IRC/Guide

This article provides a broad overview of things IRC related. Topics such as the usefulness of IRC, available clients, making IRC convenient, and securing IRC will be covered.

What is Internet Relay Chat (IRC)?
Internet Relay Chat can be thought of as a room filled with people. Some of the people are actively in converastion, where others in the room are observing others in conversation, or are working on some tasks and largely ignoring what is happening to in the room. When using Gentoo, IRC is useful for communication. It is among the primary means of:


 * Getting support
 * Providing support to others
 * Fulfilling the desire for a community
 * Tracking or discussing bugs on Bugzilla
 * Discussing Wiki-related content or changes
 * Tracking Wiki changes
 * Discussing Gentoo website related changes
 * Making a complaint, feature request, or suggestion (any project specific channel)

Servers
The main server Gentoo uses to communicate is irc.freenode.net.

Channels
In the bullet point list above there is a hash tag and a short string with the prefix of  for most of the entries. This short tag is a reference to a few of the channels available to IRC users.

For a full list of official Gentoo related IRC channels, see the All IRC Channels page on the main site.

Installation
Before an IRC client can be installed, available clients should be discussed. An IRC client enables users connect to an IRC server. Many clients exist, each with their own features, advantages and disadvantages.

Nick names
Like on websites and forums nick names are used on IRC. Choose a nick name and setup the IRC client to use the name. If any length of time is to be spend on IRC it is important to register a nick name for personal use so that the nick name is available on each login. Without registering a nick name other users may claim the nick name or pretend to be you.

On Freenode, follow these step to register a nick name.

Upon successful identification the following message should appear:

Securing
IRC software is like any other software: it needs to be secured. There are several methods to security for IRC clients.

Cloaks
Cloaks help users stay secure on IRC by hiding the user's IP address. Without a cloak all users on the channel can ask for /info on the uncloaked user and see their client's IP address.

There are exceptions to this rule. Some users connect to the IRC server through proxy connections, onion router networks (Tor), or other means in order to conceal their IP actual IP address. In these cases (without a cloak) an IP address will still be visible, but it will not be the actual (original) IP address of the user.

If the reader of this guide will be doing any long-term communication over IRC, a cloak should obtained.

Two types of cloaks exist:


 * Affiliated cloaks - These kind of cloaks are given out by various projects. They are to associate the user's nick name to a specific organization on the IRC network. When a user is on staff with an organization that has a presence on IrC, an affiliated cloak should be obtained.
 * Unaffiliated cloaks - Unaffiliated cloaks exist for all users who are not part of an organization with a presence on an IRC network. These can be obtained by asking an Admin on the network. Most users think these are difficult to obtain; they are not. The Admins on the Freenode network provide unaffiliated cloaks to users who ask for them in . For the reader interested in a cloak, enter into the   channel and simply ask (politely) for an unaffiliated cloak.

Channel guidelines
It is typical for each IRC channel to have guidelines. Gentoo's official IRC guidelines can be seen on the main site, however they will be repeated here for the reader's convenience:


 * Please act sensibly and maturely, abiding by the Code of Conduct.
 * Please read the topic when entering a channel, it contains valuable information!
 * Bots or scripts that talk or create public logs are not welcome in most channels. If in doubt, please ask.
 * Please do not use CTCP VERSION or the like on users/channels without their consent.

It is important for each potential IRC user to read the Behaviour and Consequences section of the Code of Conduct.

Message of the Day (MOTD)
In general, each channel a user visits will have a Message of the Day (MOTD). Most IRC clients can be configured to automatically display or not display the MOTD upon joining a channel. Reading the MOTD can be helpful to determine the topic at hand and the rules of the channel.

External resources

 * http://www.irchelp.org/ - A site dedicated to helping users understand IRC.