Ed. note: This guide is intended for advanced users, others should first check out our many introductory help files. As the author pointed out, this guide is primarily for Undernet, but much of this information also applies to other networks as well. This file is mirrored with permission of the author, see also his frames-enabled version.

The IRC Command Cosmos, an advanced guide to IRC commands.
Edition 2.2, August 2002
Up to date as of u2.10.11.rc.1



The IRC Command Cosmos, an advanced guide to IRC commands.
Edition 2.2, August 2002
Up to date as of u2.10.11.rc.1



1 Introduction

1.1 Why this guide?

The average IRC-guides around tend to teach only the basics or they’r hopelessly outdated and mix IRC-commands with the IRCII 1) client commands. New features (last 10 years!) are downrigh hard to find documentation for, scattered as they are in releasenotes, newsletters or plainly undocumented.

If you are new to IRC, I suggest you go for the other guides first, (http://www.irchelp.org/ or http://www.undernet.org/) but if you’re fairly familiar with IRC and want to fetch some interesting and often usefull commands, (2.6 and 3.7 beeing highlights) you’ve come to the right guide! :-)

1) IRCII: The first client for IRC networks. mIRC is the most common client today.

1.2 What does The IRC Command Cosmos contain?

An explanation for every command on the IRC network Undernet or other nets using the latest ircu software 1), except service-commands 2) and those commands restricted to IRC-Operators only.

What you can do on IRC depends on what software the irc-network is running. Over the years, this software has been split up into several different programs, maintained separately by different irc-networks. Beeing an Undernet user by chance, finding their software-development interesting and knowing several other nets to be using their software, I aim to completely document their version. I can’t keep up with development on the other nets like EFnet and IRCnet, but even if you use these nets, you may find this guide helpfull, the nets still got a lot of in common. 3)

The guide should make sense for any client, even if my examples might be a bit skewed towards mIRC. You may need to replace /raw with /quote in my examples. This edition of the guide should be complete and up to date, as of version 2.10.11.rc.1 of ircu. (August 2002) The guide is updated once or twice a year, depending on the upcoming changes.

1) ircu: The server-software developed by Undernet and also used by several other networks. See http://coder-com.undernet.org/ for the most recent version. Some networks have developed their software starting from earlier versions of ircu. A former developer started his own branch of ircu, (http://ircu.sourceforge.net/) claiming this to be the “real” ircu. This guide however, choose not to deal with specifics for this or other branches of ircu. Still, much in this guide will apply to them as well.

2) For example X, nickserv, channelservice e.t.c

3) While the nets have drifted apart, people are using the same clients on all nets and the specifications for a client havn’t changed over the years, so they need to display a minimum of uniformity for your dear mIRC, Pirch, amIRC e.t.c to work at all. The client protocol is more or less defined in RFC1459, a document that defined the “original” IRC. There exist other documents, like RFC2812, but 1459 is the only one who can claim authority among all the various nets, even though it itself is outdated. See ISUPPORT messages (7) for another way to bridge the divide.


1.3 Is my net using ircu?

Many of the smaller IRC networks are using various versions of ircu. To test if your net does, log into IRC and type /version. if the reply starts with u2...e.t.c, it’s using a version of ircu, e.g 2.10.10. If it dosn’t, you could also type /info and see if it mentions Undernet or ircu. Some nets run software based on an ircu version, but with their own tweaks and additions which /info ought to tell you about.

1.4 Hiding the Undernet

Early in 2001, Undernet was struck with a massive Denial Of Service-attack, bringing down the channelservice and prompting several servers to leave the net. This sped up the development of a replacement for the old X and W and led to proposal CFV-165 (nicknamed HEAD_IN_SAND in the ircu code) being passed by the owners of the servers. It were decided to hide all non-essential information from users, disabling non-essential commands and generally hide all information that could be misused, as g-lines and networkstructure. The proposal took effect from ircu2.10.10.pl14

These commands are disabled:

Every /STATS (5) except P, u and W
/map (4.1.2)
/links (4.1.3)
/trace (4.1.5)
+s, +w and +g nickmode (2.5)

the names of irc-servers are hidden in /who (2.14), /whois (2.4), /whowas (2.10) and in netsplits and forced modechanges. Remote /whois dosn't depend on knowing the server and is still allowed. All other remote queries are or will be disabled.

Each act of hiding is a configuration choice in the software, so other nets using ircu will be able to choose which of these, if any, they will adopt. This guide will keep the undernet-disabled features, as other nets still use them and may still choose to do so.

CFV-165 is an internet-sociologists dream. Even though the most common complaint about CFV-165 is that it makes it harder to choose the right server so as to minimize lag between yourself and your friends, perhaps the underlying issue is how this somehow degrades irc into a confined webchat experience. It has been pointed to the well-known tendency to sacrifice freedom for security when times are tough, though you may claim someones freedom were sacrificed for the security of others (the owners of the servers)
Does less information lead to less choice which leads to less freedom? Whether this makes IRC an anarchic, feudal or technocratic society (The idea of Internet as an anarchy has passed its best-before date, has it not?) is an interesting question or the bloated whineing of script-kiddies, depending on your viewpoint. :-)
(Hey kids! A project on this may give you the grades to get YOU into the college of your choice! Visit your local library today!)

Help to selfhelp
With /map gone, http://www.undernet.org/servers.php keep a list of servers on undernet, minus the dedicated routing servers. In addition, there’s still a few commands left for the eager scripter-soul to exploit:




The tricks above suppose that the full servername (e.g oslo.no.eu.undernet.org) as seen by a user connected to it is the same name as the one propagated on the network. We shouldn't be surprised if, after the latest removals, beeing able to refer to a remote servers' name turns out as a non-essential feature in itself.
The servers already refer to themselves by shorter nicks (4.1.2) when communicating between themselves, only translating for the users using a local list of names. As remote servernames don't get displayed anymore, renaming the servers in this list would stop the above exploits with no changes in the code. This however is impractical, so these tricks ought to be around up to some given ircu-version.


