are
+not allowed in the local part of a JID (for example '@').  If you need to send a
+message to a nick containing such a character, you can use a jid like
+``%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com/AnnoyingNickn@me``, because the JID
+``AnnoyingNickn@me%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` would not work.
+And if you need to address a channel that contains such invalid characters, you
+have to use `jid-escaping <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0106.html#escaping>`_,
+and replace each of these characters with their escaped version, for example to
+join the channel ``#b@byfoot``, you need to use the following JID:
+``#b\40byfoot%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com``.
+
+
+Examples:
+
+* ``#foo%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` is the #foo IRC channel, on the
+  irc.example.com IRC server, and this is served by the biboumi instance on
+  biboumi.example.com
+
+* ``toto%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` is the IRC user named toto, or
+  TotO, etc.
+
+* ``irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com`` is the IRC server irc.example.com.
+
+Note: Some JIDs are valid but make no sense in the context of
+biboumi:
+
+* ``#test%@biboumi.example.com``, or any other JID that does not contain an
+  IRC server is invalid. Any message to that kind of JID will trigger an
+  error, or will be ignored.
+
+If compiled with Libidn, an IRC channel participant has a bare JID
+representing the “hostname” provided by the IRC server.  This JID can only
+be used to set IRC modes (for example to ban a user based on its IP), or to
+identify user. It cannot be used to contact that user using biboumi.
+
+Join an IRC channel
+-------------------
+
+To join an IRC channel ``#foo`` on the IRC server ``irc.example.com``,
+join the XMPP MUC ``#foo%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com``.
+
+Connect to an IRC server
+------------------------
+
+The connection to the IRC server is automatically made when the user tries
+to join any channel on that IRC server.  The connection is closed whenever
+the last channel on that server is left by the user.
+
+Roster
+------
+
+You can add some JIDs provided by biboumi into your own roster, to receive
+presence from them. Biboumi will always automatically accept your requests.
+
+Biboumi’s JID
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+By adding the component JID into your roster, the user will receive an available
+presence whenever it is started, and an unavailable presence whenever it is being
+shutdown.  This is useful to quickly view if that biboumi instance is started or
+not.
+
+IRC server JID
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+These presence will appear online in the user’s roster whenever they are
+connected to that IRC server (see `Connect to an IRC server`_ for more
+details). This is useful to keep track of which server an user is connected
+to: this is sometimes hard to remember, when they have many clients, or if
+they are using persistent channels.
+
+Channel messages
+----------------
+
+On XMPP, unlike on IRC, the displayed order of the messages is the same for
+all participants of a MUC.  Biboumi can not however provide this feature, as
+it cannot know whether the IRC server has received and forwarded the
+messages to other users.  This means that the order of the messages
+displayed in your XMPP client may not be the same as the order on other
+IRC users’.
+
+History
+-------
+
+Public channel messages are saved into archives, inside the database,
+unless the `record_history` option is set to false by that user (see
+`Ad-hoc commands`_). Private messages (messages that are sent directly to
+a nickname, not a channel) are never stored in the database.
+
+A channel history can be retrieved by using `Message archive management
+(MAM) <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.htm>`_ on the channel JID.
+The results can be filtered by start and end dates.
+
+When a channel is joined, if the client doesn’t specify any limit, biboumi
+sends the `max_history_length` last messages found in the database as the
+MUC history.  If a client wants to only use MAM for the archives (because
+it’s more convenient and powerful), it should request to receive no
+history by using an attribute maxchars='0' or maxstanzas='0' as defined in
+XEP 0045, and do a proper MAM request instead.
+
+Note: the maxchars attribute is ignored unless its value is exactly 0.
+Supporting it properly would be very hard and would introduce a lot of
+complexity for almost no benefit.
+
+For a given channel, each user has her or his own archive.  The content of
+the archives are never shared, and thus a user can not use someone else’s
+archive to get the messages that they didn’t receive when they were
+offline. Although this feature would be very convenient, this would
+introduce a very important privacy issue: for example if a biboumi gateway
+is used by two users, by querying the archive one user would be able to
+know whether or not the other user was in a room at a given time.
