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Protocol for real-time Internet chat and messaging
For other uses, see
IRC (disambiguation)
Internet Relay Chat
Communication protocol
Abbreviation
IRC
Purpose
Instant messaging
Developer(s)
Jarkko Oikarinen
Introduction
August 1988
; 37 years ago
1988-08
Influenced
IRCv3
(standards process working group)
OSI layer
Application layer
Port(s)
6667, 6697
RFC(s)
1459
Internet protocol suite
Application layer
BGP
DHCP
v6
DNS
FTP
HTTP
HTTP/3
HTTPS
IMAP
IPP
IRC
LDAP
MGCP
MQTT
NNTP
NTP
OSPF
POP
PTP
ONC/RPC
RTP
RTSP
RIP
SIP
SMTP
SNMP
SSH
Telnet
TLS/SSL
XMPP
more...
Transport layer
TCP
UDP
DCCP
SCTP
RSVP
QUIC
more...
Internet layer
IP
v4
v6
ICMP
v6
NDP
ECN
L4S
IGMP
IPsec
more...
Link layer
ARP
Tunnels
PPP
MAC
more...
The first IRC server, tolsun.oulu.fi, a
Sun-3
server on display near the
University of Oulu
computer centre
IRC
Internet Relay Chat
) is a text-based chat system for
instant messaging
. IRC is designed for
group communication
in discussion forums, called
channels
but also allows one-on-one communication via
private messages
as well as
chat and data transfer
including
file sharing
Internet Relay Chat is implemented as an
application layer
protocol to facilitate communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a
client–server networking model
. Users connect, using a client—which may be a
web app
, a
standalone desktop program
, or embedded into part of a larger program—to an IRC server, which may be part of a larger IRC network. Examples of ways used to connect include the programs
Mibbit
KiwiIRC
, and
mIRC
IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users by 2012.
In April 2026, the top 100 IRC networks served more than 162,000 users at a time.
History
edit
See also:
IRCd § History
IRC was created by
Jarkko Oikarinen
in August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a
BBS
called OuluBox at the
University of Oulu
in
Finland
, where he was working at the Department of Computer Science. Jarkko intended to extend the BBS software he administered, to allow news in the
Usenet
style, real time discussions and similar BBS features. The first part he implemented was the chat part, which he did with borrowed parts written by his friends Jyrki Kuoppala and Jukka Pihl. The first IRC network was running on a single server named tolsun.oulu.fi.
Oikarinen found inspiration in a chat system known as
Bitnet Relay
, which operated on the
BITNET
Jyrki Kuoppala pushed Oikarinen to ask Oulu University to free the IRC code so that it also could be run outside of Oulu, and after they finally got it released, Jyrki Kuoppala immediately installed another server. This was the first "IRC network". Oikarinen got some friends at the
Helsinki University of Technology
and
Tampere University of Technology
to start running IRC servers when his number of users increased and other universities soon followed. At this time Oikarinen realized that the rest of the BBS features probably would not fit in his program.
Oikarinen contacted people at the
University of Denver
and
Oregon State University
. They had their own IRC network running and wanted to connect to the Finnish network. They had obtained the program from one of Oikarinen's friends, Vijay Subramaniam—the first non-Finnish person to use IRC. IRC then grew larger and got used on the entire Finnish national network—
FUNET
—and then connected to
Nordunet
, the Scandinavian branch of the Internet. In November 1988, IRC had spread across the Internet and in the middle of 1989, there were some 40 servers worldwide.
EFnet
edit
In August 1990, the first major disagreement took place in the IRC world. The "A-net" (Anarchy net) included a server named eris.berkeley.edu. It was all open, required no passwords and had no limit on the number of connects. As Greg "wumpus" Lindahl explains:
"it had a wildcard server line, so people were hooking up servers and
nick-colliding
everyone". The "Eris Free Network",
EFnet
, made the eris machine the first to be Q-lined (Q for quarantine) from IRC. In wumpus' words again:
"Eris refused to remove that line, so I formed EFnet. It wasn't much of a fight; I got all the hubs to join, and almost everyone else got carried along." A-net was formed with the eris servers, while EFnet was formed with the non-eris servers. History showed most servers and users went with EFnet. Once A-net disbanded, the name EFnet became meaningless, and once again it was the one and only IRC network.
Around that time IRC was used to report on the
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
throughout a
media blackout
10
It was previously used in a similar fashion during the
Gulf War
11
Chat logs
of these and other events are kept in the
ibiblio
archive.
12
Undernet fork
edit
Another
fork
effort, the first that made a lasting difference, was initiated by "Wildthang" in the United States in October 1992. (It forked off the EFnet ircd version 2.8.10). It was meant to be just a test network to develop bots on but it quickly grew to a network "for friends and their friends". In Europe and Canada a separate new network was being worked on and in December the French servers connected to the Canadian ones, and by the end of the month, the French and Canadian network was connected to the US one, forming the network that later came to be called "The
Undernet
".
The "undernetters" wanted to take ircd further in an attempt to make it use less bandwidth and to try to sort out the channel chaos (
netsplits
and
takeovers
) that EFnet started to suffer from. For the latter purpose, the Undernet implemented timestamps, new routing and offered the CService—a program that allowed users to register channels and then attempted to protect them from troublemakers. The first server list presented, from 15 February 1993, includes servers from the U.S., Canada, France, Croatia and Japan. On 15 August, the new user count record was set to 57 users.
In May 1993, RFC 1459
13
was published and details a simple protocol for client/server operation, channels, one-to-one and one-to-many conversations.
A significant number of extensions like CTCP, colors and formats are not included in the protocol specifications, nor is character encoding,
14
which led various implementations of servers and clients to diverge. Software implementation varied significantly from one network to the other, each network implementing their own policies and standards in their own code bases.