In addition there’s littered with smaller glimpses of servernames in /kill, /who, /quit, /whowas netsplits, the use of local channels e.t.c in serverversions between ircu2.10.10 and 10.11. Should any of you implement the tricks above or find other loopholes yourself in 2.10.11, why not drop me a mail? (Well, to keep it to yourself and stop the ircu-coders from fixing it, but how does such secrecy fit with a hacker-mentality?)

1.5 Changes in this edition of The IRC Command Cosmos

Since edition 2.1, the following sections have changed, mostly due to changes in ircu between 2.10.10.pl14 and 2.10.11.rc.1

1.4: Updating the self-to-selfhelp to reflect ircu development
2.5.1: +w, along with +g and +s are not allowed on Undernet. (and has been disallowed for a while)
2.5.1 and 3.5.1: Nickmodes +r, +x and channelmode +r introduced for upcoming channelservice upgrades and added security through host-hiding (we’ve been waiting for this one! :-D)
2.6: Individual servers may choose to hide the idletime in a remote /whois
2.9: An elaboration on the difference between /userip and /dns
2.12: beeing able to see other users’ /silence list is not a bug, it’s a feature!
2.14: extended /who didn’t display both @ and + if a user were both op and voiced in the same channel
3.2: bugfix for /invite to local channels
3.5.1: Changing into a banned nick while in channel now properly ban you and the modes +b and +m now stops you from sending to the channel from outside, even if it is -n.
3.5.2: the propagation of topics is now less noisy
3.11: Daniel Corkill solved the /wallchops vs /notice inconsistency
4.1.4: A new /list stop feature added (Why didn’t anyone think of it before? A Coloumbi-egg)
4.2.7: A new but uninteresting serveroption in /version
6.9: A problem with characters and banning. Luckily only of academic interest.
7: Updating information about the ISUPPORT messages and adding rumours about a novel use of the passworded login
8: Addes some more weblinks and channels

The STATS section does not reflect recent changes in the ircu code after Undernet barred access to them, but I may get back to these if I find an ircu-network where they are actually viewable by users or I get around to compile ircu on my computer. Until then I must refer to the coder-com website.


1.6 Getting the latest version and contacting the author

The latest edition is always available at http://www.student.uib.no/~st01369/ccosmos/ A mirror is available at http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/misc/ccosmos.html. The last URL is probably the most permanent.
If you wish to be notified of new editions, please visit http://www.topica.com/lists/ccosmos to register. (No, I won’t use your e-mail address for anything else and I won’t give it out to anyone. :-)
Feel free to contact me with your corrections, suggestions or comments. As for quoting and noncommercial distribution: Go ahead, as long as the guides’ name and a link to its original location is kept and the text isn't altered substantially without stating so. If you'r mirroring the guide, drop me a note and I'll include a link to it.


2 People

2.1 nick

Sets your nick. Syntax: /nick yournewnick The maximum nicklenght on Undernet is 9 characters. See NICKLEN in chapter 7 for the length at your net and 6.9 for legal characters in a nick.

There’s a “nickchange too fast” floodstopper in ircu. A person could flood a channel with his nickchanges while for the same reason beeing hard to kick. You can not change your nick more than once in 30 secs, or twice if it’s been unchanged for 60 secs already.
You can’t change your nick if you’r in a channel where you’r banned, see 3.7

2.2 privmsg

Syntax: /privmsg receiver text
If the receiver is a nick, this equals talking to someone in a private window.
If the receiver is a channel and you'r in it, it equals typing something in the channel. also see the sister-command /notice (2.3)
/msg as it is called in mIRC, could also be used for external messages. (See +n 3.5). When you send a message to a channel from outside with /notice, mIRC and other clients will treat it correctly, while an external /privmsg will appear as if an invisible nick suddenly raised its voice. According to some this is still the correct way, according to others it violates the graphical user interface. Might make for a nice trick anyway..

If we take advantage of the underlying machinery, we can send one message to several destinations. Here's an example:
"/raw PRIVMSG Sabeltann,Timo,#ruminants :The grass is greener on the other side, lets move!"
Or just: "/privmsg nickorchan,nickorchan text". (Works in mIRC) Note that since we're overriding mIRC, the text you send isn't displayed in the channelwindow. You will have to /echo that in yourself with your script.
(Maybe an idea for suppressing display of text your script send to a channel. Didn't some IRC-virus implement that already?)

PRIVMSG is also taking care of the /me statements. See 6.3

The /raw (or /quote) command is how you bypass aliases and your clients interpretation of commands. Sometimes, you pass the command directly, like in /map, a command mIRC has no "idea" about what means, while in multiple sending above, we used /PRIVMSG , as /msg is a command in mIRC that it translates according to its own rules, before passing it on as PRIVMSG to the server.

Up to ircu2.10.10, there were an extra secure syntax on the form:
/msg nick[%host]@server
where host is the optional address of the nick and server the irc-server it resides on. This syntax were intended for sending your password to the channelservice bots, so that you wouldn't mistakeingly send it to someone else posing as them on another network. On Undernet, you could never change your nick into typical service-nicks anyway. (see 5.2.2)

Example:
The nick Timo has the address “*.surfers.org” and is using the irc-server “Oslo-R.NO.EU.Undernet.org”
/msg Timo%*.surfers.org@Oslo-R.NO.EU.Undernet.org Hi there! You won't see this if you don't match my criteria

This feature isn't of much use as authentication of normal users, for that refer to authentication via the channelservice bots. As of 2.10.11, it does not longer send the message, but curiously enough, will give a "no such nick" if you get the host or server wrong.
Together with the list of servers available from www.undernet.org, this supply us with a brute-force way to find a persons' irc-server.


