NAME¶
ircII - interface to the Internet Relay Chat system
SYNOPSIS¶
irc [
-c chan] [
-p portno] [
-P
portno] [
-b] [
-f] [
-F] [
-s] [
-S]
[
-t] [
-T] [
-d]
[nickname
[server
list
]] [
-a] [
-v] [
-q] [
-h hostname ]
[
-icb] [
-irc]
DESCRIPTION¶
The
ircII program is a full screen, termcap based interface to Internet
Relay Chat. It gives full access to all of the normal
IRC functions,
plus a variety of additional options.
OPTIONS¶
- -c chan
- Automatically join channel chan.
- -p portno
- Set the IRC port number to portno (default: 6667, the standard
IRC port). Only supply this if you connect to a server which uses a
port other than 6667.
- -P portno
- Set the ICB port number to portno (default: 7326, the standard ICB
port).
- -b
- Load the .ircrc file before connection to a server, not afterwards.
- -f
- Use flow control (^S and ^Q) to stop/start the display. Normally these are
both bound to other functions within irc. This switch is ignored if
the -d switch is used.
- -F
- Don't use flow control (^S and ^Q) to stop start the display. This switch
is ignored if the -d switch is used.
- -s
- Don't start up the ircio process to connect to the IRC server
(default).
- -S
- Start up the ircio process to connect to the IRC server.
- -t
- Don't use the termcap ti and te sequences when starting and
exiting (default).
- -T
- Do use the termcap ti and te sequences when starting and
exiting if they exist.
- -d
- Start in "dumb" mode. All input is taken directly from stdin and
all output goes to stdout without using any of the termcap(5)
screen control codes.
- nickname
- Set the nickname (overrides the environment variable IRCNICK;
default: the username).
- server
- Set the list of servers with which irc will try to connect upon
startup. This list is also used by the program's /server command.
The format for lines in the list is:
- hostname [:portno[:password[:nick]]] for IRC connections. For ICB
connections, the format is:
- ICB/hostname [:portno[::nick[:group[:mode]]]] with group being the
initial group and mode being the initial group mode. See /HELP ICB for
more information about ICB.
- If the hostname is in the format :servergroup:host.com then
servergroup is taken to be the Server Group for this server
entry.
- -a
- This adds the normal irc server list to the command line list of
irc servers.
- -v
- Print the version and release date of ircII and exit.
- -q
- Start up irc quickly -- don't load the IRCRC file.
- -h hostname
- This option instructs ircII to use the given hostname as the
local address. Useful only on multi-homed hosts.
- -icb
- Use ICB connections by default.
- -irc
- Use IRC connections by default.
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.
EXAMPLES¶
- irc -c #users -p 5555
- Connect IRC to port number 5555 of the default host and enter on
channel #users.
- irc Mermaid
- Use the nickname "Mermaid".
- irc Mermaid server1:5000 server2::passwd server3
- Use the nickname "Mermaid" and the modified server list.
- irc piglet3 :ln:irc1.lamenet.org :ln:irc1.lamenet.org
- Use the nickname "piglet3", initially connecting to
irc.au.lamenet.org, with also irc.us.lamenet.org added to the server list,
both having a server group name "ln".
- irc oink ICB/www.icb.net
- Use the nick "oink" making an ICB connection to
www.icb.net.
- irc -d
- Use dumb mode.
- irc -f
- Allow use of ^S/^Q to stop/start screen display.
- irc -e elisa
- Interface IRC with a program called elisa.
setenv IRCNICK Mermaid
setenv IRCNAME "The one and only :)"
- irc
- Set the username (if not specified elsewhere) to "Mermaid". The
user's name (when provided inside parentheses in response to a WHOIS
command) is set to "The one and only :)".
FILES¶
- /usr/bin/ircII
- the executable program
- ~/.ircrc
- default initialization file
- ~/.irc/
- directory you can put your own ircII scripts into, that can then be
loaded with /load
- /etc/irc/
- directory containing message-of-the-day, master initialization, help files
and ircII scripts /etc/irc/script/local is the master
initialization file for the site, loaded before .ircrc is. This is a
Debian GNU/Linux conffile.
- /usr/share/ircII/
- shared repository for help, translation tables and distributed
scripts.
THE HELP FILES¶
All of the
ircII commands are fully described in the help files package.
The best way to start here is with the
/HELP ? command as this
prints a listing of all available help files.
SIGNALS¶
ircII handles the following signals
- SIGUSR1
- Closes all DCC connections and EXEC'ed processes.
- SIGUSR2
- Drops ircII back to the command line.
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)
- IRCSERVERSFILE
- The file containing the default list of server(s), usually
PREFIX/lib/irc/ircII.servers. This file should contain one server entry
per line.
- HOME
- Overrides the default home path in /etc/passwd.
- TERM
- The type of terminal in use.
FILES¶
ircII uses the following files under the library directory, usually
PREFIX/share/irc.
- ircII.servers
- The initial list of servers if none are provided on the command line.
- ircII.motd
- Message of the day. This file is displayed only once each time it is
changed.
SEE ALSO¶
ircd(8)
BUGS¶
Please notify the current developer of the software of any bugs in current
versions.
AUTHORS¶
Program written by Michael Sandrof (ms5n+@andrew.cmu.edu). Now being maintained
by Matthew Green (mrg@eterna.com.au). Debian specific extensions by the Debian
Maintainer Bernd Eckenfels (ecki@debian.org). Names of contributors and
contact address can be retrieved with the
/info command. This manual
page written by Darren Reed (avalon@coombs.anu.EDU.AU), revised by R. P. C.
Rodgers (rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu), by the lynX, and by Matthew Green
(mrg@eterna.com.au).