DALnet fork
edit
During the summer of 1994, the Undernet was itself forked. The new network was called
DALnet
(named after its founder: dalvenjah), formed for better user service and more user and channel protections. One of the more significant changes in DALnet was use of longer nicknames (the original ircd limit being 9 letters). DALnet ircd modifications were made by Alexei "Lefler" Kosut. DALnet was thus based on the Undernet ircd server, although the DALnet pioneers were EFnet abandoners. According to James Ng, the initial DALnet people were "ops in #StarTrek sick from the constant splits/lags/takeovers/etc".
DALnet quickly offered global WallOps (IRCop messages that can be seen by users who are +w (/mode NickName +w)), longer nicknames, Q:Lined nicknames (nicknames that cannot be used i.e. ChanServ, IRCop, NickServ, etc.), global K:Lines (ban of one person or an entire domain from a server or the entire network), IRCop only communications: GlobOps, +H mode showing that an IRCop is a "helpop" etc. Much of DALnet's new functions were written in early 1995 by Brian "Morpher" Smith and allow users to own nicknames, control channels, send memos, and more.
IRCnet fork
edit
In July 1996, after months of
flame wars
and discussions on the mailing list, there was yet another split due to disagreement in how the development of the ircd should evolve. Most notably, the "European" (most of those servers were in Europe) side that later named itself
IRCnet
argued for nick and channel delays whereas the EFnet side argued for timestamps.
There were also disagreements about policies: the European side had started to establish a set of rules directing what IRCops could and could not do, a point of view opposed by the US side.
15
Most (not all) of the IRCnet servers were in Europe, while most of the EFnet servers were in the US. This event is also known as "The Great Split" in many IRC societies. EFnet has since (as of August 1998) grown and passed the number of users it had then. In the (northern) autumn of the year 2000, EFnet had some 50,000 users and IRCnet 70,000.
Modern IRC
edit
IRC has changed much over its life on the Internet. New server software has added a multitude of new features.
Services
: Network-operated bots to facilitate registration of nicknames and channels, sending messages for offline users and network operator functions.
Extra modes: While the original IRC system used a set of standard user and channel modes, new servers add many new modes for features such as removing color codes from text,
16
or obscuring a user's hostmask ("cloaking") to protect from
denial-of-service attacks
17
Proxy detection: Most modern servers support detection of users attempting to connect through an insecure (misconfigured or exploited)
proxy server
, which can then be denied a connection. This proxy detection software is used by several networks, although that real time list of proxies is defunct since early 2006.
18
Additional commands: New commands can be such things as shorthand commands to issue commands to Services, to network-operator-only commands to manipulate a user's hostmask.
citation needed
Encryption
: For the client-to-server leg of the connection
TLS
might be used (messages cease to be secure once they are relayed to other users on standard connections, but it makes
eavesdropping
on or wiretapping an individual's IRC sessions difficult). For client-to-client communication,
SDCC
(Secure DCC) can be used.
citation needed
Connection protocol: IRC can be connected to via both
IPv4
and
IPv6
As of 2016
[update]
, a new standardization effort is under way under a working group called IRCv3, which focuses on more advanced client features such as instant notifications, better history support and improved security.
19
As of 2019
[update]
, no major IRC networks have fully adopted the proposed standard.
20
As of June 2021,
[update]
there are 481 different IRC networks known to be operating,
21
of which the open source
Libera Chat
, founded in May 2021, has the most users, with 20,374 channels on 26 servers; between them, the top 100 IRC networks share over 100 thousand channels operating on about one thousand servers.
22
After its golden era during the 1990s and early 2000s (240,000 users on QuakeNet in 2004), IRC has seen a significant decline, losing around 60% of users between 2003 and 2012, with users moving to
social media
platforms such as
or
but also to open platforms such as
XMPP
which was developed in 1999. Certain networks such as
Freenode
have not followed the overall trend and have more than quadrupled in size during the same period.
However, Freenode, which in 2016 had around 90,000 users, has since declined to about 9,300 users.
23
The largest IRC networks have traditionally been grouped as the "Big Four"
24
25
26
27
—a designation for networks that top the statistics. The Big Four networks change periodically, but due to the community nature of IRC there are a large number of other networks for users to choose from.
Historically the "Big Four" were:
24
25
26
EFnet
IRCnet
Undernet
DALnet
IRC reached 6 million simultaneous users in 2001 and 10 million users in 2004–2005, dropping to around 350k in 2021.
citation needed
As of December 2025, the top 5 IRC networks have total participation of around 88,000 users per day, with remaining IRC networks having less than 10,000 users per day each. There are about 35 networks with at least 1,000 users per day.
28
Timeline
edit
Timeline of major networks:
EFnet
, 1990 to present
Undernet
, 1992 to present
DALnet
, 1994 to present
freenode
, 1995 to 2021
IRCnet
, 1996 to present
QuakeNet
, 1997 to present
Open and Free Technology Community
, 2001 to present
Rizon
, 2002 to present
hackint, 2007 to present
29
HybridIRC, 2018 to present
30
Libera Chat
, 2021 to present
Technical information
edit
See also:
IRCd
A screenshot of
HexChat
, an IRC client for
GTK
environments
Irssi
, a text-based IRC client
IRC is an open
protocol
that uses
TCP
13
and, optionally,
TLS
. An
IRC server
can connect to other IRC servers to expand the IRC network.
31
Users access IRC networks by connecting a client to a server.
32
There are many client implementations, such as
mIRC
HexChat
and
irssi
, and server implementations, e.g. the original
IRCd
. Most IRC servers do not require users to register an account but a
nickname
is required before being connected.
33
IRC was originally a
plain text protocol
13
(although later extended), which on request was assigned port
194/TCP
by
IANA
34
However, the
de facto
standard
has always been to run IRC on 6667/TCP
35
and nearby port numbers (for example TCP ports 6660–6669, 7000)
36
to avoid having to run the
IRCd
software with
root privileges
The protocol specified that characters were 8-bit but did not specify the character encoding the text was supposed to use.
14
This can cause problems when users using different clients and/or different platforms want to converse.
