EPIC5(1) | General Commands Manual | EPIC5(1) |
NAME¶
epic5
—
Internet Relay Chat client for UNIX like
systems
SYNOPSIS¶
epic5 |
[ -a ]
[-b ]
[-B ]
[-c chan ]
[-d ]
[-f ]
[-F ]
[-h ]
[-H hostname ]
[-l filename ]
[-L filename ]
[-n nickname ]
[-o ]
[-O ]
[-p port ]
[-q ]
[-s ]
[-S ]
[-v ]
[-x ]
[-z username ]
[nickname ]
[server description
list ] |
DESCRIPTION¶
TheEPIC5
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
modern irc2 server networks as of early 2006. Support for non-irc2 networks
(such as OPN or MS Comic Chat) is hit-and-miss.
OPTIONS¶
-a
- Append the server description list to the default server list. The default behavior is for the server description list to replace the default server list.
-b
- Operate in so called “bot mode.” This implies the
[-d] option.
EPIC5
will fork(2) immediately and the parent process will exit, returning you to your shell. Some system administrators do not look kindly to their users running bots, and they have disabled this option. Even if your administrator has not disabled it, you should not assume this gives you automatic permission to run a bot. If you do run a bot without permission, your administrator may get very angry with you, and possibly revoke your account. In addition, most IRC operators on public irc networks have very little tolerance for people who run bots. So just a word of caution, make sure that your system administrator and your irc administrator have given you permission before you run a bot. -c
chan- Join the specified channel the first time you successfully connect to a server.
-d
- Operate in “dumb mode.” The client will not put up a full
screen display, and will read from standard input and write to standard
output. This is useful if the output normally looks awful (because you are
using an incorrect
TERM
setting, or your terminal description is spectacularly broken), or you just don't want to use the pretty interface. This option will be turned on automatically if your currentTERM
setting is not capable of a full screen display. -h
- Display a moderately concise help message and exit immediately.
-H
hostname- Use the IP address of the specified hostname as your default local IP
address. This can be used if you have multiple IP addresses on the same
machine and you want to use an address other than the default address. You
might need to use this option when
gethostname(3) does not return a hostname (in
some poorly configured NIS environments). The use of multiple IP addresses
on a single machine is commonly referred to as "virtual
hosting", and each IP address is a "virtual host". Please
understand that an irc client may not tell the irc server what your
hostname should be: the server alone determines that. Servers typically
use the canonical hostname for an IP address as your hostname. Because of
this, this option will not permit you to use a CNAME (secondary hostname
for an IP address), because the server will use the canonical hostname
instead. This option overrides the
IRCHOST
environment variable. -l
filename,[filename]- Use the specified filename(s) as the startup file. The startup file is
loaded the first time you successfully connect to a server, unless you
specify the [-B] option. This overrides the
EPICRC
environment variable. If this option is not specified, and theEPICRC
environment variable is not set, then ~/.epicrc is the default startup file. -n
nickname- Use the specified nickname as the default nickname whenever you connect to
an irc server. This option overrides the
IRCNICK
environment variable. This option can be overridden if you specify nickname argument in the command line (see below). -p
port- Use the specified port as the default port for new server connections. The default port is usually 6667. Make sure that the servers you want to connect to are listening on this port before you try to connect there.
-q
- Suppress the loading of any file when you first establish a connection to an irc server.
-s
- Do not connect to a server after reading the startup script. Instead, present the server list and advise the user to connect to a server manually.
-S
- The
EPIC5
program is being run as a shell script. You must make this look like #/path/to/epic -S other args. -v
- Output version identification (VID) information and exit.
-x
- This undocumented feature turns on all of the XDEBUG flags. Refer to the help files for XDEBUG if you want to know what happens if you use this.
