Install your network,
in seven questions

What the installer sets up, and where from

Every version is pinned: the installer fetches one specific archive, not the latest one. A versioned URL replays identically six months later, whereas a “latest” link will one day install something else without a single line having changed. These numbers are read from the script — this page does not copy them.

Overtchat-Hybrid is not in this table: it is the project’s own server, and the one the installer sets up by default, from this site. It downloads the already compiled server (Linux x86_64, glibc 2.34 or newer, OpenSSL 3) and checks its checksum; the site serves only that binary. On a machine that doesn’t fit, the install sets up UnrealIRCd instead and says so — or refuses, if Overtchat-Hybrid was explicitly requested. In a copy of the repository, it compiles the sources present. OverCore, the network services, comes with the site archive: it only needs your distribution’s Node.js package.

What the script checks before writing anything

• The distribution and its package manager (apt, dnf, yum, pacman, zypper, apk), to translate generic names (ssl-dev) into the distribution’s real names.
• That the machine can run Overtchat: Linux with systemd, an x86_64 processor, bash 4 or newer, at least 512 MB free (2 GB advised). Otherwise it refuses, says why, and writes nothing.
• Administrator rights, requested at startup — see below.
• The seven base tools: jq, curl, git, openssl, tar, sha256sum and awk. Missing ones are installed.

Administrator rights

Run from your account, with no option, the script explains that it needs administrator rights to set up packages and services, then asks Continuer avec sudo ? [O/n] (“continue with sudo?”). You type the password of your account, not root’s; it checks that sudo accepts it, then restarts itself entirely with those rights. It never asks again afterwards.

If sudo does not exist on the machine, or refuses your account, it stops without writing anything and shows the exact commands to type once, as root: install sudo if missing, usermod -aG sudo your-account, then log out and back in. Another way, as root: name the account that will own the install, OVERTCHAT_COMPTE=your-account bash overtchat-setup.sh.

Then comes a summary — network, address, e-mail, welcome channel, database, start with the machine, install folder — and one last question: Lancer l’installation ? (“start the install?”). Count 10 to 30 minutes depending on the machine and the connection. Until you say yes, nothing is installed.

What happens next, in six steps

At the end

Votre réseau « … » est installé. (“your network is installed”). Then comes an eighth question: create your site administration account right away (owner level), through the Tools/panel-account.php tool — a login, then a password typed hidden, never shown. If refused, or if it fails, the command to do it later is given. Then the script gives the site’s address from this machine (http://127.0.0.1:8080) if its unit is running, and the path of the full log. If something could not be done — a database that doesn’t answer, a service that didn’t start —, the install ends with reservations: each is listed with the action that fixes it. If it is interrupted, what came before stays in place: run the script again, the simple install resumes.

Every action on an element is followed by its state re-read from systemd: the script never says “done” on the sole word of an exit code. When an action fails, it gives the command to read the log.

Expert mode

Nothing is removed there, only tidied away: everything a seasoned operator may want, out of the beginner’s path.

In these panels, an unavailable entry stays on screen in gray, with its reason between angle brackets — for instance missing packages, installable from “System dependencies”. Entry 6 checks the checksums of the state files in Config/; entry 7 sets them again, a step to take only on an install known to be sound. Entry 8 downloads the official site again and replaces the site files, after a [y/N]: the database, Web/inc/config.php and the accounts are kept; name, domain, e-mails, channel and options are asked again.

The directory tree

The project is gathered in your home directory, under the name chosen on the first run (here ~/MonReseau, the proposed name). Outside the home go only the systemd units, the sudoers, polkit and log-rotation rules, the installer’s log (/var/log), and — if you set them up from expert mode — the Apache site and the Postfix relay.

~/MonReseau/
  Bootstrap/    # overtchat-setup.sh, the single entry point
  Config/       # JSON files — network identity and state
  Robots/       # OverCore, the network services
  Runtime/      # state, logs, runtime files
  Servers/      # the IRC server
  Web/          # the web panel and the public site
~/IriX/cmds/IriX.json   # database access, readable by you alone

The website and the web panel

The site runs through the overtchat-web.service unit, started at the end of the install: http://127.0.0.1:8080 from the machine. The admin panel is at /admin.php; you enter it with the account created at question 8 — or, later, through entry 6 of the menu (“site accounts”), or php ~/MonReseau/Tools/panel-account.php create.

Controlling the services

Once OverCore is in place, the five service pseudo-clients answer by private message on IRC. Their full catalogue is detailed on the dedicated page.

All the services’ commands →

Updating, without the menu

The same actions exist as commands, usable from a scheduled task: version, check (writes nothing), update, status, history, rollback. Every file is backed up before being replaced, and its checksum verified.

check and version return 0 when everything is up to date, 1 when an update is waiting, 2 on error. Only rollback asks a question (the backup to restore, then a confirmation): never from a scheduled task.