IRC in 10 minutes or less

Note: We have learned that BNL firewall blocks port 6667. Because of this, IRC is not an option for BNL users at present.

Why are we doing this?

To have real-time group chat for MWT2 and other parts of the USATLAS collaboration. Group chat is not well-supported in AIM, and people need to be invited to chats. (Also there are no 'persistent' chat rooms.)

Why not use Jabber, etc?

There are certainly other options for group chat. It is possible that one of these other options, perhaps Jabber, would also do what we need. I have more experience with IRC than Jabber. If somebody wants to volunteer to set up and evaluate Jabber, go ahead.

What is IRC?

IRC = Internet Relay Chat. This protocol has been around for a while and there are a lot of clients available, it is well-supported, etc.

Is it secure?

There is an extension called SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing), which supports full SSL,X509, etc - I think we should start with plain old IRC, since this makes getting started easier and there are more IRC clients available than SILC clients.

What software do I need?

If you are on Linux/Unix you should be using the "Pidgin" client. For MacOS I don't have a recommendation at this point, I know Rob is using something called "colloquy" which looks pretty nice.

Who is "freenode" and why are we using their server?

Freenode is a service provided by the Peer Directed Project center. From the PDPC charter at http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml:

  "The purpose for which the corporation is organized
is to help peer-directed project communities flourish. 
Peer-directed projects combine open, informal participation 
with broad licensing and wide dissemination of output."

OK, enough background, what do I do?

Simple. Just get an IRC client, connect to "irc.freenode.net" and choose a "nick" (username). I suggest you use the same FirstnameLastname format we use on the TWiki, but of course you can use whatever you like.

If you are using Pidgin, you need to create a new account with protocol set to "IRC". Note that Pidgin can support multiple accounts at once, so you can have AIM chats and IRC chats in the same window (but separate tabs)

If YourName is taken, choose something else. Once you have a nick that you are happy with, you should register it. See http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#contents-userregistration (or else just keep reading).

What are the most important commands?

All commands in IRC start with a slash, and all channel names start with a # sign. So, to join the MWT2 channel, you do /join #mwt2. To leave, say /part. To set your nickname, say /nick MyNewName. To get a list of all IRC commands, say /help.

Now, there are a few services that are provided by "bots" which you talk to over IRC. The two most important ones are NickServ, which handles nickname registrations, and ChanServ, which does the same for channels.

NickServ commands are not part of basic IRC protocol, instead they are commands that you "say" to the NickServ bot. In other words, to do the register command in NickServ, you don't do /register but instead /msg NickServ register.

To get a list of NickServ commands, do /msg NickServ help This will open a new dialog window with the NickServ, if you type commands into this window you don't have to start off with /msg NickServ - you are already connected to NickServ. To get help with NickServ, or any other server bot, just say help if you are talking to the bot, or else msg /BotName help

You generally don't need to use any of these services, except for registering your nickname. I recommend registering your IRC nickname, but it is not strictly necessary. If you do register, then on subsequent logins you will have to identify yourself to NickServ with the password you provided.

Can anybody join?

The way things are set up right now, #mwt2 is an open channel, so anybody with an IRC client can jus stroll right in. If we like, it is easy to set a "channel key", i.e. a (low-security) password which must be used in order to join the channel. Some steps can be taken to make IRC more secure, but if we are really going to be paranoid about security, we should use SILC.

Where can I get more info?

General IRC: http://irchelp.org
Freenode-specific: http://freenode.net/faq.shtm Hope to see you in the #mwt2 channel!