2.3 Notice

Syntax: /notice receiver text where receiver is nick or channel.

The reason for NOTICE according to RCF1459, is to define a way to send messages that should never generate an automatic reply. The object is to avoid loops of responses between scripts/bots, for example this quite repeating conversation:
Bot1: Please send afile.txt
Bot2: Sorry, I'm turned off.
Bot1: I don't understand the command "Sorry, I'm turned off".
Bot2: Sorry I'm turned off.

A ping Query/Reply between users (6.3) is a good example of an automated PRIVMSG/NOTICE pair.
NOTICE-messages may be treated slightly different than PRIVMSG when displayed in mIRC, both in color and which window they'r displayed in. Just as PRIVMSG, you may msg both channels and person. You may send a notice to the channelops alone with: /notice @#channel text (3.11)

2.4 Whois

Syntax: /whois nick1,nick2, ...
Basic information about a nick. A central command in IRC and it pops up all through this guide. Usermodes (2.5), getting seconds idle (2.6) e.t.c Notice that the channels in the whois reply are sorted with the channel the nick joined first as the rightmost.
The full internet-address for the user is shown in the whois, also see 2.9. Some nets hide the first part of the address, as an attempt to combat attacks which involve the users' address, e.g portscanning and pinging. Then only IRC-operators may see the full address. (something like this is in the making on Undernet, see 2.5.1) Others will send an IDENTD request to verify the username. mIRC usually handles that. For more information about identd, see the IDENTD RFC. (RFC1413) or check the undernet homepage.

Example:
Debet is ~ted@modem68.johnsonconsulting.com * Accountancy RULEZ
Debet on @#spreadsheet-newbies
Debet using *.undernet.org The Undernet Underworld
Debet End of /WHOIS list.

The ~ means that no IDENT has verified the username ted and Debet is an op on #spreadsheet-newbies.
The network does not hide his internet-address modem68.johnsonconsulting.com but it hides what IRC-server he is using, an ircu2.10.10-something feature.


2.5 Usermodes

2.5.1 All the modes for a nick

Here's all the modes available for a nick.

Syntax: /mode <nickname> {[+|-]mode(s)}

i
 Makes you invisible. See "Note on invisibility" (2.7.4)
s
 Receives server notices. You receive various information sent between servers. Mostly kills and G-lines, but also nickname collisions, invalid usernames, splits e.t.c See 2.5.3 for masks for this command. (ircu only)

w
 Receives wallops. The IRCops broadcast messages with this, you might even catch an IRCop-conversation! (Almost like tuning in on the police-radio, eh? :-P ) As for the moment, "uworld.undernet.org", that is the X service on Undernet, uses the Wallops too. ircu2.10.10 has the option of disabling this for regular users
g
 [New in ircu2.10.04] You receive “HACK wallops”. After a desynch of the net, servers would start mending it and creating large amount of these wallops. This tended to flood the user and desynchs were even created to do just that. Therefore these wallops were moved to beeing “DESYNCH messages”, displayed as wallops to the user if he were +g
d
 Deaf in all channels. Ircu only. You won't "hear" a thing that's said in the channels. Private messages get trough though. Primary reason is making the job easier for service bots that dosn't want to process channel messages. Makes logging of changes in chan easier too, and would suffice as an overly brute channel-flood stopper.
x
 On a network where everyone runs ircu2.10.11 or above, you will be able to turn on this mode after logging into X on Undernet or whatever service your net would be running. setting this mode hides your hostname (your internet address) in the /whois reply and elsewhere. The hostname “modem44.londonpark.com” used by the registered user WinstonC would be masked as “winstonc.users.undernet.org”, so these users are still fully banable, even though their ISP can’t be tracked down.

Hiding your hostname will shield you against several types of attacks often carried out on IRC, but be aware that taking part in a DCC chat or filetransfer will reveal your IP-address, so turn off automatic acceptance of these if you want to use +x.
Also see use of passwords during logon (7)

In addition, there's the operator flag, (+o) that indicates an operator, the zombie-flag "!" used halfway in mending a netsplit, +k that's used by the channelservice. And +r to signify a logged-in service account, a prerequisite to set +x. (See 3.5.1 for details on +r)
No one can kick or deop +k clients from a channel, and they may also message any channel from outside, regardless of any restriction. You may /msg +k users regardless of target-restrictions. (3.10, 7) Lastly, a whois on a +k won’t show the channels it’s on.

Note that Undernet do not let ordinary users see w, g and s messages. The ability to disallow that has been around since ircu2.10.10. (see 1.4)



2.5.2 Finding peoples modes

You'll spot a +d in the who and whois reply.
Example:
"/Who mowgli" returns: mowgli Hd* mow@ppp-21.treetop.jungle.br :3 Baloo-Bot TM
Hd means the user is Here (as opposed to Gone, i.o.w away(2.11)) and that mode d (deaf) is on. The * tells us he's an IRCop. :3 means the hopcount is 3. (4.1.5)
In the /whois reply, a +d is spotted by a - after a channelname.
Example: mowgli on -@#Junglechat (+d mode and op on the channel.)
+o is spotted in whois by "nickname is an IRC operator"
+i is spotted by doing "/whois *nickname" and seeing if the right person pops up. If he/she dosn't, the nick is invisible.
+w and +s can't be seen by normal users. (+w due to a recent Undernet patch)


Note:
For address and away, also see /userhost (2.9)

2.5.3 Server notice masks

From version 2.10 of the ircu serversoftware, a masking option of users s-mode has been implemented, so you can decide which types of notifications you’r interested in. +s is disabled for users of Undernet though.
This section is based on documentation supplied by Ghostwolf.

