.\" BitlBee 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 2 of the License, 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; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
.\" the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
.\"
.TH bitlbee 8 "07 March 2004"
.SH NAME
BitlBee \- IRC gateway to IM chat networks
.SH SYNOPSIS
.PP
.B bitlbee
[-I]
[-c \fIconfiguration file\fP]
[-d \fIconfiguration directory\fP]
.PP
.B bitlbee
-D
[-i \fIaddress\fP]
[-p \fIport number\fP]
[-n]
[-v]
[-c \fIconfiguration file\fP]
[-d \fIconfiguration directory\fP]
.PP
.B bitlbee
-h
.RI
.SH DESCRIPTION
BitlBee is an IRC daemon that can talk to instant messaging 
networks and acts as a gateway. Users can connect to the server
with any normal IRC client and see their 'buddy list' in
&bitlbee. BitlBee's protocol support is based on the gaim 
protocol plugins. BitlBee currently supports Oscar (aim and icq), 
MSN, Jabber and Yahoo.

\fBbitlbee\fP should be called by
.BR inetd (8).
(Or \fBbitlbeed\fP,
if you can't run and/or configure \fBinetd\fP.) There is an experimental
daemon mode too, in which BitlBee will serve all clients in one process
(and does not require inetd), but this mode is still experimental.
There are still some bugs left in BitlBee, and if they cause a crash,
that would terminate the BitlBee connection for all clients.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.PP
.IP "-I"
Run in 
.BR inetd (8)
mode. This is the default setting, you usually don't have to specify this
option.
.IP "-D"
Run in daemon mode. In this mode, BitlBee forks to the background and
waits for new connections. All clients will be served from one process.
This is still experimental. See the note above for more information.
.IP "-i \fIaddress\fP"
Only useful when running in daemon mode, to specify the network interface
(identified by IP address) to which the daemon should attach. Use this if
you don't want BitlBee to listen on every interface (which is the default
behaviour).
.IP "-p \fIport number\fP"
Only useful when running in daemon mode, to specify the port number on
which BitlBee should listen for connections. 6667 is the default value.
.IP "-n"
Only useful when running in daemon mode. This option prevents BitlBee from
forking into the background.
.IP "-v"
Be more verbose. This only works together with the \fB-n\fP flag.
.IP "-c \fIpath to other configuration file\fP"
Use a different configuration file.
.IP "-d \fIpath to user settings directory\fP"
BitlBee normally saves every user's settings in \fB/var/lib/bitlbee/\fP. If
you want the settings to be stored somewhere else (for example, if you don't
have write permissions in the default location), use this option.
.IP "-h"
Show help information.
.SH COMMANDS
To get a complete list of commands, please use the \fBhelp commands\fP
command in the &bitlbee channel.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR ircd (8), 
.BR inetd (8), 
.BR inetd.conf (5), 
.BR gaim (1).

.BR http://www.bitlbee.org/

For more information on using BitlBee, once connected, you should use
the on-line help system.
.SH BUGS
Of course there are bugs. If you find some, please report them at
\fBhttp://bugs.bitlbee.org/\fP.
.SH LICENSE
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 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
.PP
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
\fBWITHOUT ANY WARRANTY\fR; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU 
General Public License for more details.
.PP
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., 59 Temple PLace, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
.SH AUTHORS
.PP
 Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@gaast.net>
.BR
 Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer@vernstok.nl>
.BR
 Maurits Dijkstra <mauritsd@xs4all.nl>