Frequently asked questions

  1. Where does Convos store logs, settings and uploaded files?
  2. Is Convos supported on my system?
  3. Can Convos run behind behind my favorite web server?
  4. Can I rename my connection names?
  5. Why does Convos stop when I close putty/xterm/some terminal?
  6. Why doesn't Convos start after I upgraded my system?
  7. Can Convos be extended and customized?
  8. Why can't Convos do X?

Where does Convos store logs, settings and uploaded files?

All files are located in the $CONVOS_HOME directory. The exact location will be written to the application log, or to screen when you start Convos. Look for a log message such as:

[2020-05-12 00:00:00.00000] [1234] [info] CONVOS_HOME="/home/superwoman/.local/share/convos" # https://convos.chat/doc/config#convos_home"

Here is a short overview of an example directory structure:

IMPORTANT! The "json" files located in $CONVOS_HOME should never be edited while Convos is running.

Is Convos supported on my system?

Convos runs on MacOS and all flavors of Linux, but you might have to install some dependencies:

# MacOS
brew install coreutils perl openssl

# Debian, Ubuntu
apt-get update
apt-get install gcc libio-socket-ssl-perl make openssl perl

# Redhat
yum update
yum install gcc make openssl-devel perl-core perl-io-socket-ssl

Can Convos run behind behind my favorite web server?

Yes. See Running Convos behind my favorite web server.

Can I rename my connection names?

Currently it is not possible to rename the connection names from the web interface, so you have to do it manually from the command line. You can do so by following these steps:

  1. Make sure Convos is stopped.
  2. Find the connection.json file you want to edit in your $CONVOS_HOME directory.

  3. Use your favorite editor and edit the file. Example:

    $EDITOR $CONVOS_HOME/[email protected]/irc-whatever/connection.json

  4. Look for all occurances of "irc-whatever" and "whatever" and replace the "whatever" part with the name you want.

  5. Rename the $CONVOS_HOME/[email protected]/irc-whatever directory to what you used as the new name above. Do not forget to keep the "irc-" prefix.

  6. Start Convos again and you should see your new connection names after reloading the web page.

Make sure you use lower-case for "name" and "connection_id".

Why does Convos stop when I close putty/xterm/some terminal?

Convos does not daemonize. It runs in foreground, so if you close a terminal application, such as putty, it will also kill any running instance of Convos.

To prevent this, you can run this command:

nohup script/convos daemon &

The & at the end will send Convos to the background. nohup is mostly optional, but is usually a good idea.

Why doesn't Convos start after I upgraded my system?

You might have gotten a new version of Perl which is not compatible with the modules you have already installed. To fix this issue, you can try to re-install Convos:

# Go to where you downloaded Convos
cd /path/to/convos/
# Purge all the installed packages
rm -rf local/{bin,lib,man}
# Reinstall packages
./script/cpanm -n -l $PWD/local Module::Install
./script/convos install

Please contact us if the above instructions do not work.

Can Convos be extended and customized?

Yes. Convos has a plugin system that allow you to extend and override most parts of Convos. Look at the configuration guide to see which configuration parameters that have to be set to load a plugin.

The plugin system is used by Convos core. Here are some of the plugins that ship with Convos:

There are more plugins that ship with Convos. Want to write you own? Look at the development guide for how to get started.

Why can't Convos do X?

In most cases it's either because we haven't thought about it or haven't had time to implement it yet. It might also be because we do not want to implement certain features. We do not want Convos to support every weird feature, since we want both the user experience and code base to be clean.

Please submit an issue, or come and talk with us in the #convos channel on libera.chat.