THE BOOK of Alexander Charalabidis It No Starch Press San Francisco THE BOOK OF IRC. Copyright ©2000 By Alexander Charalabidis ir All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 123456789 10—02 01 00 Trademarks Trademarked names are used throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are using the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Publisher: William Pollock Project Editor: Karol Jurado Technical Reviewer: M.D. Yesowitch Cover and Interior Design: Derek Yee Design Copyeditor: Gail Nelson Composition: Derek Yee Design Proofreader: John Carroll Indexer: Nancy Humphreys Distributed to the book trade in the United States and Canada by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, California 94710, phone: 800-788-3123, fax: 510-528-3444. For information on translations or book distributors outside the United States, please contact No Starch Press directly: No Starch Press 555 De Haro Street, Suite 250, San Francisco, CA 94107-2365 phone: 415-863-9900; fax: 415-863-9950; [email protected]; www.nostarch.com The information in this book is distributed on an "As Is" basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor No Starch Press shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the informa- tion contained in it. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Pubtication Data Charalabidis, Alexander. The book of IRC / Alexander Charalabidis. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 1-886411-29-8 1. Internet Relay Chat. I. Title. TK5105.886.C48 1999 005.7'l376-dc21 99-10403 BRIEF CONTENTS Chapter 0 Chapter 7 Instructions for Internet Dummies Channels 1 99 Chapter 1 Chapter 8 IRC? What's That? Communication 11 125 Chapter 2 Chapter 9 Your IRC Survival Kit Finding People on IRC 19 147 Chapter 3 Chapter 10 Windows IRC Clients Creating and Managing a Channel 33 157 Chapter 4 Chapter 11 Unix Clients Enhancing a Client with Scripts 41 187 Chapter 5 Chapter 12 IRCing on the Macintosh IRC Operators 55 201 Chapter 6 Chapter 13 Connecting to a Server CTCP 73 207 J Chapter 14 Appendix A DCC Network and Server Lists 217 307 Chapter 15 Appendix B Server and Network Commands Terminology 227 313 Chapter 16 Appendix C Odds and Ends Countries on IRC and Domain 239 Decoder 321 Chapter 17 Abuse and Security Issues Appendix D 253 Useful Addresses 327 Chapter 18 Installing, Running, and Appendix E Operating an IRC Server Server Numerics 265 331 Chapter 19 Appendix F IRC Robots Sample Server Configurations 289 339 Chapter 20 The Soapbox and More 295 CONTENTS IN DETAIL INSTRUCTIONS FOR INTERNET DUMMIES 0.1 Help! Where's the On Button? 2 0.2 Equipment 2 0.3 Computing and the Internet for Beginners 5 0.4 Internet Service Providers 6 0.4.1 Connecting to the Internet via a PPP Dial-Up 7 0.4.2 Connecting to the Internet via Dial-In 7 0.5 Starting Out on the Internet and Using Basic Services 8 0.5. / Using the World Wide Web 8 0.5.2 Using FTP 9 0.5.3 Using Telnet 9 1 IRC? WHAT'S THAT? 1.1 So... What's It All About? 12 1.2 Origin and History of IRC 13 1.3 Technical Concept 15 1.4 What IRC Has to Offer 16 1.5 IRC for Company Use 17 2 YOUR IRC SURVIVAL KIT 2.1 Saints and Sinners 19 2.2 Safety First 20 2.2.1 Trojan Horses 20 2.2.2 Nukes 22 2.2.3 Insert Card to Continue 22 2.3 The Virtual Tourist's Guide to IRC Networks 23 2.3. / Formation of IRC Networks 23 2.3.2 Bright Lights, Big City 25 2.3.3 Small-Town World 25 2.3.4 Foreign Exchange 26 \ 2.3.5 All Things Special 26 2.4 Somebody Asked Me to Meet Him ... Where? 27 2.5 IRC Clients and Servers 27 2.5. / Differences among Clients 28 2.5.2 Differences among Servers 29 2.5.3 Client Commands versus Server Commands . 29 2.6 Software Licensing 30 2.7 Basic Commands 31 WINDOWS IRC CLIENTS 3.1 mIRC 33 3.1.1 Setup and Use 34 3.2 Pirch 36 3.2.1 - Setup and Use . 