IRCII(1)						      General Commands Manual							  IRCII(1)

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  func-
       tions, 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  dis-
       plays 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 cmd-
       char').	 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@max-
       well.mmwb.ucsf.edu), by the lynX, and by Matthew Green (mrg@eterna.com.au).

								  31 October 2002							  IRCII(1)