EPIC
Enhanced
Programmable
IRC-II
Client

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$EPIC: flood_control.txt,v 1.1 2007/03/02 02:32:04 jnelson Exp $
======Flood Control======
The client has an anti-flood facility whose purpose is to prevent
crapflooding to your display.  Since flood control is a client-side 
facility, it can't stop someone from consuming all your cpu or bandwidth.

=====How people are tracked=====
The [[set flood_maskuser]] value controls what the client considers to 
be one //flooder//.

^ set flood_maskuser value ^ Description ^
| 0 | Treat each unique user@host as distinct flooder |
| 1 | Treat identd users uniquely, treat all non-identd users on a host together as one flooder |
| 2 | Treat all users on a host as one flooder |

=====Floods=====
Floods are specific to a target (channel or msgs), server, and [[level]].
If someone floods you on multiple channels or using multiple types of
messages, these are all considered different floods.  Servers are always
exempt from flood control.

=====The Flood List=====
The client maintains a list of potential floods.  The number of floods
to track is controlled by [[set flood_users]].  Setting this value too
high takes up lots of resources, setting it too low makes the facility 
less effective.

=====Getting on and Getting off the flood list====
When someone new sends you a message, they are added to the flood list, 
taking the place of the oldest entry on the flood list that doesn't have
any penalty points (see below).  Therefore, entries are constantly being
added and removed from the flood list, as long as they don't flood you.
If an entry would have been removed, but it has penalty points, then it 
loses one penalty point.  Eventually (if it doesn't flood you), all of 
the penalty points will run out and then it will be removed.

=====What is a flood?=====
If a potential flooder sends you [[set flood_after]] messages before they are
removed from the list, the messages-per-second rate is compared against 
[[set flood_rate]] / [[set flood_rate_per]].  If the flooder has sent too 
many messages, each time they send you a message they will receive a 
"penalty point", until the rate of messages falls below your threshhold.  
These penalty points prevent the flooder from being removed from the 
tracking list for a long time.  This allows the client to focus its efforts
on people who are causing you trouble.

=====When you are flooded...=====
When you are flooded, if [[set flood_warning]] is on, a message is sent to 
your display telling you that you have been flooded.  If [[set flood_ignore]]
is ON, then the normal processing of the message is suppressed by the client.
If [[set ignore]] is OFF, then the client continues to process the message
normally.

=====Checking out the flood list=====
The [[floodinfo]] function will tell you about the flood list.

=====History:=====
Flood control has always been a part of ircII.