Syntax: /mode <nick> +s [+/-][mask]

Mask
 Name
 Description
1
 SNO_OLDSNO
 unsorted old messages
2
 SNO_SERVKILL
 server kills (nick collisions)
4
 SNO_OPERKILL
oper kills
8
 SNO_HACK2
 desyncs
16
 SNO_HACK3
 temporary desyncs
32
 SNO_UNAUTH
 unauthorized connections
64
 SNO_TCPCOMMON
 common TCP or socket errors
128
 SNO_TOOMANY
 too many connections
256
 SNO_HACK4
 Uworld actions on channels
512
 SNO_GLINE
 glines
1024
 SNO_NETWORK
 net join/break, etc
2048
 SNO_IPMISMATCH
 IP mismatches
4096
 SNO_THROTTLE
 host throttle add/remove notices
Operators only:
8192
 SNO_OLDREALOP
 old oper-only messages
16384
 SNO_CONNEXIT
 client connect/exit

If you want more than one of the masks, you simply add the numbers. To later add or remove a mask from your s-mode, use + and -.

Examples:
To be notified upon net join/breaks, you would type /mode yournick +s 1024.
Later you’r eager to be notified when your server fills up, so you type /mode yournick +s +128.
Now you are notified both about “too many connections” and “net join/break”

Another day, you’r feeling bored, and want to watch new g-lines (5.1.2) in addition.
You type /mode yournick +s 1664. (Since 1024 + 128 + 512 = 1664)
But this is too much, so you drop the g-lines with /mode yournick +s -512. (/mode yournick -s +512 works fine as well)

/mode yournick +s 8191 let you have it all

Standard if no mask supplied: SNO_OPERKILL, SNO_GLINE and SNO_NETWORK.
/mode yournick +s will give you kills done by operators, G-lines and netsplits/joins


2.6 Getting seconds idle

The idle time is how long the nick has been silent towards its IRC-server. In other words being quiet. Only the server that the nick is connected to "knows" this. Knowing the idle-time is usefull if you wonder if the person has left the keyboard without putting on an away-message, or might just be ignoring you. It could also be used successfully as a "silent ping" as it can give you the lag from you to the nicks' server. Just count the seconds it takes from you send the command to you receive the reply, and divide with 2. That's how many seconds it take for a message from you to reach the persons server. (another approach outlined in 4.1.5)

Syntax:
/whois nick nick or /whois fullservername nick where fullservername is the nicks server.
the first syntax is available from ircu2.10.00, the second works only below 2.10.10.pl14. What technically happens, is your everyday whois-request beeing transmitted to a remote server.

Examples:
Xerxes is on stlouis, we're some other place: /whois stlouis.mo.us.undernet.org Xerxes
We get a whois with Xerxes' idle-time:
Xerxes is johnbg@ppp52.netomania.com * John Bertram Garfunkel
Xerxes on #Creedence #Japanese.baseballcards @#old_boats
Xerxes using StLouis.MO.US.UnderNet.org StLouis' Gateway to the UnderNet
Xerxes has been idle 50min 12secs, signed on Thu Aug 1 15:35:23
End of /WHOIS list.

Note:
* If you and the nick is on the same server, a common /whois will do the same.
* The chatting in a DCC-chat dosn't go through the IRC-network, and so is not detected by idle-time. An alternative "ping" could be to use the CTCP finger (/ctcp nick finger) as atleast mIRC supplies an idletime for the whole program in the reply; but this isn't "silent".
* It's standard to only nullify idle-time when nick uses PRIVMSG. That is, sending a message to a nick or a channel. /notice does not qualify. See server options (4.2.7) to determine if the server is using the standard setting.
* away-messages arn’t broadcasted when a netsplit is mended. You must do a remote whois to see it.
* admins have the option from ircu2.10.10 and onwards, to hide the idletime when requested remotely.

2.7 Searching for people

2.7.1 Searching by address

Example:
/who *.fiddledep.gov
This lists all visible nicks using the Fiddle Departments’ internet-connection. The command is usefull for finding people from your own host and geographical area and finding people who tend to change their nicks often.

Example:
Your ISP gives people from your area DNS-addresses ending with "smalltown.wasanet.se" for example modem30.ppp.smalltown.wasanet.se Typing /who *.smalltown.wasanet.se may then reveal people from your area.

2.7.2 Searching by nick

You can use wildcards like * and ? in a whois-query also. Here are some examples:
/whois *sam* will give you nicks like Samantha, Sam47, Sam or Tarsam.
/whois ??. This displays everyone with a nick of 2 letters, like Ma and V2.
Undernet will not give you more than 251 nicks back from one query to stop you from flooding yourself.

2.7.3 Searching it all

The first line in a whois-reply might look like this:
Xerxes is johnbg@ppp52.netomania.com * John Bertram Garfunkel
using wildcards, we're able to search for anything in that line. Even the Namefield.
"/who *garfunkel*", "/who *netomania*", "/who *xerx*", "/who john*" and "/who *funk*" will all reveal his name if he is visible.
"/who fullservername" lists people using that irc-server. (wildcards allowed) so if he's on sandiego.ca.us.undernet.org, /who *diego* would reveal him and others as well. (Use /lusers with servername, as described in 4.1.1 if you'r just going to count people on a server.)

