IRCII(1)

NAME
ircII -- Internet Relay Chat client for UNIX like systems
         IRC stands for: I R epeat C lass

SYNOPSIS
irc [-a] [-b] [-c chan] [-d] [-f] [-F] [-h] [-H hostname] [-l filename] [-L filename] [-n nickname] [-p port] [-q] [-v] [-x] [-z username] [nickname [server list]]

DESCRIPTION
The ircII/EPIC program is a unix-based character oriented user agent ('client') to Internet Relay Chat. It is a fully functional ircII client with many useful extensions. This version works with the four modern irc server classes: ef2.8, ef2.9, u2.9, u2.10.

OPTIONS

-a  If you specify this option, any servers that you may specify on the command line will be ADDED to your default server list. The default is for servers specified on the command line to replace the default server list.

-b  Forces the client to fork(2) and immediately return to your shell, running the client in the so called "robot" or "bot" mode. Some system administrators do not like people to run bots on their machines, and they hvae have disabled this option. Some may have not disabled this option, but they may get very mad at you if you run bots. Most IRC operators on public irc networks have very little tolerance for people who run bots. So just a word of wisdom, make sure your system administrator and your irc administrator say its ok before you run a bot.

-c chan
    Instructs the client to automatically join the specified channel after you have succesfully established your first connection to a server.

-d  Run the client in "dumb mode". In "dumb mode", the client does not put up a pretty display. Instead, it simply reads your input from standard input, and outputs to standard output. This is most useful if the client's output looks awful (because you either have specified an incorrect TERM setting, or your termcap entry is bogus.), or you just dont want to use the pretty interface. The client will run in "dumb mode" automatically if it detects that your current terminal isn't up to snuff.

-f  If this option is specified, then the client will turn on "flow control" for your terminal. This means if you press ^S, the operating system will "stop" your terminal and you will not be able to type or see new output. This is useful if you want to stop the display in order to see something before it scrolls off. You would usually press ^Q to "restart" your terminal again.

-F  If this option is specified, then the client will turn off "flow control" for your terminal. This means that ^S and ^Q would be available to be bound to something else.

-h  Display a moderately concise help message and exit immediately.

-H hostname
    Instructs the client to use a hostname other than the default that is usually returned by gethostbyname(2) as your default. This is useful when you have multiple ip addresses for a machine ("virtual hosts"), and you want to use an ip address that is not the default for the machine (perhaps because it has a hostname that is cooler.) This flag overrides the IRCHOST environment variable.

-l filename,
    -L filename, Instructs the client to load an alternate file as the default startup script. Usually, the default startup script is ~/.ircrc and you can override that with the IRCRC environment variable, and you can override THAT with this command line flag. The use of the uppercase L flag is depreciated, and I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldnt use it, so I can take it out some day.

-n nickname
    Use a nickname as the default nickname when you connect to an irc server. Usually, the client uses your login name as the default nickname, and you can override that with the IRCNICK environment variable. You can override THAT with this flag, and you can override THIS flag by specifying a nickname as the first bare word after all of the flags (see below.) Ugh. This is too complicated.

-p port
    Instructs the client to use a port other than the default port 6667 when connecting to an irc server. Make sure the server to which you are connecting is using a port other than 6667 before you use this option.

-q  Tells the client not to bother loading any file when you initially establish a connection to an irc server. This overrides any other option that might specify a file to load on startup.

-v  The client will just output the current version information and exit

-x  This is an undocumented feature that turns on all of the XDEBUG flags. See the help files for XDEBUG for more info why you might want to do that.

-z  This was a formerly undocumented feature that allowed you to specify a username to specify when registering with an irc server. With the rise in popularity and use of identd(8) this flag is much less useful than it once was. Requests to have this feature removed will probably be ignored. If you dont want your users to spoof their usernames, install identd. If you wont install identd, then hack the source. If you wont hack the source, then you probably want to delegate that job to someone else. After you have specified all of the arguments above, you can specify zero or more additional arguments:

nickname
    The first such argument is the default nickname to use. This overrides the -n flag and the IRCNICK environment variable. When all else fails, the client uses your login name as the default nickname.

server,[server]
    Specify a list of one or more server specifications that should be used as your default server list. Unless you specify the -a option, this will override the default server list! The -a option forces these servers to be appended to the default server list.

