Yet Another Useless IRC Bot

Introduction

This bot is designed to be simple for developers.

Dependencies

There's only two dependencies, irclib and argparse:

• On debian, aptitude install python-irclib python-arparse
• Or pip install python-irclib python-argparse.

Simple Quick Start

Here is a simple quick start using my simple hooks, so you don't have to write code.

Fetch it:

$ git clone git://github.com/JulienPalard/yauib.git && cd yauib

Launch it:

$ ./ircbot.py connect 'irc.server.example.com' '#your_channel' 'your_bot_login'
Now your bot should appear on your channel.

Remove the hook that say that you haven't read the README file:

$ rm -f hooks-enabled/pubmsg

Select one basic hook:

Now it's the time to hook some events, let's bind the 'command' hook to
public messages :
$ ( cd hooks-enabled && ln -s ../hooks-available/command pubmsg )

The 'command' hook tries to call executables in the directory
'commands-enabled' for everything said on the channel, with the first word
as executable name, and other as arguments, so the next step is to choose
some commands.

Select some basic commands

Let's test them all ... you'll choose later :X
$ ( cd commands-enabled && for command in ../commands-available/*; do ln -s "$command"; done )
/!\ Some commands will need writable directories like 'logs', 'db' or 'conf'

Now try your bot writing 'say hello' on the channel :

 The bot will run 'hooks-enabled/pubmsg' that points to
 'hooks-available/command'. hooks-available/commands receiving 'say
 hello' will call `commands-enabled/say hello`. say is, basically a
 shell script with 'echo $*' So it will echo hello, that will be
 wrote back by the bot on the channel.

I wanna write commands, how it works ?

If you don't want to write complicated hooks, just use my simple one, and write commands.

You first have to bind the command hook to pubmsg and privmsg hooks:

$ ( cd hooks-enabled && ln -s ../hooks-available/command pubmsg )
$ ( cd hooks-enabled && ln -s ../hooks-available/command privmsg )

Now, for each received message, my 'command' hook will try to find an executable in the 'advanced-commands-enabled' directory, then in the commands-enabled directory, finally trying to run commands-enabled/run.

So you can write commands in any language you want, just make them read their arguments, and make them write to stdout. A command also can put debugging information on stderr, the information will be logged by the bot, you can run the bot with the -vvv option to get your debug back to the screen.

As commands are only executables, you don't have to restart the bot to make it see them, just add the file, and bim, it works.

Advanced commands

Advanced commands have to live in ./advanced-commands-available/ directory, create a symbolink link in the ./advanced-commands-enabled/ to make them callable for the 'command' hook, permitting you to enable/disable a command in a few seconds.

Commands in the advanced-commands-enabled permits you to return raw messages directly to the IRC server, permitting you to send messages, kicks, bans, join, whatever you want, you have to understand the IRC protocol to use them.

Basic commands

Basic commands have to live in ./commands-available/ directory, create a symbolink link in the ./commands-enabled/ to make them callable for the 'command' hook, permitting you to enable/disable a command in a few seconds.

A basic command can only reply with text, so don't worry about IRC protocol, don't worry about multiline responses, don't worry about response length limit, just write something to stdout it will be sent back to the one who called the command.

A basic command writing a calendar on the channel should be named cal, and only contain:

#!/bin/sh
cal

I wanna write hooks, how it works ?

YAUIB is a very basic bot that, for each event received from IRC will call a hook in the directory ./hooks-enabled/, so write your own hooks, in every language you want.

Hooks protocol

Hooks reply can have two forms:

• Form 1: Prefix your response by 'RAW ' and every following lines will be sent to the server.

• Form 2: Prefix your response by 'MSG ', put a target (typically argv[3] if you wanna reply), and your response. Responses from MSG can follow on multiples lines, each line will be sent to the server, delayed from 1 second, to avoid being kiked too early for flood, your response will also be splitted in multiples lines if it's too long, so just don't worry when using this form.

On which hooks can I hook my scripts ?

Typical usefull commands are:

• all_raw_messages: Get all messages from IRC server, do whatever you want. Specific parameters: Only the full message, in one parameter
• pubmsg: Hook on public messages Specific parameters: Only the sentence, in one parameter
• privmsg: Hook on private messages Specific parameters: Only the sentence, in one parameter

There are tons of other hooks ( > 100 ) from irclib and I didn't know them all so watch your logs to catch those you want. (And document their parameters here ?)

Which parameters are sent to hooks ?

Parameter 1, 2, 3 and 4 are: source login, source host, target login, and target host followed by command-specific parameters.

There is a directory to store every hooks, that is hooks-available so you should enable only some needed, creating symlinks in the directory hooks-enabled.

There is a usefull default hook I wrote for you, it's named 'command'. It executes commands that it find in the directory commands-enabled so you have to create some symlinks from the directory commands-available where I stored the commands I wrote.

NOTE: You don't have to restart the bot when you change / add a hook.

So a very basic 'parrot' hook should be:

#!/bin/sh
shift 4 # Drop sender login and host, target login and host
printf "%s\n" "$*"

Is there another way to make the bot speak ?

Yes, the bot is listening on a local port, by default 6668. Everything received on this port is wrote back to the channel. So a simple:

$ echo foo | netcat localhost 6668

will do the trick, but you should also try:

# ./ircbot.py say foo

That does the same!

With this feature you can push messages from cron, webpages or everything else.

Conclusion

Enjoy creating new hooks / commands, using your favorite language!

logo by @Abdur-rahmaanj