Note:
This shows that beeing visible and writing "I'm from Essex" in the namefield might not be such a good idea if some jerk is mass-messaging everyone that matches "/who *sex*". Again, be aware that the namefield IS searchable.
See section 2.5.2 (Finding peoples modes) for explanation of details in the "/who nickname" output. Also note that "/who" searches each of the "information fields" (nick, login, real name, host name and server name) separately so you can't filter simultaneously, you must do an individual search for each field.
That means if you’r looking for jane in sweden, you’ll have to look at the outputs of “/who *jane*” and “/who *se*”.
“/who *jane* *se*” would ignore *se* and “/who *jane*se*” would search one and one field and match on the namefield “I’m Janet, now go stare at someone elses whois!” but would NOT match username janet with address *.se

2.7.4 Note on invisibility

Invisible people won't show up when searched for with /who, /who #chan and not on /whois with wildcards, unless you can see them already by sharing a channel.
The intent is that no one is to find you if they don't know your exact nickname.
I believe that in the future the searchmethods described here might become practically obsolete, as some servers already have the policy of putting people automatically on +i, (which do save the clients a lot of trouble). You can hide by changing nick, people can't mass-message everyone on your ISP and your' not visible from outside a channel. Today roughly half the nicks on Undernet and most on Efnet is set invisible.

Note: If a nick is on a secret channel (3.5) they won’t show up on a wildcard /whois, even if they arn’t set invisible

2.8 Finding an IRCop

An IRC operator is a person with +o mode. (2.5) The op goes around fixing channelops, kicking users and maintaining the net.
Don’t expect help if you’r banned from a channel (Atleast that’s Undernet policy)
The standard way to find an operator is to type /who 0 o (zero o). This lists all non-invisible opers on the net.
Before you message them, check their idle-time. (2.6) Most of them idles for days.

If this dosn’t work, the operators of your server might list themselves in the /motd (4.2.1), possibly with e-mail.
By now, you have found everyone who wants to be found, proceed on your own risk:

/stats O (5.1.4) reveal the nicks of operators on your server. (Ofcourse they could just change nicks after logging in)

/trace (4.1.5) has a loophole that reveals online ops.

Local channels are sometimes used by operators on your server. (3.2)

Join typical oper-hangouts and do the /who 0 o again. The +i dosn’t apply when you share a channel. (please observe channel rules)

Apropos operators
A common question we get in helpchannels is: How do I become an IRCop? At Undernet, you’d have to be a friend or co-worker with a server administrator or start your own server to get op. Starting your own Undernet server is out of the question unless you work at a big ISP. This also applies to other big networks.
Whatever the reason for your hunger for power is, be it fame, revenge, groupies or tax deduction, you’d have a better chance at one of the really small networks. Then again, who in their right mind would give op to a total stranger who comes in and just ask for it? As a last resort you can always start your own network! (8.2)

2.9 userhost / userip

Returns a nicks hostaddress or IP and if it's away or not.
Syntax: /userhost nick nick ... (max 5 nicks)
Example:
sending: /userhost RAmona Sssala
reply: RAmona=-mummy@crypt.pyramid.eg Sssala=+snake@cage.zoo.com where -/+ = away / not away
sending: /userip RAmona gives the reply: RAmona=-mummy@994.193.192.24

Why UserIP:
Userip were implemented in ircu2.10.01 because more and more users have "virtual hostnames", that allow the person to use any sort of hostname withouth a common domain. E.g modem5.snowbiz.com one day and modem5.snowwomen.org another day, making it harder to ban these people. A ban by IP-adress would have been very effective in this case, and that is exactly what has been implemented. The ban-code has been changed so that you can ban an IP-adress even if the server has resolved his/her address as a hostname. The IP-ban has also taken effect for SILENCE (2.12) and K-lines (5.1.1)

Example:
123.321.254 is the IP of the DNS-name "m5.camping.com". Before 2.10.1, you could ban the users' IP, but if it was resolved by irc- server to the DNS-name, the person would slip through. Not so anymore.

But ofcourse you need to ban the ISP. Using a dialup-account, he gets slightly different IPs every time he logs on.
So what’s the IP of the ISP? /dns in mIRC tells me that m1.camping.com has IP 123.321.250 and it seems to end at m200.
I set the bans to 123.321.* ,123.322.* and 123.323.* knowing I’ve banned the ISP, hoping I havn’t banned others. Banning an ISP to stop a person is a brute approach anyway if it’s a large ISP, and most people that are banned give up withouth putting much effort in getting around the ban, so I havn’t bothered finding more elegant ways to do this, but I think you can use regular IP-masks in this ban. (If you know a more accurate way to ban an ISP, i hope to hear from you)

Isn’t /dns in mIRC and /userip practically the same? Usually so, but not necessarily. When a user connects, the irc server first gets the IP-address of the user and uses it to resolve the DNS-address which it puts in the /whois reply. When queried with a /userip request, it will reply with the original IP-address. mIRC on the other hand, takes the DNS-address it finds in /whois and tries to translate it back to an IP-address. By that time, the records mapping IP-addresses to DNS-addresses could have changed, or your client and the IRC server receives different replies to a DNS-lookup for some obscure reason. In short, you risk getting the wrong IP-address, so use /userip for added reliability.

