/************************************************************************
 *   IRC - Internet Relay Chat, doc/NETWORKING
 *   Copyright (C) 1994, Helen Rose  <hrose@kei.com>
 *
 *   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 *   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 *   the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
 *   any later version.
 *
 *   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 *   GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 *   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 *   along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 *   Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
 */

							Author: Helen Rose
								hrose@kei.com
							Date: 3 March, 1994

*** Please read this before doing any connecting or writing to ask for
connections. The information contained in this section is crucial to the
way IRC is run.

Note that any old documentation referring to ANet vs EFnet is out of date
and no longer applies. ANet died so long ago that nobody can remember
*when* it died.


To qualify for a link on the irc network, several criteria must be
met. These criteria include (but are not limited to):

* A well established local irc userbase. A total of 100-150 local irc
  users. An average of 15-20 irc users over a 24 hour period is also
  acceptable. Note, these user counts are *unique, local* users. So
  one person running fifteen clients doesn't count, and one local
  person plus fifteen offsite people doesn't count. These are not 
  arbitrary numbers, it takes at least this many users to equate the
  traffic of adding another server to the irc network. 

* A userbase that uses irc *all the time* (15 users on at once but
  just for a 3 hour period per day is not sufficient).

* A good, fast, internet link. Absolutely *NO* SLIP lines. 56k lines
  are marginal, they usually cause more trouble than they are worth,
  so we recommend a T1 or better.

It is well established that having a local irc server does not attract
local irc users. Often, your best bet is to set up a local client that is
accessible by everyone at your site, connect it to a nearby offsite
server, and then see if the usage level goes up. (See appendix for list of
open-client servers). 

To see how many users you have, on irc do /m x@monitor.us show site.name
where site.name is your two-part domain name (eg "kei.com" or "bu.edu" or
"mit.edu"). monitor will tell you how many users you have. Once this
number gets over 125 or so, put the level it has reached in your note to
operlist-request@kei.com. 

If you are in the United States and need a link, please mail to
"operlist-request@kei.com" supplying the information listed below.

(1) Find out if your system has /etc/ping (sometimes /usr/etc/ping) and
    ping the following hosts:

    server/machine name		IP address	Geographical Location
    csa.bu.edu			129.197.10.3	Boston, MA
    irc-2.mit.edu		18.180.0.2	Cambridge, MA
    polaris.ctr.columbia.edu	128.59.68.10	New York, NY
    poe.acc.virginia.edu	128.143.83.132	Charlottesville, VA
    irc.iastate.edu		129.186.150.1	Ames, IA
    dewey.cc.utexas.edu		128.83.135.3	Austin, TX
    irc.netsys.com		198.175.9.8	Palo Alto, CA
    w6yx.stanford.edu		36.55.0.50	Stanford, CA
    goren.u.washington.edu	140.142.63.1	Seattle, WA

These are results of the typical /etc/ping command:

(note that the machine I am running this from runs SunOS so I have to use
ping -s ):

3:59pm hrose@csa : ~ % ping -s polaris.ctr.columbia.edu
PING polaris.ctr.columbia.edu: 56 data bytes
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=0. time=137. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=1. time=163. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=2. time=110. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=3. time=111. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=4. time=78. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=5. time=82. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=7. time=83. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=8. time=91. ms
64 bytes from polaris.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.68.10): icmp_seq=9. time=159. ms
[...]
^^            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^            ^^       ^^^^^^^
Size of packet   hostname             IP address      packet number  trip time


----polaris.ctr.columbia.edu PING Statistics----
25 packets transmitted, 25 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms)  min/avg/max = 78/136/327


When you send pings to operlist-request, please only send the results
(the above three lines)--we *don't* need each packet's time.


Guidelines:

Avg Time	Connection is
========	=============
0-20ms		Optimal
20-40ms		Excellent
40-70ms		Very Good
70-90ms		Average
90-110ms	Acceptable
110ms-150ms	Below Average
150ms-200ms	Bad
200ms-300ms	You're on a very slow link and it is unlikely you will be
		able to support a server successfully.


** *** WHERE TO FIND HELP!!! ***
** 
** If you have any other questions about connecting to an irc server, please
** mail to operlist-request@kei.com.  If you have problems mailing there,
** try mailing hrose@kei.com.
** 
** *** WHERE TO FIND HELP!!! ***

Appendix
========

Open client servers.

USA:
                csa.bu.edu
                irc.colorado.edu
                irc.uiuc.edu

Canada:
                ug.cs.dal.ca

Europe:
                irc.funet.fi
                cismhp.univ-lyon1.fr
                disuns2.epfl.ch
                irc.nada.kth.se
                sokrates.informatik.uni-kl.de
                bim.itc.univie.ac.at

Australia:
                jello.qabc.uq.oz.au

