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+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.