Also see +x (2.5.1) for the upcoming ability to ban a user when logged in on the channelservice

2.10 Whowas

Syntax: /whowas nick [count]
If someone just left IRC or changed their nick, and you didn’t get their address, the server keeps a buffer with the nicks that disappeared the last seconds. Count is how many nicks it should return. Every matching nick if not supplied. No wildcards are allowed so the count were only usefull in special cases. For how many nicks the server keep in whowas, see /stats z (5.3.5)

2.11 away

Syntax: /away [insert cunning remark about doing laundry here]
Sets an away-message that will be displayed in your /whois reply and shown to people who try to contact you.
See chapter 7 for the maximun lenght of your away-message (It's 160 by default on Undernet)
See 6.5 for the issue of netsplits and 2.5.2 and 2.9 on spotting the mode while missing the cunning remark.

2.12 silence

mIRC has a very customizeable command called /ignore that will filter out everything coming from certain nicks or addresses. What it dosn't do though is stopping the noise from coming through your connection. This means you could be flooded off even with ignore on. Therefore, Undernet has implemented the /silence command. When it is used, the network won't even send you the unwanted data.

Syntax:
/silence [+/-]nick!name@host.host.dom (nick or host alone allowed)

Example:
/silence +uglyguy!~jacktr@modem54.styx.net silencing nickname uglyguy with matching address.
/silence +*!*@modem54.styx.net Anyone from his address. (In case of clones)
/silence +*!*styx.net Anyone using his ISP. (For repeated attacks.)
when +/- are omitted, + is asumed. A setting is removed by "/silence -setting". E.g: /silence -*!*styx.net.
/silence will display your silence settings. /silence nick will display the known silence-settings of that nick. That is a feature, not a bug in fact.

You don’t get an error-message if you message someone that has silenced you, but if you suspect you’ve been silenced, type /silence nick and you may find yourself listed.

When Alice is silenced by Bob, but Alice tries to message Bob nontheless, the message reaches Bobs server, which then replies to Alices’ server that Bob has silenced Alice, and that there’s no need to relay further messages from her. Every server from Bobs to Alices including now knows about the silence, and those on those servers who type /silence Bob will see his silencing of Alice.
This openness means that people on the same server as Bob sees ALL his silence-settings.

On Undernet, you have a maximum of 15 lines of silence-settings. Doublecheck with your logon in chapter 7
Overlapping silences are removed. Example: /silence +*.dadaism.net will remove silencing of *modem4.dadaism.net since it is now reduntand. Beware that /silence -*.dadaism.net would also remove the modem4 silencing.
Removals are propagated immediately to other servers.

Silence settings must be set every time you log on. This can be done automatically with your client. For more information about flooding and how to defend against it, see the undernet website or the helpbot in #class on undernet.

See 2.9 (userhost / userip) for how to silence people with virtual hostnames.

2.13 ISON

ISON is the command used for the notify list in mIRC.
Syntax: /ISON nick1 nick2 nick2 ...
The server replies with ISON: nicksthatexist
One string of nicks sent should be no longer than 512 bytes.

Example:
you send: /ISON Susanne MadMex Martha29 ZyGoT and users with the nicks Susanne and Zygot is online.
reply: ISON: Susanne Zygot


2.14 WHO with advanced parameters

/who gives part of the same info as /whois.
ircu2.10.02 gave the WHO command a new look and in ircu2.10.05, even more adjustments were made.
As an example, the extended WHO will let you count people away in your channel and how many servers away they are, with a single command to the server. Searching and filtering are also more customizable than before, but still keeping backward compatibility.

Syntax:
WHO <mask1> [<options> [:<mask2>]]
Which gives:
WHO <mask> <options> or WHO <some garbage> <options> :<mask>
The second syntax will allow a space, and is therefore good for matching the infotext. Case is not significant anywhere.


The mask:
It defines the search criteria. I'll get back to what you'r searching in.
There are two ways to define it:



Note:
If you'r not familiar with masking, * means "any string, even of zero lenght" and ? means "one character". the mask "ge*" would match both "get" and "geronimo!" while "l?ve" matches "love" and "live", but not "legislative".
"i??*" matches "inventory" and "inn", but not "is".

In the case of IRC atleast, "0" works as a *.

If you wish to match IP-numbers in the single mask, there's 3 ways to do it.
(This part is quoted from the WHO documentation in the ircu2.10.05 release notes, which you can find at www.coder-com.undernet.org)





Options:

Syntax:
[<flags>][%[<fields>[,<querytype>]]]

Flags:
The flags define which parts of the available data you’d like to search in.
Each flag is one letter. First, the various userinformation:

n
 Searching nicknames to match.
u
 UserID. (As in nick!user@host)
h
 Hostname. (Still as in nick!user@host)
i
 Numeric IP.
e
 Servername. (The canonic name of the IRC server a person is using) Use /links (4.1.3) if you'r unsure about canonical names
r
 Info text. (Formerly known as "realname" )



If you don't specify any of these flags, the default "nuhs" is used. (Everything except the numeric IP and realname)

In addition, it's possible to search for for usermodes, (overview in 2.5.1) but there's only support for one of them:
o
 Operator (Yup! the same as in 2.8)


Fields:
When the WHO-command has found a bunch of persons, then this tells it which fields
of the userinformation should be returned to you.

c Include the last channel the person joined, or first common, if the person is +i.
(If no common channel exist among you, a +i user won't be shown.)
d How many servers away the nick are. (hopcount, also see 4.1.5)
h hostname
i Numeric IP
n nick
r Info text
s servername
u userID (with eventual ~)

f Include all the flags you passed on earlier
t Include querytype in the reply (see below)

The fields are always returned in the same order.


Querytype:
Usefull for scripts. The querytype, an integer, is passed on with the WHO. If you specify t in Fields, the lines in the reply will start with this number (query or request type field of the output). Works like a note to itself. "Oh! This is my who-query, do so and so with it."

