HISTORY

 draft v0.1 : 21.8.1999

     Just a first draft of my botnet design I did on a boring friday
     work afternoon :) I'll try to implement this to irssi some day, it
     feels pretty interesting now so it might be pretty soon even. Any
     comments are welcome :)

 draft v0.2 : 21.11.1999

     Exactly three months since the first draft :) Now I actually have
     some code done, just committed pretty simple botnet to irssi CVS.
     Made several changes to this document.. Still missing much details
     but the basic idea should be clear.

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A small description of what botnet would do: A group of bots
efficiently working together to perform their tasks. Like when
someone's trying to take over your channel, bots will quickly decide
who deops/kicks whom instead of multiple bots deopping or trying to
kick the same people..

config file:

mybotnet =
{
  priority=n;
  nick=mybot;
  bots=
  (
    { host="another.org"; port=5567; password="blah";
      valid_addrs=("*.another.org"); },
    { host="blah.ircnetthing.net"; password="blah";
      valid_addrs=("*.ircnetthing.net", "*.blah.org"); },
    { host="some.thing.net"; password="blah";
      valid_addrs=("some.thing.net"); }
  );
}

When connecting to botnet, it first tries to connect to the first bot
in bots list, then the second, etc. Setting port to 0 will prevent
connecting to the bot.

Login:

First host checks what client is connecting from bots' valid_addrs. If
there's no matches it just disconnects the client.

CLIENT: PASS blah
HOST  : (if error, disconnect)
CLIENT: NICK nick
HOST  : (if nick already in use) NICKERROR
CLIENT: PRIORITY=n
HOST  : MASTER nick
HOST  : CONNECTED

Then host sends a list of all connected bots in botnet:
 BOTINFO nick connected-to-nick address priority

Now we're connected to botnet, rest of the commands will be send to
everyone. Commands are the following format (I won't write the nick
from now on):

nick COMMAND [command specific data..]

After connection is established with the client, host sends (except to
the connected client):
 BOTNEW client_nick client_address client_priority

Master is the client with the highest priority, if there's multiple
with the same priority, the one who's nick is the first in alphabet
"wins" and says:

 MASTER

Also after connecting, client could check if it's priority is bigger than
current master's and make itself the master.

Bots should every now and then check if their connections are active by
sending PING, the other side replies with PONG. If PONG isn't received
for a while (3 min?), the connection should be closed. If there's more
bots behind the lost bot, either side should try to reconnect to the
other one. Also if there's too much lag (>30sec) for some bots, their
priority could be temporarily lowered. When something urgent happens
and there's a lot of lag, each subset of bots should try to behave
independently.

When connection is closed to some bot, a notice is sent:
 BOTQUIT nick

After bot is (dis)connected to some irc network and is ready to take
commands, it sends notice:
 BOTCONNECT ircnet (where ircnet is network's name, like IRCNet, EFNet, ..)
 BOTDISCONNECT ircnet

After joining/leaving channels, bot sends notice:
 BOTJOIN ircnet #channel
 BOTPART ircnet #channel

After BOTJOIN, master tries to op the bot. When bot receives +o, it replies:
 BOTOP ircnet #channel

If it's the first opped bot in channel, master orders the bot to op the rest
of the bots.

Or after kicked or when being unable to join..:
 BOTKICK ircnet #channel
 BOTBANNED ircnet #channel
 BOTCANTJOIN ircnet #channel

When master notices that bot is kicked, it first checks if there's any other
opped bots in channel. If not, it waits for a random pause, 5-10sec before
joining (so it won't get autorejoin ban). When received BOTBANNED, master
tries to unban bot, BOTCANTJOIN results as invite to channel.

When master notices that bot is the first one joined to channel, it asks bot
for channel information:

 BOTCMD nick ircnet NAMES #channel
 BOTCMD nick ircnet WHO #channel 
 BOTCMD nick ircnet MODE #channel 
 BOTCMD nick ircnet MODE b #channel
 BOTCMD nick ircnet MODE e #channel
 BOTCMD nick ircnet MODE I #channel

Next command is sent right after getting answer from the last query. It's also
possible that if several bots join immediately after the first bot, the
commands are shared between all the bots. After getting the results, the bot
replies:

 BOTREPLY ircnet <reply>

Bots should cache the information as much as possible, at least NAMES command.

Every channel has a priority: LOW, NORMAL, HIGH.

Normally LOW operates just as NORMAL channels, except when some channel
has HIGH priority and bots are really busy, LOW channels just wait
until there's time for them.

In NORMAL channels, the most urgent operations (kicks, ops, deops) are
performed quite soon even while bots are busy handling HIGH priority
commands.

Channels shouldn't normally be HIGH priority, but if attack against
channel is detected (like someone comes from split, gets ops and gets
to op someone else), it's priority is set to HIGH. When channel's
priority is HIGH, botnet does everything it can to get rid of
unauthorized opped people as fast as possible.

LOW channel's priority can also be raised to HIGH, but it's priority is
dropped back to LOW if some NORMAL channel's priority is raised to HIGH
too.

Channel's priority can also be set manually:
 CHPRIORITY ircnet #channel <LOW/NORMAL/HIGH>

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Copyright (c) 1999 Timo Sirainen