All client-to-server IRC protocols in use today are descended from the protocol implemented in the irc2.4.0 version of the IRC2 server, and documented in RFC 1459. Since RFC 1459 was published, the new features in the irc2.10 implementation led to the publication of several revised protocol documents (RFC 2810, RFC 2811, RFC 2812 and RFC 2813); however, these protocol changes have not been widely adopted among other implementations.
citation needed
Although many specifications on the IRC protocol have been published, there is no official specification, as the protocol remains dynamic. Virtually no clients and very few servers rely strictly on the above RFCs as a reference.
citation needed
Microsoft made an extension for IRC in 1998 via the proprietary
IRCX
37
They later stopped distributing software supporting IRCX, instead developing the proprietary
MSNP
The standard structure of a network of IRC servers is a
tree
38
Messages are routed along only necessary branches of the tree but network state is sent to every server
39
and there is generally a high degree of implicit trust between servers. However, this architecture has a number of problems. A misbehaving or malicious server can cause major damage to the network
40
and any changes in structure, whether intentional or a result of conditions on the underlying network, require a net-split and net-join. This results in a lot of network traffic and spurious quit/join messages to users
41
and temporary loss of communication to users on the splitting servers. Adding a server to a large network means a large background bandwidth load on the network and a large memory load on the server. Once established, however, each message to multiple recipients is delivered in a fashion similar to
multicast
, meaning each message travels a network link exactly once.
42
This is a strength in comparison to non-multicasting protocols such as
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP)
citation needed
or
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
(XMPP)
citation needed
An IRC daemon can be used on a local area network (LAN). IRC can thus be used to facilitate communication between people within the local area network (internal communication).
43
44
Commands and replies
edit
Main article:
List of Internet Relay Chat commands
IRC has a line-based structure. Clients send single-line messages to the server,
45
receive replies to those messages
46
and receive copies of some messages sent by other clients. In most clients, users can enter commands by prefixing them with a '/'. Depending on the command, these may either be handled entirely by the client, or (generally for commands the client does not recognize) passed directly to the server, possibly with some modification.
47
Due to the nature of the protocol, automated systems cannot always correctly pair a sent command with its reply with full reliability and are subject to guessing.
48
Channels
edit
The basic means of communicating to a group of users in an established IRC session is through a
channel
49
Channels on a network can be displayed using the IRC command
LIST
50
which lists all currently available channels that do not have the modes +s or +p set, on that particular network.
Users can
join
a channel using the
JOIN
command,
51
in most clients available as
/join #channelname
. Messages sent to the joined channels are then relayed to all other users.
49
Channels that are available across an entire IRC network are prefixed with a '#', while those local to a server use '&'.
52
Other less common channel types include '+' channels—'modeless' channels without operators
53
—and '!' channels, a form of
timestamped
channel on normally non-timestamped networks.
54
Modes
edit
Users and channels may have
modes
that are represented by individual case-sensitive letters
55
and are set using the
MODE
command.
56
User modes and channel modes are separate and can use the same letter to mean different things (e.g. user mode "i" is invisible mode while channel mode "i" is invite only.
57
) Modes are usually set and unset using the mode command that takes a target (user or channel), a set of modes to set (+) or unset (-) and any parameters the modes need.
Some channel modes take parameters and other channel modes apply to a user on a channel or add or remove a mask (e.g. a ban mask) from a list associated with the channel rather than applying to the channel as a whole.
58
Modes that apply to users on a channel have an associated symbol that is used to represent the mode in names replies
59
(sent to clients on first joining a channel
51
and use of the names command) and in many clients also used to represent it in the client's displayed list of users in a channel or to display an own indicator for a user's modes.
In order to correctly parse incoming mode messages and track channel state the client must know which mode is of which type and for the modes that apply to a user on a channel which symbol goes with which letter. In early implementations of IRC this had to be hard-coded in the client but there is now a de facto standard extension to the protocol called ISUPPORT that sends this information to the client at connect time using numeric 005.
60
61
There is a small design fault in IRC regarding modes that apply to users on channels: the names message used to establish initial channel state can only send one such mode per user on the channel,
59
but multiple such modes can be set on a single user. For example, if a user holds both operator status (+o) and voice status (+v) on a channel, a new client will be unable to see the mode with less priority (i.e. voice). Workarounds for this are possible on both the client and server side; a common solution is to use IRCv3 "multi-prefix" extension.
62
Standard (RFC 1459) modes
edit
User modes
Letter
Symbol
Description
Invisible—cannot be seen without a common channel or knowing the exact name
Receives server notices
Receives wallops
63
User is an IRC operator (ircop)
Channel modes
Letter
Symbol
Parameter(s)
Description
Name of affected user
Channel operator—can change channel modes and kick users out of the channel among other things
Secret channel—not shown in channel list or user whois except to users already on the channel
Private channel—listed in channel list as "prv" according to RFC 1459
Users cannot send messages to the channel externally
Channel is moderated (only those who hold channel operator or voice status on the channel can send messages to it)
Only users with invites may enter the channel.
Only channel operators can change the channel topic.
Limit number
Limits number of users able to be on channel (when full, no new users can join)
Ban mask (nick!user@host with wildcards allowed)
Bans
hostmasks
from channel
Name of affected user
Gives a user voice status on channel (see +m above)
New channel key
Sets a channel key such that only users knowing the key can enter
Many daemons and networks have added extra modes or modified the behavior of modes in the above list.
64
65
66
67
Channel operators
edit
channel operator
is a
client
on an
IRC channel
that manages the channel.
IRC channel operators can be easily seen by the symbol or icon next to their name (varies by client implementation, commonly a "@" symbol prefix, a green circle, or a Latin letter "+o"/"o").
On most networks, an operator can:
Kick a user.
Ban a user.
Give another user IRC Channel Operator Status or IRC Channel Voice Status.
Change the IRC Channel topic while channel mode +t is set.
Change the IRC Channel Mode locks.