+
+
+List channels
+-------------
+
+You can list the IRC channels on a given IRC server by sending an XMPP
+disco items request on the IRC server JID.  The number of channels on some
+servers is huge so the result stanza may be very big, unless your client
+supports result set management (XEP 0059)
+
+Nicknames
+---------
+
+On IRC, nicknames are server-wide.  This means that one user only has one
+single nickname at one given time on all the channels of a server. This is
+different from XMPP where a user can have a different nick on each MUC,
+even if these MUCs are on the same server.
+
+This means that the nick you choose when joining your first IRC channel on
+a given IRC server will be your nickname in all other channels that you
+join on that same IRC server.
+
+If you explicitely change your nickname on one channel, your nickname will
+be changed on all channels on the same server as well. Joining a new
+channel with a different nick, however, will not change your nick.  The
+provided nick will be ignored, in order to avoid changing your nick on the
+whole server by mistake.  If you want to have a different nickname in the
+channel you’re going to join, you need to do it explicitly with the NICK
+command before joining the channel.
+
+Private messages
+----------------
+
+Private messages are handled differently on IRC and on XMPP.  On IRC, you
+talk directly to one server-user: toto on the channel #foo is the same user
+as toto on the channel #bar (as long as these two channels are on the same
+IRC server).  By default you will receive private messages from the “global”
+user (aka nickname%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com), unless you
+previously sent a message to an in-room participant (something like
+\#test%irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com/nickname), in which case future
+messages from that same user will be received from that same “in-room” JID.
+
+Notices
+-------
+
+Notices are received exactly like private messages.  It is not possible to
+send a notice.
+
+Topic
+-----
+
+The topic can be set and retrieved seemlessly. The unique difference is that
+if an XMPP user tries to set a multiline topic, every line return (\\n) will
+be replaced by a space, because the IRC server wouldn’t accept it.
+
+Invitations
+-----------
+
+If the invited JID is a user JID served by this biboumi instance, it will forward the
+invitation to the target nick, over IRC.
+Otherwise, the mediated instance will directly be sent to the invited JID, over XMPP.
+
+Example: if the user wishes to invite the IRC user “FooBar” into a room, they can
+invite one of the following “JIDs” (one of them is not a JID, actually):
+
+- foobar%anything@biboumi.example.com
+- anything@biboumi.example.com/FooBar
+- FooBar
+
+(Note that the “anything” parts are simply ignored because they carry no
+additional meaning for biboumi: we already know which IRC server is targeted
+using the JID of the target channel.)
+
+Otherwise, any valid JID can be used, to invite any XMPP user.
+
+Kicks and bans
+--------------
+
+Kicks are transparently translated from one protocol to another.  However
+banning an XMPP participant has no effect.  To ban an user you need to set a
+mode +b on that user nick or host (see `IRC modes`_) and then kick it.
+
+Encoding
+--------
+
+On XMPP, the encoding is always ``UTF-8``, whereas on IRC the encoding of
+each message can be anything.
+
+This means that biboumi has to convert everything coming from IRC into UTF-8
+without knowing the encoding of the received messages.  To do so, it checks
+if each message is UTF-8 valid, if not it tries to convert from
+``iso_8859-1`` (because this appears to be the most common case, at least
+on the channels I visit) to ``UTF-8``.  If that conversion fails at some
+point, a placeholder character ``'�'`` is inserted to indicate this
+decoding error.
+
+Messages are always sent in UTF-8 over IRC, no conversion is done in that
+direction.
+
+IRC modes
+---------
+
+One feature that doesn’t exist on XMPP but does on IRC is the ``modes``.
+Although some of these modes have a correspondance in the XMPP world (for
+example the ``+o`` mode on a user corresponds to the ``moderator`` role in
+XMPP), it is impossible to map all these modes to an XMPP feature.  To
+circumvent this problem, biboumi provides a raw notification when modes are
+changed, and lets the user change the modes directly.
+
+To change modes, simply send a message starting with “``/mode``” followed by
+the modes and the arguments you want to send to the IRC server.  For example
+“/mode +aho louiz”.  Note that your XMPP client may interprete messages
+begining with “/” like a command.  To actually send a message starting with
+a slash, you may need to start your message with “//mode” or “/say /mode”,
+depending on your client.