    The format for server specifications is: hostname [:port[:password[:nick]]]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

  The Screen:
The screen is split into two parts, separated by an inverse-video status line (if supported). The upper (larger) part of the screen displays responses from the IRC server. The lower part of the screen (a single line) accepts keyboard input.

Some terminals do not support certain features required by ircII, in which case you receive a message stating this. If this occurs, try changing the terminal type or run ircII with the -d option.

  Irc Commands:
Any line beginning with the slash character '/' is regarded as an ircII command (the command character may be changed; type '/help set cmdchar'). Any line not beginning with this character is treated as a message to be sent to the current channel. To produce a listing of commands, type '/help ?'. To receive information about the commands type '/help <command> '.

  The .ircrc File:
When ircII is executed, it checks the user's home directory for a .ircrc file, executing the commands in the file. Commands in this file do not need to have a leading slash character '/' This allows predefinition of aliases and other features.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
Certainly any description of ircII in this man page would be sorely inadequate because most of the confusion doesnt even start until AFTER youve gotten the client to connect to a server. But if you really have problems even getting the client to go, try some of these:

irc Try this first. This will assume all the defaults. If the person who is maintaining ircII at your site has done a halfway decent job, this will put you on a server that is somewhat local to you.

irc nickname irc.domain.com
    or something similar will attempt to connect to the irc server running on the host "irc.domain.com" (fill in a real irc server here) with the nickname of well, "nickname". This is the most common way to specify an alternate server to use.

irc nickname irc.domain.com:6664
    Sometimes, some servers are really busy, and it can take them a long time to establish a connection with you on the default port (6667). Most major servers on big public networks accept connections on many different ports, with the most common being most or all of the ports between 6660 and 6675. You can usually connect much faster if you use a port other than 6667, if the server youre connecting to supports an alternate port.

irc nickname irc.efnet.net
    If youre totaly stumped and trying to get on efnet, try this.

irc nickname irc.undernet.org
    If youre totaly stumped and trying to get on undernet, try this.

irc nickname irc.dal.net
    If youre totaly stumped and trying to get on dalnet, try this.

FILES

/usr/local/bin/irc
    the default place for the executable program

~/.ircrc
    default initialization file

~/.irc/
    directory you can put your own ircII scripts into, that can then be loaded with /load

/usr/local/lib/irc/
    default directory containing message-of-the-day, master initialization, help files and ircII scripts

THE HELP FILES
Starting up the client is the easy part. Once you get connected, youll probably find you have no idea what youre doing. Thats where the help files come in. If the person who maintains irc at your site didnt install the help files, pester them until they do. Once the help files are available, use the /HELP command to get started. There are a bazillion commands and a multitude of nuances that will take a few months to get down pat. But once you do, you will be so firmly addicted to irc that your wife will divorce you, your kids will leave you, your dog will run away, and youll flunk all your classes, and youll be left to sing the blues.

SIGNALS
ircII handles the following signals

SIGUSR1
    Closes all DCC connections and EXEC'ed processes.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
It can be helpful to predefine certain variables in in the .cshrc, .profile, or .login file:

IRCNICK
    The user's IRC nickname.

IRCNAME
    The user's IRC realname (otherwise retreived from /etc/passwd)

IRCSERVER
    The default IRC server(s) (see server option for details)

HOME
    Overrides the default home path in /etc/passwd.

TERM
    The type of terminal in use.

SEE ALSO
ircd(8)

BUGS
Any non-trivial piece of software has bugs. ircII is no exception. You can refer to the "KNOWNBUGS" file that is distributed with the client source code for a list of problems that are known to exist and may or may not be fixed some day. If you find a bug that is not listed there, you can refer to the "BUG_FORM" file that is also distributed with the source code. It will give you instructions on how to fill out the report and where to send it.

ERRATA
The online documentation probably should be in texinfo form rather than in the current help format. The entire help system is a hack. This manual page only describes the options to ircII, but doesnt tell you what to do once you get connected.

AUTHORS
Program written by Michael Sandrof (ms5n+@andrew.cmu.edu). The copyright holder is Matthew Green (mrg@mame.mu.oz.au). This software is maintained by Jeremy Nelson (jnelson@acronet.net) on behalf of the EPIC project (ircii-epic@concentric.net). At one time or another, this man page has been edited by Darren Reed, R.P.C. Rodgers, the lynX, Matthew Green, and Jeremy Nelson.