Please see the file COPYING for the GNU Public License, under which
this software is released.

0) check required dependencies: Berkeley DB (db4-devel or gdbm-devel),
	possibly PAM and pam-devel.

1) check slfprefs.h for path names you may wish to change,
	along with system messages and other options,
	such as shadow password support, the AUTO_ACCEPT_GUESTS option,
	and accepting/rejecting high-bit characters.

2) If you need shadow password support, but not PAM, go to Makefile-shared and
	uncomment the line CFLAGS += -DUSE_SHADOW, and make sure to
	run slforum as root.  Note that if you choose PAM in step 3
	below, you don't need to do this step to get shadow password support.

3) Symlink to the proper Makefile
	(Makefile-linux, Makefile-solaris-2-6, Makefile-linux-nopam, 
	 Makefile-linux-redhat, Makefile-osx, or Makefile-solaris-2-6-pam):

	ln -s makefile-for-your-system Makefile
	Running SLForum under Redhat, or any other system using MD5
	passwords, requires PAM support.

4) If your proper Makefile wants ndbm, but your system has gdbm or db, change the
	"-lndbm" line in your Makefile to use gdbm or db.  (Don't worry about this
	step unless you get errors during make)

5) make
	If you use a recent Red Hat Linux and get these errors:
	   /usr/include/ctype.h:169: undefined reference to `__ctype_tolower'
	   slforumuser.cc:2568: undefined reference to `__ctype_b'
	check that your glibc and glibc-devel are the same version:
	   $ rpm -q glibc glibc-devel
	   glibc-2.3.2-11.9
	   glibc-devel-2.2.4-19.3

6) you now have the slforum executable; move it to where you want
	to run it and set permissions appropriately.  Do the same with
	the virtdb utility for manipulating virtual users.

7) if you're using PAM, you may need to run forum as root.
	To troubleshoot, run with -nofork, try to log into forum, and look at
	the error messages that -nofork puts on its terminal.

8) If you're running forum as root, you should make the directory
	/var/lib/slforum which will hold user prefs, or whatever directory
	you've defined in slfprefs.h for PREFSFILE and PREFSFILE_fallback.
	Give it mode 700 (drwx------) so folks can't snoop on each other's
	preferences, whisper ban lists, etc.
	If you want some users to be able to use the !lock command,
	create /var/lib/slforum/lockout-users, in which go usernames of those
	allowed to !lock, each on its own line.

9) start a test run with
	slforum -nofork
   (from another window)
	telnet localhost 7777

   It should allow you to log in and type commands.

   In particular, please try
	!roll 15
   If this produces "please enter a positive number", you have a buggy gcc
   or egcs version.  Go back to slfprefs.h, uncomment the line for
   #define EGCS_ATOI_BUG_WORKAROUND
   and re-make.

   Otherwise, when this bores you, go to the window from which you started the
   test run and hit ctrl-C.

   Normally, you'll start the program with
	slforum 7777
   or
	slforum 7777 /path/to/logfile
   if you want to append to a logfile all public chat.  PRIVATE WHISPERING
   IS NOT RECORDED; we feel this is important to privacy.

   You should of course also pick a port your users can remember.
   7777 is the default port.

   Run slforum -h to see all command line options.

10) Clean out the temporary files from the directory you compiled SLForum in
    with the command
	make clean

11) Place the command to start the Forum in your rc.local, and never
    have to worry about it again!

12) If your users like to paste in ascii art, you may want to make a
    /tmp/.banners directory (chmod 1777 or similar) from which slforum
    will randomly choose a short file when the !banner or !spam command
    is used.  The -bd command line option can place this dir anywhere.


CAVEATS:
*  If run as root, slforum will write login and logout entries to your
   /var/log/wtmp file; this enables use of the "last" command to see who's
   logged into the Forum, similar to ftp or telnet:

quaestor% last -5
demaria  pts/10       nullpointer      Mon Nov  8 02:10   still logged in
dracofav ftp          win5.fcms.academ Mon Nov  8 02:05 - 02:05  (00:00)
dracofav pts/7        win5.fcms.academ Mon Nov  8 01:16   still logged in
demaria  slforum/916  nullpointer      Mon Nov  8 00:39   still logged in
dracofav ftp          syru47-247.syr.e Mon Nov  8 00:35 - 00:36  (00:00)


*  Root can't log into the Forum.  This prevents attempts to guess the root
   password by running a password-guesser on the port running slforum.


That should be it!  Enjoy.

Cheers,
-Jeremy Monin, Dan Chin, Matt Lochansky
 forum@shadowlands.org
 http://shadowlands.org/forum/