+
+When a mode is changed, the user is notified by a message coming from the
+MUC bare JID, looking like “Mode #foo [+ov] [toto tutu]”.  In addition, if
+the mode change can be translated to an XMPP feature, the user will be
+notified of this XMPP event as well. For example if a mode “+o toto” is
+received, then toto’s role will be changed to moderator.  The mapping
+between IRC modes and XMPP features is as follow:
+
+``+q``
+  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to ``owner``.
+
+``+a``
+  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to ``owner``.
+
+``+o``
+  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to  ``admin``.
+
+``+h``
+  Sets the participant’s role to ``moderator`` and its affiliation to  ``member``.
+
+``+v``
+  Sets the participant’s role to ``participant`` and its affiliation to ``member``.
+
+Similarly, when a biboumi user changes some participant's affiliation or role, biboumi translates that in an IRC mode change.
+
+Affiliation set to ``none``
+  Sets mode to -vhoaq
+
+Affiliation set to ``member``
+  Sets mode to +v-hoaq
+
+Role set to ``moderator``
+  Sets mode to +h-oaq
+
+Affiliation set to ``admin``
+  Sets mode to +o-aq
+
+Affiliation set to ``owner``
+  Sets mode to +a-q
+
+Ad-hoc commands
+---------------
+
+Biboumi supports a few ad-hoc commands, as described in the XEP 0050.
+Different ad-hoc commands are available for each JID type.
+
+On the gateway itself
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. note:: For example on the JID biboumi.example.com
+
+ping
+^^^^
+Just respond “pong”
+
+hello
+^^^^^
+
+Provide a form, where the user enters their name, and biboumi responds
+with a nice greeting.
+
+disconnect-user
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Only available to the administrator. The user provides a list of JIDs, and
+a quit message. All the selected users are disconnected from all the IRC
+servers to which they were connected, using the provided quit message.
+Sending SIGINT to biboumi is equivalent to using this command by selecting
+all the connected JIDs and using the “Gateway shutdown” quit message,
+except that biboumi does not exit when using this ad-hoc command.
+
+disconnect-from-irc-servers
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Disconnect a single user from one or more IRC server.  The user is
+immediately disconnected by closing the socket, no message is sent to the
+IRC server, but the user is of course notified with an XMPP message.  The
+administrator can disconnect any user, while the other users can only
+disconnect themselves.
+
+configure
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+Lets each user configure some options that applies globally.
+The provided configuration form contains these fields:
+
+- **Record History**: whether or not history messages should be saved in
+  the database.
+- **Max history length**: The maximum number of lines in the history that
+  the server is allowed to send when joining a channel.
+- **Persistent**: Overrides the value specified in each individual
+  channel. If this option is set to true, all channels are persistent,
+  whether or not their specific value is true or false. This option is true
+  by default for everyone if the `persistent_by_default` configuration
+  option is true, otherwise it’s false. See below for more details on what a
+  persistent channel is. This value is
+
+On a server JID
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+E.g on the JID chat.freenode.org@biboumi.example.com
+
+configure
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+Lets each user configure some options that applies to the concerned IRC
+server.  The provided configuration form contains these fields:
+
+- **Address**: This address (IPv4, IPv6 or hostname) will be used, when
+  biboumi connects to this server. This is a very handy way to have a
+  custom name for a network, and be able to edit the address to use
+  if one endpoint for that server is dead, but continue using the same
+  JID. For example, a user could configure the server
+  “freenode@biboumi.example.com”, set “chat.freenode.net” in its
+  “Address” field, and then they would be able to use “freenode” as
+  the network name forever: if “chat.freenode.net” breaks for some
+  reason, it can be changed to “irc.freenode.org” instead, and the user
+  would not need to change all their bookmarks and settings.
+- **Realname**: The customized “real name” as it will appear on the
+  user’s whois. This option is not available if biboumi is configured
+  with realname_customization to false.
+- **Username**: The “user” part in your `user@host`. This option is not
+  available if biboumi is configured with realname_customization to
+  false.
+- **In encoding**: The incoming encoding. Any received message that is not
+  proper UTF-8 will be converted will be converted from the configured
+  In encoding into UTF-8. If the conversion fails at some point, some
+  characters will be replaced by the placeholders.
+- **Out encoding**: Currently ignored.
+- **After-connection IRC commands**: Raw IRC commands that will be sent
+  one by one to the server immediately after the connection has been
+  successful. It can for example be used to identify yourself using
+  NickServ, with a command like this: `PRIVMSG NickServ :identify
+  PASSWORD`.