Operators
edit
Main article:
IRC operator
There are also users who maintain elevated rights on their local server, or the entire network; these are called IRC operators,
68
sometimes shortened to IRCops or Opers (not to be confused with channel operators). As the implementation of the IRCd varies, so do the privileges of the IRC operator on the given IRCd. RFC 1459
68
claims that IRC operators are "a necessary evil" to keep a clean state of the network, and as such they need to be able to disconnect and reconnect servers. Additionally, to prevent malicious users or even harmful automated programs from entering IRC, IRC operators are usually allowed to disconnect clients and completely ban IP addresses or complete subnets. Networks that carry services (NickServ et al.) usually allow their IRC operators also to handle basic "ownership" matters. Further privileged rights may include overriding channel bans (being able to join channels they would not be allowed to join, if they were not opered), being able to op themselves on channels where they would not be able without being opered, being auto-opped on channels always and so forth.
Hostmasks
edit
A hostmask is a unique identifier of an IRC
client
connected to an IRC
server
69
70
IRC
servers
services
, and other clients, including
bots
, can use it to identify a specific IRC session.
The format of a hostmask is
nick!user@host
. The hostmask looks similar to, but should not be confused with an
e-mail address
, distinguished by the ! to indicate a command and the Nickname.
The nick part is the nickname chosen by the user and may be changed while connected.
The user part is the username reported by
ident
on the client.
71
If ident is not available on the client, the username specified when the client connected is used after being prefixed with a
tilde
72
The host part is the
hostname
the client is connecting from. If the
IP address
of the client cannot be resolved to a valid
hostname
by the server, it is used instead of the hostname.
Because of the
implications of exposing the IP address or hostname of a client, some
IRC daemons
also provide privacy features, such as InspIRCd or UnrealIRCd's "+x" mode. This
hashes
a client IP address or masks part of a client's hostname, making it unreadable to users other than
IRCops
. Users may also have the option of requesting a "virtual host" (or "vhost"), to be displayed in the hostmask to allow further anonymity. Some IRC networks, such as
Libera Chat
or
Freenode
, use these as "cloaks" to indicate that a user is affiliated with a group or project.
73
URI scheme
edit
There are three provisional recognized
uniform resource identifier
(URI) schemes for Internet Relay Chat:
irc
ircs
, and
irc6
74
When supported, they allow
hyperlinks
of various forms, including
irc://[:]/[[?]]
ircs://[:]/[[?]]
irc6://[:]/[[?]]
(where items enclosed within brackets ([,]) are optional) to be used to (if necessary) connect to the specified host (or network, if known to the IRC client) and join the specified channel.
75
(This can be used within the client itself, or from another application such as a Web browser). irc is the default URI, irc6 specifies a connection to be made using IPv6, and ircs specifies a secure connection.
Per the specification, the usual
hash symbol
(#) will be prepended to channel names that begin with an
alphanumeric
character—allowing it to be omitted. Some implementations (for example, mIRC) will do so
unconditionally
resulting in a (usually unintended) extra (for example, ##channel), if included in the URL.
Some implementations allow multiple channels to be specified, separated by commas.
76
Challenges
edit
Issues in the original design of IRC were the amount of shared state data
77
78
being a limitation on its scalability,
79
the absence of unique user identifications leading to the nickname collision problem,
80
lack of protection from
netsplits
by means of cyclic routing,
81
82
the trade-off in scalability for the sake of real-time user presence information,
83
protocol weaknesses providing a platform for abuse,
84
no transparent and optimizable message passing,
85
and no encryption.
86
Some of these issues have been addressed in
Modern IRC
Attacks
edit
Because IRC connections may be unencrypted and typically span long time periods, they are an attractive target for
DoS/DDoS attackers
and
hackers
. Because of this, careful security policy is necessary to ensure that an IRC network is not susceptible to an attack such as a
takeover
war. IRC networks may also
K-line
or
G-line
users or servers that have a harming effect.
Some IRC servers support
SSL/TLS
connections for security purposes. This helps stop the use of
packet sniffer
programs to obtain the passwords of IRC users, but has little use beyond this scope due to the public nature of IRC channels. SSL connections require both client and server support (that may require the user to install SSL binaries and IRC client specific patches or modules on their computers). Some networks also use SSL for server-to-server connections, and provide a special channel flag (such as
+S
) to only allow SSL-connected users on the channel, while disallowing operator identification in clear text, to better utilize the advantages that SSL provides.
87
88
IRC served as an early laboratory for many kinds of Internet attacks, such as using fake
ICMP
unreachable messages to break
TCP
-based IRC connections (
nuking
) to annoy users or facilitate
takeovers
Abuse prevention
edit
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does not
cite
any
sources
Please help
improve this section
by
adding citations to reliable sources
. Unsourced material may be challenged and
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One of the most contentious technical issues surrounding IRC implementations, which survives to this day, is the merit of "Nick/Channel Delay" vs. "Timestamp" protocols. Both methods exist to solve the problem of denial-of-service attacks, but take very different approaches.
The problem with the original IRC protocol as implemented was that when two servers split and rejoined, the two sides of the network would simply merge their channels. If a user could join on a "split" server, where a channel that existed on the other side of the network was empty, and gain operator status, they would become a channel operator of the "combined" channel after the
netsplit
ended; if a user took a nickname that existed on the other side of the network, the server would kill both users when rejoining (a "nick collision"). This was often abused to "mass-kill" all users on a channel, thus creating "opless" channels where no operators were present to deal with abuse. Apart from causing problems within IRC, this encouraged people to conduct denial-of-service attacks against IRC servers in order to cause
netsplits
, which they would then abuse.
The
nick delay
(ND) and
channel delay
(CD) strategies aim to prevent abuse by delaying reconnections and renames. After a user signs off and the
nickname
becomes available, or a channel ceases to exist because all its users parted (as often happens during a
netsplit
), the server will not allow any user to use that nickname or join that channel, until a certain period of time (the
delay
) has passed. The idea behind this is that even if a
netsplit
occurs, it is useless to an abuser because they cannot take the nickname or gain operator status on a channel, and thus no collision of a nickname or "merging" of a channel can occur. To some extent, this inconveniences legitimate users, who might be forced to briefly use a different name after rejoining (appending an
underscore
is popular).
