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+# ponychat-ircd
+
+Ponychat-ircd is a high performance, lightweight and scalable IRC daemon. It has
+its roots in ShadowIRCd and Charybdis and offers channel operators more options
+as well as for server administrators to have better separation of power and
+allows for easier management. It the preferred IRC daemon for PonyChat.
+
+## Supported Platforms
+
+ * Linux
+   * Debian
+   * Centos/Amazon Linux
+   * Alpine Linux
+ * FreeBSD
+
+## Build Directions
+
+1. Ensure your system has the equivalents of `openssl-dev`, `flex`, `bison`,
+   and the compiler toolkit. 
+2. Download the [stable tarball](https://github.com/PonyChat/ponychat-ircd/archive/ponychat-ircd-6.3.4.tar.gz)
+   and extract it somewhere on your system.
+3. `./configure --prefix=$HOME/ircd`
+4. `make`
+5. `make install`
+6. Copy the example config `example.conf` to `ircd.conf` in `~/ircd/etc`
+7. Edit the configuration to match your needs
+8. Run `bin/ircd` and have people connect up as normal
+
+## Support
+
+Our support channel is `#rainbow-factory` on `irc.ponychat.net`. If you like you
+can join us on our webchat [by clicking here](http://webchat.ponychat.net/?autojoin=%23#rainbow-factory).
+
+Please note that running ponychat-ircd in weird or otherwise insane configurations
+may make us unable to help you.