ii
IRC it (ii) is:
- a minimalist FIFO and filesystem-based IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client. It creates an IRC directory tree with server, channel and nick name directories. In every directory a FIFO in file and a normal out file is created.
Installation
Configuration
ii is configured via command line options. The default values are irc.freenode.net:6667 for server and port, ~/irc for main directory, and $USER for nickname. These can be changed by passing values to ii when run:
-s server -p port -u socket (-p option is ignored if this is set) -i main.directory -n nickname -f realname -k environmental.variable
ii uses an environmental variable to contain your irc password (i.e., IIPASS="password"; -k IIPASS).
Usage
For a detailed introduction see the official documentation.
A session manager such as abduco or tmux is recommended. It allows the user to easily disconnect and reconnect to a session.
To start ii, run:
$ ii
See also ii(1).
Additional functions
ii serves solely as a client for the server. Additional applications will be needed to both read output and write input to ii. In each subdirectory, there will be an output file, "out" and an input file, "in". At a minimum, the output file can be monitored with:
$ tail -f out
and the input with:
$ echo "command/message" > in
Another option that allows for a single command to accept ongoing input is:
$ cp /dev/stdin in
Commands
ii commands start with a slash and are case sensitive.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/a message
|
mark as away with optional message |
/j #channel password
|
join a channel with optional password;
open a private conversation with user and optional opening message |
/l message
|
leave channel with optional message |
/n nickname
|
change nickname |
/q message
|
quit ii with optional message |
/t topic
|
set topic of channel |
Everything which is not a command will be posted into the channel or to the server. So if you need /who just write /WHO as described in RFC:1459 to the server in FIFO.
SSL/TSL Encryption
ii does not support the Transport Layer Security (TLS), and needs a proxy to connect it to a TLS client. An example of this would be with stunnel:
/etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf
[irc.libera.chat] accept = 127.0.0.1:<your-port> connect = irc.libera.chat:6697
Then use -s localhost and -p your-port for stunnel to redirect ii to secure connection to the server.
Another option is the use of socat for a proxy with ii connecting via UNIX stream socket:
$ socat UNIX-LISTEN:/tmp/irc.libera.chat OPENSSL:irc.libera.chat:6697 $ ii -s irc.libera.chat -u /tmp/irc.libera.chat
Tips and tricks
Using sed to edit output
Sed can be used to edit tail -f output in ways that make it more readable. Example:
#!/bin/sh
tail -n 55 -f out | sed -u '/-\!-.*has/d;
s/<MyNick>/\x1b[32m&\x1b[0m/g;
s/\(> >\)\( .*\)/\1\x1b[33m\2\x1b[0m/;
s/http[^ >)]*/\x1b[31m&\x1b[0m/g;
s/[\"\$\`]/\\&/g;
s/\(^[0-9]\{10\}\)\( .*\)/date -d@\1 "+%Y.%m.%d %H.%M.%S""\2"/e'
In this example, the first part of the sed command hides (deletes from the command output) the join, part and quit; the second one adds green color control codes around your nickname; the third one does the same for "highlights" in yellow; the fourth with red on URLs; the penultimate prepares the output of the command before the last one substitutes the UNIX epoch timestamps with a human readable date.