+- **Ports**: The list of TCP ports to use when connecting to this IRC server.
+  This list will be tried in sequence, until the connection succeeds for
+  one of them. The connection made on these ports will not use TLS, the
+  communication will be insecure. The default list contains 6697 and 6670.
+- **TLS ports**: A second list of ports to try when connecting to the IRC
+  server. The only difference is that TLS will be used if the connection
+  is established on one of these ports. All the ports in this list will
+  be tried before using the other plain-text ports list. To entirely
+  disable any non-TLS connection, just remove all the values from the
+  “normal” ports list. The default list contains 6697.
+- **Verify certificate**: If set to true (the default value), when connecting
+  on a TLS port, the connection will be aborted if the certificate is
+  not valid (for example if it’s not signed by a known authority, or if
+  the domain name doesn’t match, etc). Set it to false if you want to
+  connect on a server with a self-signed certificate.
+- **SHA-1 fingerprint of the TLS certificate to trust**: if you know the hash
+  of the certificate that the server is supposed to use, and you only want
+  to accept this one, set its SHA-1 hash in this field.
+- **Nickname**: A nickname that will be used instead of the nickname provided
+  in the initial presence sent to join a channel. This can be used if the
+  user always wants to have the same nickname on a given server, and not
+  have to bother with setting that nick in all the bookmarks on that
+  server. The nickname can still manually be changed with a standard nick
+  change presence.
+- **Server password**: A password that will be sent just after the connection,
+  in a PASS command. This is usually used in private servers, where you’re
+  only allowed to connect if you have the password. Note that, although
+  this is NOT a password that will be sent to NickServ (or some author
+  authentication service), some server (notably Freenode) use it as if it
+  was sent to NickServ to identify your nickname.
+- **Throttle limit**: specifies a number of messages that can be sent
+  without a limit, before the throttling takes place. When messages
+  are throttled, only one command per second is sent to the server.
+  The default is 10. You can lower this value if you are ever kicked
+  for excess flood. If the value is 0, all messages are throttled. To
+  disable this feature, set it to a negative number, or an empty string.
+
+get-irc-connection-info
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Returns some information about the IRC server, for the executing user. It
+lets the user know if they are connected to this server, from what port,
+with or without TLS, and it gives the list of joined IRC channel, with a
+detailed list of which resource is in which channel.
+
+On a channel JID
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+E.g on the JID #test%chat.freenode.org@biboumi.example.com
+
+configure
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+Lets each user configure some options that applies to the concerned IRC
+channel.  Some of these options, if not configured for a specific channel,
+defaults to the value configured at the IRC server level.  For example the
+encoding can be specified for both the channel and the server.  If an
+encoding is not specified for a channel, the encoding configured in the
+server applies. The provided configuration form contains these fields:
+
+- **In encoding**: see the option with the same name in the server configuration
+form.
+- **Out encoding**: Currently ignored.
+- **Persistent**: If set to true, biboumi will stay in this channel even when
+all the XMPP resources have left the room. I.e. it will not send a PART
+command, and will stay idle in the channel until the connection is
+forcibly closed. If a resource comes back in the room again, and if
+the archiving of messages is enabled for this room, the client will
+receive the messages that where sent in this channel. This option can be
+used to make biboumi act as an IRC bouncer.
+- **Record History**: whether or not history messages should be saved in
+the database, for this specific channel. If the value is “unset” (the
+default), then the value configured globally is used. This option is there,
+for example, to be able to enable history recording globally while disabling
+it for a few specific “private” channels.
+
+Raw IRC messages
+----------------
+
+Biboumi tries to support as many IRC features as possible, but doesn’t
+handle everything yet (or ever).  In order to let the user send any
+arbitrary IRC message, biboumi forwards any XMPP message received on an IRC
+Server JID (see `Addressing`_) as a raw command to that IRC server.
+
+For example, to WHOIS the user Foo on the server irc.example.com, a user can
+send the message “WHOIS Foo” to ``irc.example.com@biboumi.example.com``.
+
+The message will be forwarded as is, without any modification appart from
+adding ``\r\n`` at the end (to make it a valid IRC message).  You need to
+have a little bit of understanding of the IRC protocol to use this feature.