37 3.3 Visual IRC 37 3.3. J Setup and Use 38 3.4 Other Windows Clients 39 4 UNIX CLIENTS 4.1 Getting a Client 42 4.2 ircll 43 4.3 sire 44 4.4 BitchX 44 4.5 Installation of ircll and Related Clients 45 4.5.1 tar, gzip, and Feather 45 4.5.2 Configuring ircll 48 4.5.3 Compile 50 4.5.4 Binaries 50 4.5.5 Setting the Environment 51 4.5.6 The .ircrc File 53 5 IRCING ON THE MACINTOSH 5.1 Mac Users Do IRC with Style 55 5.1.1 General Downloading Instructions 56 5.1.2 ' Choosing the Right Client 57 5.2 Ircle 58 5.2.1 Setup and Use 60 5.3 ShadowlRC 61 5.3.7 Setup and Use 63 5.4 Snak 64 5.4.1 Setup and Use 66 5.5 MaclRC 66 5.5. / Setup and Use 67 5.6 ChatNet 68 5.6.1 Setup and Use 70 5.7 Summary 71 6 CONNECTING TO A SERVER 6.1 Selecting a Network and Server, and Connecting 74 6.1.1 Internet Addressing 75 6.1.2 /re// 76 6.1.3 Graphical Clients and mIRC 76 6.2 Things That Can Go Wrong 78 6.2.1 K-lined, or You Are Not Welcome ... 78 6.2.2 Ping Timeout 79 6.2.3 No More Connections/Server Full 80 6.2.4 Connection Refused 80 6.2.5 Unable to Resolve Server Name 81 6.2.6 Illegal Nickname 82 6.2.7 Nickname or Channel Temporarily Unavailable 82 6.2.8 Ending Up on a Different Server 82 6.2.9 No Authorization 83 6.2.10 Ident Required/Install Identd/Bad Username 83 6.3 Welcome to the Internet Relay 85 6.3.1 The Message of the Day 86 6.3.2 Your Identity on IRC ,.. 87 6.3.3 Nickname Registration and Ownership 88 6.3.4 The Realname Field 88 6.4 User Modes (Umodes) 89 6.4.1 Umode i 89 6.4.2 Umode w 90 6.4.3 Umode s 90 6.4.4 Umode o 90 6.4.5 Umode d 90 6.4.6 Umode r 90 6.4.7 Other Umodes 91 6.5 Changing Servers: The SERVER Command 91 6.6 Disconnecting from a Server 92 6.6.1 Nickname Collisions 93 6.6.2 Operator Kill 94 6.6.3 Server Downtime 94 6.6.4 Ping Timeout 95 6.6.5 Connection Reset by Peer 95 6.6.6 Excess Flood 95 6.6.7 Kill Line Active 96 6.6.8 Other Types of Connection 96 CHANNELS 7.1 Obtaining a List of Available Channels 101 7.7.7 Disconnecting When Using LIST 103 7.1.2 Strange Channel Names 104 7.1.3 Argh! The List Keeps Scrolling Off and I Miss Most of It 104 7.1.4 I Give Up—Nothing Is Working 105 7.2 Selecting a Channel from the List and Finding the Right Channel 105 7.3 joining a Channel 106 7.3.1 No Such Channel 108 7.3.2 How Did I End Up on Channel #? 108 7.3.3 Banned from Channel 108 7.3.4 Bad Channel Key 109 7.3.5 Channel Is Full 110 7.3.6 Kick or Ban after Joining 110 7.3.7 I Joined a Channel on the List and It's Empty! 110 7.3.8 Nickname or Channel is Currently Unavailable 111 7.3.9 Invite-Only 111 7.4 Who Is on the Channel? 112 7.5 Channel Operators 113 7.5.1 Channel Bots 114 7.6 Moderated Channels and Woice 116 7.7 Channel Events 116 7.7.7 Mode Changes 117 7.7.2 Joins, Parts, and Quits 117 7.7.3 Nick Changes 118 7.7.4 Kicks 118 7.8 Leaving a Channel 118 7.9 Joining Multiple Channels 119 7.9.1 Switching between Multiple Channels 119 7.10 Channel 0 120 7.10.1 The Channel #2,000 Trick 120 7.11 Netsplits and Lag 121 7.11.1 Netsplits 121 7.11.2 Server-Server Lag 123 7.11.3 Client-Server Lag 124 8 COMMUNICATION 8.1 Types of Messages You May Receive 126 8.1.1 Public Messages on a Channel 126 8.1.2 Private Messages 126 8.1.3 Notices 127 8.1.4 CTCP Requests 127 8.1.5 DCC Requests 128 8.1.6 Wallops 128 8.1.7 Operator Notices 129 8.1.8 Local Machine Messages and Talk Requests 130 8.1.9 Actions , 131 8.1.10 Server Notices 131 8.1.11 I Joined a Channel and Nothing's Happening/ 131 8.2 Etiquette 132 8.3 Ignoring Messages 133 8.3.1 Ignoring with ircll 133 8.3.2 Ignoring with mIRC 134 8.3.3 The SILENCE Command 135 8.4 Sending to a Channel 135 8.4.1 Sending to a Channel While Not on It 136 8.4.2 Communicating with Multiple Channels 136 8.5 Sending Private Messages 137 8.5.