What was before irc

The server will answer this message with several numeric messages indicating different statuses of each user which matches the nickmask if you are entitled to see them. A comma ',' separated list of nicknames may be given. The latter version sends the query to a specific server. It is useful if you want to know how long the user in question has been idle as only local server ie. This may either be due to a nickname change or the user leaving IRC.

In response to this query, the server searches through its nickname history, looking for any nicks which are lexically the same no wild card matching here. The history is searched backward, returning the most recent entry first. KILL is used by servers when they encounter a duplicate entry in the list of valid nicknames and is used to remove both entries.

It is also available to operators. Clients which have automatic reconnect algorithms effectively make this command useless since the disconnection is only brief. It does however break the flow of data and can be used to stop large amounts of being abused, any user may elect to receive KILL messages generated for others to keep an 'eye' on would be trouble spots. In an arena where nicknames are required to be globally unique at all times, KILL messages are sent whenever 'duplicates' are detected that is an attempt to register two users with the same nickname in the hope that both of them will disappear and only 1 reappear.

The comment given must reflect the actual reason for the KILL. For server-generated KILLs it usually is made up of details concerning the origins of the two conflicting nicknames. For users it is left up to them to provide an adequate reason to satisfy others who see it. In an ideal world not even operators would need to do this and it would be left to servers to deal with. A PING message is sent at regular intervals if no other activity detected coming from a connection.

If a connection fails to respond to a PING command within a set amount of time, that connection is closed. It may also be sent from one server to another but must not be accepted from any normal unknown clients. An ERROR message is sent to the server at the other end which sends it to all of its connected operators and to all operators currently connected. It is not to be passed onto any other servers by a server if it is received from a server.

Numerics: None. They are not required in a working server implementation of the protocol described herein. In the absence of the option, an error reply message must be generated or an unknown command error. If the message is destined for another server to answer then it must be passed on elementary parsing required The allocated numerics for this are listed with the messages below.

The only replying server is the one to which the sending client is connected to. Back in 5 ; set away message to "Gone to lunch. Back in 5". This message is optional since it may be viewed as a risk to allow arbitrary people to connect to a server as an operator and execute this command, causing at least a disruption to service. This message is only sent if the target server a has SUMMON enabled, b the user is logged in and c the server process can write to the user's tty or similar.

Some people may disable this command on their server for security related reasons. If disabled, the correct numeric must be returned to indicate this. The returned list has each reply separated by a space. ISON only takes one 1 parameter: a space-separated list of nicks.

For each nickname in the list that is present, the server adds that to its reply string. Thus the reply string may return empty none of the given nicks are present , an exact copy of the parameter string all of them present or as any other subset of the set of nicks given in the parameter.

The only limit on the number of nicks that may be checked is that the combined length must not be too large as to cause the server to chop it off so it fits in characters. ISON is only be processed by the server local to the client sending the command and thus not passed onto other servers for further processing. Each numeric is given with its number, name and reply string. See section x.

Must be returned by any server which does not implement it. Not used. Given that there are enough parameters present, the answering server must either formulate a reply out of the above numerics if the query nick is found or return an error reply. If there are no channels available to return, only the start and end reply must be sent. The "comments" field may contain any comments about the version or further version details. The string showing the time need only contain the correct day and time there.

There is no further requirement for the time string. There is no predefined order for which occurs first. The other replies are only sent back if a non-zero count is found for them. These numerics are not described above since they fall into one of the following categories: 1.

Client and server authentication Clients and servers are both subject to the same level of authentication. For both, an IP number to hostname lookup and reverse check on this is performed for all connections made to the server.

Both connections are then subject to a password check if there is a password set for that connection. These checks are possible on all connections although the password check is only commonly used with servers. An additional check that is becoming of more and more common is that of the username responsible for making the connection. Finding the username of the other end of the connection typically involves connecting to an authentication server such as IDENT as described in RFC Given that without passwords it is not easy to reliably determine who is on the other end of a network connection, use of passwords is strongly recommended on inter-server connections in addition to any other measures such as using an ident server.

Current implementations The only current implementation of this protocol is the IRC server, version 2. Unfortunately, due to backward compatibility requirements, the implementation of some parts of this document varies with what is laid out. The use of multicast IP is an alternative, but it is not widely available or supported at the present time.

When providing any information about the connections on a Unix domain socket, the server is required to supplant the actual hostname in place of the pathname unless the actual socket name is being asked for. A buffer size of bytes is used so as to hold 1 full message, although, this will usually hold several commands. The private buffer is parsed after every read operation for valid messages. When dealing with multiple messages from one client in the buffer, care should be taken in case one happens to cause the client to be 'removed'.

To alleviate this problem, a "send queue" is used as a FIFO queue for data to be sent. A typical "send queue" may grow to Kbytes on a large IRC network with a slow network connection when a new server connects. When polling its connections, a server will first read and parse all incoming data, queuing any data to be sent out. When all available input is processed, the queued data is sent.