Note to scripters: If no %fields are specified, the who reply are in numeric 352. If %fields are specified, numeric 354 are used instead, because a non-standard 352 tended to confuse clients.

A WHO-query could end up matching everyone and flood you off with the reply or exhaust the server. To avoid this, the maximum number of lines in the reply is 2048/(n+4) where n is the number of Fields you've specified. A default query gives max 186 lines.

The reply:
Beside the nick in the reply we will gett various letters indicating:
H / G
 Here or Gone, indicating if the nick is set /away or not
*
 The nick is an IRC-operator
@
 The nick is a channel-operator on the last channel it joined and still is on
+
 The nick is voiced on the last channel it joined and still is on
!
 The nick is zombie on a channel
d
 The nick is set deaf

Examples:

We send: /who 0 o%fn to get a list of operators. The reply is this:
Napoleon H*
McMini H*
Sodapunk H*@
Tordivelen G*@
Aquagirl H*
Q-Beck G*
* End of /WHO list.

Each line presents one nick and the corresponding flags. Tordivelen is both gone and a channel-operator in the last channel he joined.

/who #Luggage_Claim %dct,9 could return this:
9 #Luggage_Claim 3
9 #Luggage_Claim 3
9 #Luggage_Claim 1
9 #Luggage_Claim 3
9 #Luggage_Claim 3
9 #Luggage_Claim 5
9 #Luggage_Claim 3

"9" is the query type field, The rightmost numbers are the hopcount for each nick. Most of the folks seem to be 3 hops away.


Note:
If you'r using a mIRC copy older than 5.3, you'll have to send channel-whos as "/raw who #e.t.c..."
On EFnet and possibly other nets but not Undernet “/who *” lists everyone on the last channel you joined and still is on (the first channel in your whois-reply) If you’r on no channels or on Undernet, “/who *” will flood you.

If you’r say, swedish and joins a channel, you may want to type “/who #channel *.se” to list every swede in the channel.
This a mIRC feature but works fine on non-ircu nets. However, with newer ircu you must a script to do this filtering manually as the extra parameter messes up the /who at the server.

Before ircu2.10.11, the extended /who did not correctly display the + if a user were both Op and Voiced in the same channel.



2.15 /quit

Waves goodbye to the net. See 3.4 for the quitmessage.

3 Channels

3.1 join

Syntax: /join #channel1, #channel2, ... or /join channel key.
Separated with a comma, you can join several channels at once, saving you some typing. (But if you want to save typing, perhaps IRC isn’t the right place? :-) On Undernet, you’r limited to beeing on 10 channels at the same time. (See 7 for the limit on your net)
See 6.9 for allowed characters in a channelname and 3.5.1 for keys. The maximum lenght of a channel is 89 characters plus the #.

3.2 Local channels

A channel with the "&" prefix instead of “#” (e.g &chat) is a channel that is local to your server. People from other IRC-servers can't join, can’t find it in the channel-listing and can't spot you'r in it, unless they retrieve a remote whois. (2.6)
This feature might have been usefull when a server served a geographically limited userbase exclusively, for instance a specific university, but today you can connect to most servers in a net regardless of where you are. Operators on a server might stick around in a &channel, since LOCOPS and OPERS have equal powers over it, (see 4.2.7) and operators can toy around with the channel directly while the ability to toy with global channels would have messed up the security. There, they have to go through Uworld. (A service on Undernet) Don’t be surprised if this feature disappears one bright day in the middle of the night. In ircu2.10.11, you can no longer send an invite for a local channel to someone on a remote server. (That makes sense :-)
Prior to ircu2.10.11, there were also a bug making the server propagate the topic of a local channel to other servers. If a local channel with the same name existed on a server directly linked to the first one, there may have been “leaks”, but this is unconfirmed

3.3 The modeless channel. Equality by simplicity

As of ircu2.10.02 you can start a “modeless channel” This is a channel with the prefix “+” instead of #. (e.g +chat)
Such a channel can’t have any channel operators and its mode is always set to +nt.
From this, “no topic”, “no /invite”, “no external messages” and “no bans” logically follows.

The purpose for this invention is “to create an enviroment where all users are equal and not tempted to fight about ops”. Flooding should be dealt with by either leaving the channel or using /ignore or /silence. (2.12) Making it topic-free and non-invite is to avoid flooding by topic-changing or mass-invite, or any gibbering over what todays topic should be.

3.4 /part and /quit with comments

You can put a comment along when you quit irc which is visible to fellow channelmembers, with the command /quit, and as of ircu2.10.02 you can send a comment along when you /part a channel too. Perfect for getting the last word! :-)
Syntax:
/quit comment
/part #channel comment or /part #channel1,#channel2, ...

The maximun lenght of a quit-message is governed by TOPICLEN in chapter 7, and is 160 characters by the time on Undernet.
A part message could be a maximum of 65 letters and truncated with a '...' at the end if it's longer.
When a message to the channel wouldn’t have been allowed to be sent, as in cases of ban or moderated channel,
these message won’t be sent either. See 3.5 (moderated) and 3.7 (ban) for more about this.

A client-independet way to leave all channels at once is “/join 0”.

Quitting with a linebreak “//quit char$(13)” drops the parenthesis. u2.10.11.rc.1 does not display them anyway unless a reason has been specified.