The timestamp protocol is an alternative to nick/channel delays which resolves collisions using timestamped priority. Every nickname and channel on the network is assigned a timestamp – the date and time when it was created. When a netsplit occurs, two users on each side are free to use the same nickname or channel, but when the two sides are joined, only one can survive. In the case of nicknames, the newer user, according to their TS, is killed; when a channel collides, the members (users on the channel) are merged, but the channel operators on the "losing" side of the split lose their channel operator status.
TS is a much more complicated protocol than ND/CD, both in design and implementation, and despite having gone through several revisions, some implementations still have problems with "desyncs" (where two servers on the same network disagree about the current state of the network), and allowing too much leniency in what was allowed by the "losing" side. Under the original TS protocols, for example, there was no protection against users setting bans or other modes in the losing channel that would then be merged when the split rejoined, even though the users who had set those modes lost their channel operator status. Some modern TS-based IRC servers have also incorporated some form of ND and/or CD in addition to timestamping in an attempt to further curb abuse.
Most networks today use the timestamping approach. The timestamp versus ND/CD disagreements caused several servers to split away from
EFnet
and form the newer
IRCnet
. After the split, EFnet moved to a TS protocol, while IRCnet used ND/CD.
In recent versions of the IRCnet ircd, as well as ircds using the TS6 protocol (including Charybdis), ND has been extended/replaced by a mechanism called SAVE. This mechanism assigns every client a
UID
upon connecting to an IRC server. This ID starts with a number, which is forbidden in nicks (although some ircds, namely IRCnet and InspIRCd, allow clients to switch to their own UID as the nickname).
If two clients with the same nickname join from different sides of a netsplit ("nick collision"), the first server to see this collision will force
both
clients to change their nick to their UID, thus saving both clients from being disconnected. On IRCnet, the nickname will also be locked for some time (ND) to prevent both clients from changing back to the original nickname, thus colliding again.
Clients
edit
Client software
edit
Further information:
Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
Scheme of an IRC network with
normal clients
(green),
bots
(blue) and
bouncers
(orange)
Client software exists for various
operating systems
or software packages, as well as web-based or inside games. Many different clients are available for the various operating systems, including
Windows
Unix
and
Linux
macOS
and mobile operating systems (such as
iOS
and
Android
). On Windows,
mIRC
is one of the most popular clients.
89
Some
Linux
distributions come with an IRC client preinstalled, such as
Linux Mint
which comes with
HexChat
preinstalled.
Some programs which are extensible through
plug-ins
also serve as platforms for IRC clients. For instance, a client called
ERC
, written entirely in
Emacs Lisp
, is included in v.22.3 of Emacs. Therefore, any platform that can run Emacs can run ERC.
A number of
web browsers
have built-in IRC clients, such as:
Opera
used to have a client, but no longer supports IRC
ChatZilla
add-on for Mozilla
Firefox
(for Firefox 56 and earlier; included as a built-in component of
SeaMonkey
).
Web-based clients, such as
Mibbit
and open source KiwiIRC, can run in most browsers.
Games such as
War§ow
90
Unreal Tournament
(up to
Unreal Tournament 2004
),
91
Uplink
92
Spring Engine
-based games,
0 A.D.
and
ZDaemon
have included IRC.
93
Ustream
's chat interface is IRC with custom authentication
94
as well as
Twitch
's (formerly Justin.tv).
95
96
Bots
edit
Main article:
IRC bot
A typical use of bots in IRC is to provide
IRC services
or specific functionality within a channel such as to host a chat-based game or provide notifications of external events. However, some IRC bots are used to launch malicious attacks such as denial of service, spamming, or exploitation.
97
Bouncer
edit
Main article:
IRC bouncer
A program that runs as a
daemon
on a
server
and functions as a persistent
proxy
is known as a BNC or bouncer. The purpose is to maintain a connection to an IRC server, acting as a relay between the server and client, or simply to act as a proxy.
citation needed
Should the client lose network connectivity, the BNC may stay connected and archive all traffic for later delivery, allowing the user to resume their IRC session without disrupting their connection to the server.
98
Furthermore, as a way of obtaining a bouncer-like effect, an IRC client (typically
text-based
, for example
Irssi
) may be run on an always-on server to which the user connects via
ssh
. This also allows devices that only have ssh functionality, but no actual IRC client installed themselves, to connect to the IRC, and it allows sharing of IRC sessions.
99
To keep the IRC client from quitting when the ssh connection closes, the client can be run inside a
terminal multiplexer
such as
GNU Screen
or
tmux
, thus staying connected to the IRC network(s) constantly and able to log conversation in channels that the user is interested in, or to maintain a channel's presence on the network. Modelled after this setup, in 2004 an IRC client following the
client–server
, called
Smuxi
, was launched.
100
101
Search engines
edit
There are numerous search engines available to aid the user in finding what they are looking for on IRC.
102
103
Generally the search engine consists of two parts, a "back-end" (or "spider/crawler") and a front-end "search engine".
The back-end (spider/webcrawler) is the work horse of the search engine. It is responsible for crawling IRC servers to index the information being sent across them. The information that is indexed usually consists solely of channel text (text that is publicly displayed in public channels). The storage method is usually some sort of relational database, like
MySQL
or
Oracle
citation needed
The front-end "search engine" is the user interface to the database. It supplies users with a way to search the database of indexed information to retrieve the data they are looking for. These front-end search engines can also be coded in numerous programming languages.
Most search engines have their own spider that is a single application responsible for crawling IRC and indexing data itself; however, others are "user based" indexers. The latter rely on users to install their "add-on" to their IRC client; the add-on is what sends the database the channel information of whatever channels the user happens to be on.
citation needed
Many users have implemented their own
ad hoc
search engines using the logging features built into many IRC clients. These search engines are usually implemented as bots and dedicated to a particular channel or group of associated channels.