This reduces the number of write system calls and helps TCP make bigger packets. If a connection doesn't respond in time, its connection is closed using the appropriate procedures. A connection is also dropped if its sendq grows beyond the maximum allowed, because it is better to close a slow connection than have a server process block.

The server is also required to give an unambiguous message to the client which states its name and version as well as any other introductory messages which may be deemed appropriate. The process of establishing of a server-to-server connection is fraught with danger since there are many possible areas where problems can occur - the least of which are race conditions.

By passing the state information about servers first, any collisions with servers that already exist occur before nickname collisions due to a second server introducing a particular nickname.

Due to the IRC network only being able to exist as an acyclic graph, it may be possible that the network has already reconnected in another location, the place where the collision occurs indicating where the net needs to split.

No other message is to be generated or used. This is required to allow the server to have a chance of keeping in touch of things when nick-change race conditions occur with commands which manipulate them. In the above cases, the server is required to first check for the existence of the nickname, then check its history to see who that nick currently belongs to if anyone! This reduces the chances of race conditions but they can still occur with the server ending up affecting the wrong client.

When performing a change trace for an above command it is recommended that a time range be given and entries which are too old ignored. For a reasonable history, a server should be able to keep previous nickname for every client it knows about if they all decided to change.

This size is limited by other factors such as memory, etc. Rather than require every 'victim' to be provide their own protection, flood protection was written into the server and is applied to all clients except services. For normal server connections, this was not difficult, but there are other support operations that may cause the server to block such as disk reads. Where possible, such activity should be performed with a short timeout. To avoid this, a separate set of DNS routines were written which were setup for non-blocking IO operations and then polled from within the main server IO loop.

Again the solution was to write a set of routines which would cooperate with the rest of the server and work using non-blocking IO. In specifying hostnames, both domain names and use of the 'dot' notation The above list is the minimum requirement for any server which wishes to make a connection with another server.

Both 'deny' and 'allow' should be implemented to provide the required flexibility for host access control. Thus, the acquisition of such powers should not be very easy. The current setup requires two 'passwords' to be used although one of them is usually easy guessed. Storage of oper passwords in configuration files is preferable to hard coding them in and should be stored in a crypted format ie using crypt 3 from Unix to prevent easy theft.

Thus, each server should have a list of servers to which it may connect and which servers may connect to it. Under no circumstances should a server allow an arbitrary host to connect as a server. In addition to which servers may and may not connect, the configuration file should also store the password and other characteristics of that link.

There is no limit imposed on non-local users so that the server remains reasonably consistant with all others on a channel membership basis 9. By clicking sign up, you agree to receive emails from Techopedia and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. David Delony is a Bay Area expatriate living in Ashland, Oregon, where he combines his love of words and technology in his career as a freelance writer.

IRC is a wonderful way to get free support, especially for open-source software, but it's often overlooked in favor of newer social media platforms. In many cases, you can get help directly from the developers themselves. But despite the bad rap, it still has a lot to offer. The one thing IRC has going for it is its longevity. The protocol is defined as RFC That means anyone can read the specification and write a client or server program.

This is a major departure from a platform like Facebook, where outside people are generally not allowed to make their own versions because it's owned by Facebook. Another advantage becomes apparent when you wander into IRC channels for open-source projects many of which are hosted on Freenode.

You can ask questions of the developers themselves, a major step up from tech support operators who've never even touched the code and are forced to follow a script. To get onto IRC, the first thing you need is a client. You can even get a client for the Amiga! IRC functionality is also built into several major instant messaging clients, like Trillian, Pidgin and Adium. After you pick a client, the next step is to pick a network, a server and a channel.

This IRC network specializes in peer-directed projects. Canonical runs its official Ubuntu channels there. The Wikimedia Foundation also hosts channels for its various projects, including Wikipedia in all of its languages, there. But, clients are made by humans, and humans are not perfect. Only Tao is. And the best part?

While some private channels are invite-only, most of the infrastructure can be accessed without limitations. All you get are lines and lines of plain text with a handful of special characters here and there. But many modern clients like mIRC or HexChat come with powerful customization features that let users:. IRC is free of advertising, data mining or security breaches. After riding a favorable wave up until , IRC entered a path of steady decline.

According to netsplit. In , its community shrunk below k. In , the only remaining high-profile network is Freenode with around 90k people still hooked up. I have screenshots of other people desktops, old photographs. An archive of this old community. On the technical end, the IRC protocol is old and outdated. Even with the ongoing development of IRCv3 standard improved security, notifications, chat logs , the technology is miles behind modern solutions.

The power of IRC lies elsewhere. It provides a simple and frictionless channel of communication where people can talk, exchange ideas and brainstorm wonderful projects. And after over 30 years, it still manages to deliver on that front.