Ergo IRC Server - Modern IRCv3 Chat Server

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## Ergo IRC Server - Ready-to-Run Modern Chat Infrastructure

Ergo is a modern IRC server (IRCd) written from scratch in Go that eliminates the complexity of traditional multi-package IRC stacks. Unlike setups requiring UnrealIRCd or InspIRCd plus a separate services package such as Anope or Atheme and an external database, Ergo bundles NickServ account registration, ChanServ channel registration, native TLS, persistent message history, and full IRCv3 capabilities into a single self-contained binary. This AMI delivers it fully installed and running under systemd, a working IRC server listening on standard ports within minutes of launch, with no manual compilation, no dependency troubleshooting, and no configuration required.

The current release available is Ergo 2.18.0.

## Why This AMI

• Zero-config deployment - launch on Amazon EC2 and the server is accepting connections immediately
• No external dependencies - no separate database server, no services daemon, no runtime environment to maintain
• Secure from first boot - every instance generates its own unique operator password and TLS certificate; nothing is shared across deployments
• Built-in account and channel services - no separate NickServ or ChanServ package to install, configure, or keep in sync
• 24/7 cloudimg support - professional help with deployment, configuration, TLS, SASL, and upgrades

## Secure First Boot

This image ships no default credentials. On first boot, the instance generates a unique operator password, stored in a file only the root user can read, and a unique self-signed TLS certificate for the encrypted listener. The account and channel database is created fresh on each instance. This eliminates the shared-default-password risk found in many pre-built server images.

## Built-in Services and IRCv3

Ergo includes built-in NickServ and ChanServ services, always-on clients for bouncer-like presence, server-side message history with CHATHISTORY playback, native TLS with SNI, IRCv3 capabilities including SASL, message tags, labeled responses and multiline messages, WebSocket support for browser-based clients such as The Lounge and Kiwi IRC, an operator system with fine-grained privilege classes, and full internationalisation. Per-IP connection limits and account-registration throttling are set to safe defaults.

## Client Compatibility

The server works with all standard IRC clients, including HexChat, WeeChat, Textual, irssi and the web-based The Lounge. For production deployments you can replace the self-signed certificate with a certificate issued by a trusted certificate authority, for example one provisioned with AWS Certificate Manager, as described in the included deploy guide.

## Use Cases

• DevOps team communication - route CI/CD notifications into persistent channels for your engineering team, with full message history for asynchronous review
• Community or project chat - self-host a private real-time chat network in your own AWS account with built-in account registration, replacing hosted services while retaining data sovereignty
• Bot and tooling infrastructure - run a message-history-capable IRCv3 network for automated alerting, on-call incident coordination, and always-on monitoring bots that reconnect seamlessly

## Getting Started

1. Launch this AMI on an Amazon EC2 instance

2. Open ports 6667 (plaintext) and 6697 (TLS) in your security group

3. SSH into the instance and retrieve the generated operator password from the root-only credentials file

4. Connect any IRC client to the instance on port 6667 or 6697 and authenticate as operator

The included guide covers requiring SASL authentication, disabling public plaintext access, and replacing the self-signed certificate with a CA-issued one.

## cloudimg Support

24/7 technical support by email and chat. Our engineers help with deployment, TLS certificate configuration, SASL and account setup, operator privileges, and upgrade planning. Contact our team through the support channels listed on this listing.

cloudimg is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Ergo project. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.