Character encoding
edit
IRC still lacks a single globally accepted standard convention for how to transmit characters outside the 7-bit
ASCII
repertoire.
IRC servers normally
clarification needed
transfer messages from a client to another client just as byte sequences, without any interpretation or recoding of
characters
. The IRC protocol (unlike e.g.
MIME
or
HTTP
) lacks mechanisms for announcing and negotiating character encoding options. This has put the responsibility for choosing the appropriate character codec on the client. In practice, IRC channels have largely used the same character encodings that were also used by operating systems (in particular
Unix
derivatives) in the respective language communities:
7-bit era:
In the early days of IRC, especially among
Scandinavian
and
Finnish language
users, national variants of
ISO 646
were the dominant
character encodings
. These encode non-ASCII characters like Ä Ö Å ä ö å at code positions 0x5B 0x5C 0x5D 0x7B 0x7C 0x7D (
US-ASCII
). That is why these codes are always allowed in nicknames. According to RFC 1459, { | } in nicknames should be treated as lowercase equivalents of [ \ ] respectively.
14
By the late 1990s, the use of 7-bit encodings had disappeared in favour of
ISO 8859-1
, and such equivalence mappings were dropped from some IRC daemons.
8-bit era:
Since the early 1990s, 8-bit encodings such as
ISO 8859-1
have become commonly used for European languages. Russian users had a choice of
KOI8-R
ISO 8859-5
citation needed
and
CP1251
, and since about 2000, modern Russian IRC networks convert between these different commonly used encodings of the
Cyrillic script
Multi-byte era:
For a long time, East Asian IRC channels with logographic scripts in China, Japan, and Korea have been using multi-byte encodings such as
EUC
or
ISO-2022-JP
. With the common migration from ISO 8859 to
UTF-8
on Linux and Unix platforms since about 2002, UTF-8 has become an increasingly popular substitute for many of the previously used 8-bit encodings in European channels. Some IRC clients are now capable of reading messages both in ISO 8859-1 or UTF-8 in the same channel, heuristically autodetecting which encoding is used. The shift to UTF-8 began in particular on Finnish-speaking IRC (
Merkistö
(Finnish)
).
Today, the UTF-8 encoding of
Unicode
ISO 10646
would be the most likely contender for a single future standard character encoding for all IRC communication, if such standard ever relaxed the 510-byte message size restriction. UTF-8 is ASCII compatible and covers the superset of all other commonly used
coded character set
standards.
File sharing
edit
Much like conventional
P2P
file sharing, users can create file servers that allow them to share files with each other by using customised
IRC bots
or scripts for their
IRC client
. Often users will group together to distribute
warez
via a network of IRC bots.
104
Technically, IRC provides no
file transfer
mechanisms itself; file sharing is implemented by IRC
clients
, typically using the
Direct Client-to-Client
(DCC) protocol, in which file transfers are negotiated through the exchange of private messages between clients. The vast majority of IRC clients feature support for DCC file transfers, hence the view that file sharing is an integral feature of IRC.
105
The commonplace usage of this protocol, however, sometimes also causes DCC spam. DCC commands have also been used to exploit vulnerable clients into performing an action such as disconnecting from the server or exiting the client.
See also
edit
Chat room
Client-to-client protocol
Comparison of instant messaging protocols
Comparison of IRC clients
The Hamnet Players
Internet slang
IRC subculture
List of IRC commands
Serving channel
Matrix (protocol)
and
XMPP
, alternative chat protocols
Citations
edit
"One-to-many"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 11. sec. 3.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"One-To-One Communication"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. p. 5. sec. 5.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
Rollo, Troy.
"A Description of the DCC Protocol"
IRCHelp.org
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
Wang, Wallace (25 October 2004).
"Instant Messaging and Online Chat Rooms: Internet Relay Chat (IRC)"
Steal this File Sharing Book
(1st ed.).
San Francisco, California
No Starch Press
. pp.
61–67
ISBN
978-1-59327-050-6
"IRC is dead, long live IRC"
Pingdom
. 24 April 2012. Archived from
the original
on 15 August 2017
. Retrieved
25 April
2016
"IRC Networks – Top 100"
irc.netsplit.de
. Retrieved
29 March
2026
Stenberg, Daniel.
"History of IRC (Internet Relay Chat)"
. Retrieved
25 April
2016
I did not experience all of this. I found information on various places and I received information from various people in order to write this. People that have helped me with this include: Greg "wumpus" Lindahl, Vesa "vesa" Ruokonen, James Ng, Tuomas Heino, Richard (eagle`s on undernet), Ari Lemmke
Oikarinen, Jarkko
"Founding IRC"
mIRC
Archived
from the original on 27 April 2011
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
"History of IRC (Internet Relay Chat)"
daniel.haxx.se
. Retrieved
22 July
2023
"IRC transcripts from the time of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt"
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ibiblio
. Archived from
the original
on 28 June 2009
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
"IRC logs of events of the Gulf War"
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ibiblio
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
"Logs of major events in the online community"
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ibiblio
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
"Introduction"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 4. sec. 1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Character codes"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 7. sec. 2.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
Engen, Vegard (May 2000).
"The Great Split"
. IRC.org
. Retrieved
25 April
2016
"Channel Modes"
UnrealIRCd documentation wiki
. Retrieved
6 January
2018
"Cloaking"
UnrealIRCd documentation wiki
. Retrieved
6 January
2018
"Blitzed Open Proxy Monitor Shuts Down"
The Open Proxy Monitor which has been provided by the Blitzed IRC network has been shut down…The database was so large that it is near to impossible for the team to backup, or find a new location to continue the service. Added to that, most of the team members do not possess the time anymore to keep the service running.
"IRCv3"
. IRCv3 Working Group. 2016
. Retrieved
25 April
2016
The IRCv3 Working Group is a collection of IRC client and server software authors working to enhance, maintain and standardize the IRC protocol using backwards-compatible extensions.