-z
username- Use the specified username when negotiating a connection to a new irc
server. This overrides the
IRCUSER
environment variable. If this option is not specified, then the user name specified in /etc/passwd for your user is used. This feature was formerly undocumented, but because of identd(8) this option isn't as useful as it once was. If you are a sysadmin, please install identd, and then this flag will provide no value to your users. - nickname
- The first bare word found is taken as the default nickname to use. This
overrides all other options, including the -n option and the
IRCNICK
environment variable. If all else fails, then the client uses your login name as the default nickname. - server,[server]
- After the nickname, a list of one or more server specifications can be
listed. Unless you specify the -a option, this will replace your default
server list! The -a option forces any servers listed here to be appended
to the default server list. The format for server specifications is:
Any item can be omitted by leaving the field blank, and any trailing colons can also be omitted.
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 ircd(8) server. The lower part of the screen (a single line) accepts keyboard input. Some terminals do not support certain features required byepic5
, in which case you receive a message
stating this. If this occurs, try changing the terminal type or run
epic5
with the -d option.
Irc Commands:¶
Any line beginning with the slash character “/” is regarded as anepic5
command (the command character may be
changed). Any line not beginning with this character is treated as a message
to be sent to the current channel. The client has a built in help system.
Install the help files (they should be available at the same place you got the
client) and then type “/help” to open up the help system.
The .epicrc File:¶
Whenepic5
is executed, it checks the user's
home directory for a ~/.epicrc 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 ofepic5
in this
man page will be sorely inadequate because most of the confusion doesn't even
start until after you get the client to connect to a server. But if you really
have problems getting the client to connect to a server, try some of these:
epic5
- Try this first. This will assume all the defaults. If the person who is maintaining epic at your site has done a halfway decent job, this will put you on a server that is somewhat local to you.
epic5 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.
epic5 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 you're connecting to supports an alternate port.
epic5 nickname irc.efnet.net
- If you're totally stumped and trying to get on efnet, try this.
epic5 nickname irc.undernet.org
- If you're totally stumped and trying to get on undernet, try this.
epic5 nickname irc.dal.net
- If you're totally stumped and trying to get on dalnet, try this.
FILES¶
/usr/local/bin/epic5
- the default location of the binary
~/.epicrc
- default initialization file
~/.epic/
- directory you can put your own
epic5
scripts into, that can then be loaded with /load /usr/local/share/epic5
- default directory containing message-of-the-day, master initialization,
help files and
epic5
scripts
THE HELP FILES¶
Starting up the client is the easy part. Once you get connected, you'll probably find you have no idea what you're doing. That's where the help files come in. If the person who maintains irc at your site didn't 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 you'll flunk all your classes, and be left to sing the blues.USEFUL WEB RESOURCES¶
<http://www.epicsol.org/> The EPIC home page <http://help.epicsol.org/> The Online EPIC Help Pages <http://www.irchelp.org/> Lots of great help for new irc users.SIGNALS¶
epic5
handles the following signals
gracefully
- SIGUSR1
- Closes all DCC connections and EXEC'd processes.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
It can be helpful to predefine certain variables in in the ~/.cshrc , ~/.profile , or ~/.login file:IRCNICK
- The user's default IRC nickname
IRCNAME
- The user's default IRC realname (otherwise retrieved from /etc/passwd )
IRCSERVER
- The user's default IRC server list (see server option for details)
HOME
- Overrides the default home page in /etc/password
TERM
- The type of terminal emulation to use
SEE ALSO¶
ircd(8)BUGS¶
Any non-trivial piece of software has bugs.EPIC5
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 docbook form rather than in the current help format. The entire help system is a hack. This manual page only describes the options to epic, but doesn't tell you what to do once you get connected.AUTHORS¶
IRC II
was created by Michael Sandrof
(ms5n+@andrew.cmu.edu). The current copyright holder of
IRC II
is Matthew Green
(mrg@mame.mu.oz.au). EPIC5
is maintained by
EPIC Software Labs (list@epicsol.org).
MANPAGE AUTHORS¶
At one time or another, this man page has been edited by Darren Reed, R.P.C. Rodgers, the lynX, Matthew Green, and EPIC Software Labs.July 31, 2006 |