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 functions, 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 displays 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 cmdchar').  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@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu),
       by the lynX, and by Matthew Green (mrg@eterna.com.au).

                                         31 October 2002                                 IRCII(1)