"Networks - IRCv3"
. 2019
. Retrieved
9 August
2019
"IRC Networks - in alphabetical order"
netsplit.de
. Retrieved
12 January
2022
"IRC Networks - Top 100"
netsplit.de
. Retrieved
12 January
2022
"netsplit.de top 10"
. Retrieved
15 January
2021
Charalabidis, Alex (15 December 1999). "IRCing On The Macintosh: Ircle".
The Book of IRC: The Ultimate Guide to Internet Relay Chat
(1st ed.).
San Francisco, California
: No Starch Press. p.
61
ISBN
978-1-886411-29-6
On large networks such as the Big Four— EFnet, IRCnet, Undernet, and DALnet— trying to list the thousands of channels with Ircle always causes you to disconnect due to the flood of information, while other clients can usually manage the feat, if you are on a direct Ethernet connection.
Jones, Steve, ed. (10 December 2002). "Internet Relay Chat".
Encyclopedia of New Media: An Essential Reference to Communication and Technology
(1st ed.).
Thousand Oaks, California
SAGE Publications
. p.
257
ISBN
978-0-7619-2382-4
Today there are hundreds of independent IRC networks, but the "Big Four" are EFNet, UnderNet, Dalnet, and IRCnet.
Rittner, Don (3 March 1999).
The iMac Book
(1st ed.).
Scottsdale, Arizona
: Coriolis Group. p. 215.
ISBN
978-1-57610-429-3
There are several large networks: EFnet, UnderNET, DALnet, and IRCnet make up the Big Four.
Turban, Efraim; Leidner, Dorothy; McLean, Ephraim; Wetherbe, James (7 February 2005). "Communication".
Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy
(5th ed.).
Hoboken, New Jersey
John Wiley & Sons
. pp.
106–
107.
ISBN
978-0-471-70522-2
The largest networks have traditionally been grouped as the "Big Four": EFNet, IrcNet, QuakeNet, and UnderNet.
"IRC Networks – Top 100"
irc.netsplit.de
. netsplit.de
. Retrieved
15 January
2021
"hackint Network Statistics"
Netsplit.de
. Retrieved
29 March
2026
"HybridIRC Network Statistics"
Netsplit.de
. Retrieved
29 March
2026
"Servers"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 4. sec. 1.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Clients"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. p. 3. sec. 2.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
"Clients"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 5. sec. 1.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Port Numbers"
Marina del Rey, California
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
. 6 April 2011
. Retrieved
5 April
2021
"Connect message"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 29. sec. 4.3.5.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
Lucas, Mark; Singh, Abhishek; Cantrell, Chris (5 October 2006). "Defining a Firewall". In Henmi, Anne (ed.).
Firewall Policies and VPN Configurations
Rockland, Massachusetts
: Syngress Publishing. p. 93.
ISBN
978-1-59749-088-7
Abraham, Dalen (June 1998).
Extensions to the Internet Relay Chat Protocol (IRCX)
IETF
. I-D draft-pfenning-irc-extensions-04
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
"Architecture"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. pp. 3 – 4. sec. 3.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
"Introduction"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. p. 2. sec. 1.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
"Algorithms"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 64. sec. 9.3.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Network Congestion"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. pp. 7 – 8. sec. 6.3.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
"To A Channel"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. pp. 5 – 6. sec. 5.2.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
"IRC daemons for LAN"
. Archived from
the original
on 6 October 2014
. Retrieved
2 October
2014
"Running an own IRC server"
. Archived from
the original
on 6 October 2014
. Retrieved
2 October
2014
"Message format in 'pseudo' BNF"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 8. sec. 2.3.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Numeric replies"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 10. sec. 2.4.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
IRC Chat Rooms
"IRC List Modes – List mode extension showing pair confusion for lists"
. 25 November 2009
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
"To a group (channel)"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 11. sec. 3.2.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"List message"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 24. sec. 4.2.6.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Join message"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 19. sec. 4.2.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Channel Scope"
Internet Relay Chat: Channel Management
IETF
. pp. 3 – 4. sec. 2.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC2811
RFC 2811
"Channel Properties"
Internet Relay Chat: Channel Management
IETF
. p. 4. sec. 2.3.
doi
10.17487/RFC2811
RFC 2811
"Channel lifetime"
Internet Relay Chat: Channel Management
IETF
. p. 5. sec. 3.
doi
10.17487/RFC2811
RFC 2811
"Channel Modes"
Internet Relay Chat: Channel Management
IETF
. p. 7. sec. 4.
doi
10.17487/RFC2811
RFC 2811
"Mode message"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 21. sec. 4.2.3.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Channel modes"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. pp. 21 – 22. sec. 4.2.3.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
"Channel Access Control"
Internet Relay Chat: Channel Management
IETF
. pp. 10 – 11. sec. 4.3.
doi
10.17487/RFC2811
RFC 2811
"Command responses: 353 RPL_NAMREPLY"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 51.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
Roeckx, Kurt (14 October 2004).
"The 005 numeric: ISUPPORT"
. irc.org
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
Brocklesby, Edward (September 2002).
IRC RPL_ISUPPORT Numeric Definition
IETF
. I-D draft-brocklesby-irc-isupport-03
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
'multi-prefix' Extension - IRCv3"
"Operwall message"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 41. sec. 5.6.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
Butcher, Simon (12 January 2005).
"IRC User Modes List"
. alien.net.au
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
Butcher, Simon (12 January 2005).
"IRC Channel Modes List"
. alien.net.au
. Retrieved
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2011
Butcher, Simon (12 January 2005).
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. alien.net.au
. Retrieved
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2011
Olsen, Tommy.
"IRCd Modes"
. webtoman.com. Archived from
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on 15 October 2011
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
"Operators"
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
. p. 5. sec. 1.2.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC 1459
Döring, Nicola; Schestag, Alexander (23 September 2003).
"Soziele Norman in virtuellen Gruppen: ein empirische Analyse am Beispiel ausghewähiter Chat-Channels"
. In Thiedeke, Udo (ed.).
Virtuelle Gruppen: Charakteristika und Problemdimensionen
(in German) (2nd ed.).
Springer VS
de
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ISBN
978-3-531-33372-4
. Retrieved
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2010
Rogers, Russ (1 December 2004).
"The Mind of Terror"
. In Devost, Matthew G. (ed.).
Hacking a Terror Network: The Silent Threat of Covert Channels
(1st ed.).
Rockland, Massachusetts
: Syngress Publishing. p. 10.
ISBN
978-1-928994-98-5
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2010
Petersen, Julie K., ed. (29 May 2002).
"Internet Relay Chat"
The Telecommunications Illustrated Dictionary
(2nd ed.).
CRC Press
. p. 500.
ISBN
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. Retrieved
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2010
"Frequently-Asked Questions"
freenode
. Archived from
the original
on 26 March 2010
. Retrieved
30 March
2010
"IRC/Cloaks"
Meta-wiki
. Retrieved
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2011
"Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes"
. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
. Retrieved
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2012
Butcher, Simon (January 2003).
Uniform Resource Locator Schemes for Internet Relay Chat Entities
IETF
. I-D draft-butcher-irc-url-04
. Retrieved
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2011
"node-irc"
npm
. 26 January 2020
. Retrieved
30 July
2021
"Size"
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
. pp. 5 – 6. sec. 2.5.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC 1324
"Scalability"
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
. p. 7. sec. 6.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC 2810
Loesch 2003
1.2.1 Growth
"User identification"
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
. p. 10. sec. 5.4.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC 1324
"Trees and cycles"
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
. p. 10. sec. 5.4.2.
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC 1324
Loesch 2003
1.2.2 Network failures
"State Information problems"
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
. p. 4. sec. 2.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC 1324
Loesch 2003
1.2.3 Sociological and security aspects
"Message passing"
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
. p. 7. sec. 5.2.1.
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC 1324
"Conference security"
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
. p. 8. sec. 5.2.4.
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC 1324
"Getting Help on EsperNet"
. The EsperNet IRC Network
. Retrieved
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2012
brandon (18 May 2010).
"New Feature: SSL For Users"
. DALnet
. Retrieved
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2012
Smith, Roderick W. (8 April 2000).
"The Internet: Using IRC to Get Help"
The Multi-Boot Configuration Handbook
. Handbook Series.
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Que Publishing
. p.
289
ISBN
978-0-7897-2283-6
. Retrieved
25 July
2010
mIRC is one of the most popular Windows IRC clients.
"Warsow Wiki: IRC Module"
. Archived from
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on 25 April 2011
. Retrieved
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2011
Guenter, Daniel (21 June 2004).
"UT2004 Review"
. BCCHardware
. Retrieved
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2011
"The Ultimate Uplink Guide"
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
"ZDaemon – The Doom Wiki: Other utilities"
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
"How to setup [sic] an IRC client to connect and login [sic] to Ustream"
. Ustream-Helpers. 29 January 2012. Archived from
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on 21 March 2013
. Retrieved
27 April
2013
Mauldor (20 June 2010).
"Ustream vs. Justin.tv"
. LiquidSilver
. Retrieved
13 July
2011
"Twitch IRC"
Twitch Help Center
. 7 April 2017. Archived from
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on 12 February 2019
. Retrieved
30 October
2017
Canavan, John.
"The Evolution of Malicious IRC Bots"
(PDF)
Symantec
. Symantec Security Response. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 15 March 2006.
"psyBNC Readme"
. psybnc.at
. Retrieved
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2011
Carey, Chris (18 July 2009).
"IRC with irssi-proxy + screen"
. chriscarey.com
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
"Detachable Frontend (Core Rewrite) / UML / Windows Port (kicking Glade)"
. smuxi.org. 25 December 2004. Archived from
the original
on 28 July 2011
. Retrieved
25 July
2010
"About Smuxi"
. smuxi.org
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
Mutton, Paul (27 July 2004). "Users and Channels".
IRC Hacks
(1st ed.).
Sebastopol, California
O'Reilly Media
. pp.
44–
46.
ISBN
978-0-596-00687-7
Wang, Wallace (25 October 2004).
"Instant Messaging and Online Chat Rooms: Internet Relay Chat (IRC)"
Steal this File Sharing Book
(1st ed.).
San Francisco, California
No Starch Press
. pp.
65–67
ISBN
978-1-59327-050-6
Vamosi, Robert (8 May 2002).
"Pirated movies: Now playing on a server near you"
ZDNet
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
Sasaki, Darla (4 April 2002).
"IRC 101: What Is It & How Do I Use It?"
. Macobserver.com. Archived from
the original
on 6 January 2012
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
General bibliography
edit
Reed, Darren (May 1992).
A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing
IETF
doi
10.17487/RFC1324
RFC
1324
. Retrieved
30 October
2009
Oikarinen, Jarkko
; Reed, Darren (May 1993).
Internet Relay Chat Protocol
IETF
doi
10.17487/RFC1459
RFC
1459
. Retrieved
30 October
2009
Kalt, Christophe (April 2000).
Internet Relay Chat: Architecture
IETF
doi
10.17487/RFC2810
RFC
2810
. Retrieved
30 October
2009
Kalt, Christophe (April 2000).
Internet Relay Chat: Channel Management
IETF
doi
10.17487/RFC2811
RFC
2811
. Retrieved
30 October
2009
Loesch, Carl (17 July 2003).
"Functionality Provided by Systems for Synchronous Conferencing"
. psyc.eu
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
Further reading
edit
Kalt, Christophe (April 2000).
Internet Relay Chat: Client Protocol
IETF
doi
10.17487/RFC2812
RFC
2812
. Retrieved
30 October
2009
Kalt, Christophe (April 2000).
Internet Relay Chat: Server Protocol
IETF
doi
10.17487/RFC2813
RFC
2813
. Retrieved
30 October
2009
"Logs of major events in the online community"
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ibiblio
. Retrieved
8 April
2011
Butcher, Simon.
"IRC technical information"
. alien.net.au
. Retrieved
10 April
2011
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