3.5 Channelmodes

3.5.1 All the modes for a channel

First, a quick summary of the channelmodes:

syntax: /mode <mode> [parameter]

b <mask>[<reason>]
 To ban someone and display the reason.
o <nick>
 To op someone
v nick
 Voice someone (Speaks through ban and moderations and get a nice + by their nick)
I
 Channel is invite-only
l <limit>
 Channel is limited to <limit> participants at the same time
n
 No messages/notices is allowed to be sent to the channel from outside.
m
 Channel is moderated. Only ops and voiced people can talk.
t
 Noone but the ops can change the channeltopic
p
 Channel is private
s
 Channel is secret
k <key>
 Set a password-key (any text) necessary to get into the channel.
r
 ACCOUNT-limited channel


You are probably more than familiar with these already, so I’ll just summarize my comments on them:

b:
 See 3.7 for novel use. The maximum number of simultaneous bans in a channel on Undernet is 30. See MAXBANS in chapter 7 for the limit at your net. You can easily clear a banlist by typing "/mode #channel +b-b *!*@* *!*@* ?"

Before ircu2.10.11, a nick-ban (e.g slobodan!*@*) wouldn’t take effect if the user changed into the nick inside the channel. Also, a ban did not stop external messages from a banned person from entering a -n channel.
n:
 Most channels should set +n to have total control on who's talking in the channel, ircu prior to 2.10.11 let outsiders slip through +m and +b
p and s:
See 3.5.3 for the difference between these two
m:
 "only ops and voiced people can talk". Before ircu2.10.11, +m didn’t stop messages from outside, now +m equals +mn

As with +b, +m censors your optional /part and /quit comments in the channel. (See 3.7) (ircu specific) and beeing in a +m channel without a voice, “censors” your quitmessage from every other channel your on too.
If that sounds confusing remember you'r quitting the net not just the channel, so sending two quitmessages about you to a person that shared two channels with you (say one +m and one not) would be like saying: "He left the net, and then he left the net again without beeing there." It wouldn't make sense.
v and o:
 You can have voice and op at the same time, but then mIRC and extended /who prior to ircu2.10.11 will only display the op @, not the voice +.
k:
 If you are not a channeloperator, the key will from ircu2.10.10.pl15 be displayed as * when you try to retrieve it from inside the channel.
r
 +r on a user, though you can’t see that it’s set, signifies that the user has logged in with his/her account name and password on whatever service the network supports. For instance Undernet’s channelservice “X”.
+r on a channel means it’s restricted to users having usermode +r, that is, beeing registered at the channelservice.
The +r usermode together with a hidden character string persist as long as you’r connected to the IRC server, so that the channel service can recognize you even if your server splits off and rejoins the net. No need to login to X all over again.

The account name were for a short while visible in /whois, but this were discontinued. It is still easy to receive by “/msg X verify nick” though. A +r channelmode can be overridden with an invite, in fact +r is equivalent to +i if there’s no +r enabled servicebot around. (X were not +r enabled by August 2002, but it’s coming up.)

3.5.2 /Topic and retrieving channelmodes

These commands retrieve the same info as you get when you doubleclick in the channelwindow.

/mode #channel Retrieves the modes (Also when it was created when using ircu)
/mode #channel b the bans (Prohibited when you’r outside the channel)
/topic #channel the topic (Prohibited when you’r outside a +s channel)

What information is available varies from net to net. The channel-limit is shown from ircu2.10.01 and above and topic-retrieval
outside channel is also a fairly recent addition. Now it also displays when the topic were set and by whom
The key is ofcourse not available from outside. If you'r inside the channel, you probably already know the key, but it won't be displayed unless you have op. If not, someone could fetch it by sneaking into a channel during a netsplit. But since the synchronization during a netjoin will remove a channelrider's op, he won't see the key.

The maximum length of a topic on Undernet is 160 characters, the maximum for your net can be found by the variable TOPICLEN in chapter 7. For the issue of topics and netsplits, see 6.5

Tip: If you just want to know if a channel exists, please do a /mode #chan, instead of quick join/part visits.

Note: As of ircu2.10.11, topics beeing set without beeing changed is no longer displayed to the client. It should make the topicsetting of X on Undernet less annoying. It is still done behind the scenes, as topics are not automatically refreshed when the net reconnects after a netsplit.

3.5.3 Difference between +p and +s

A channel can have +p (private) or +s (secret) mode set. The difference isn't obvious:

“Secret” means Top Secret. Its existance is secret (not present in any listing), and you beeing in it is secret. (It dosn’t show up in a whois on you and you can’t take a /names #chan on it) As an extra secrery, a wildcard whois won’t return you. (see 2.7.4)

“Private” means privacy for you. The channel shows up in the channellisting, but people can’t tell you’r in it, unless they’r in the channel themselves.

p and s are mutually exclusive. Trying to send mode +ps will thus result in +s, +sp will result in +p.
Prior to ircu2.10.10, +s channels could show up in /list on rare occasions. The bug has been fixed from that version.


3.6 /invite will find a way

syntax: /invite nick #channel
Invites a person to your channel. It is nessecary to invite the person if the channel is set “invite only” (3.5).
You need to be an op in the chan to do it.

Applying to ircu2.10 and above:
When you invite a person into a channel, you’r overruling the channel limit and any ban. Give him a voice (+v) and he can speak through the ban too.

Applying to ircu2.10.10 and above:
Typing /invite with no parameters lists the channels you are currently invited to

Up until ircu2.10.11, you could invite people into non-existing #channels. The bug has been fixed

3.7 "Shutting their mouth." Powerfull chanops-feature

(Partly ircu specific.)
This feature is IMHO an important one, but not widely known. The feature is as follows:

If you ban a person in your channel, but dosn't kick him, two things take place:

1: the nick looses his/her freedom of speech in your channel. The nick can't speak in the channelwindow, and neither do a channel-notice nor a channel-ping. Even the optional /part and /quit comments are censored.

2: He/she is unable to change nick as long as beeing in your channel. This hinder nickchange-flooding. (also see 2.1)

This is usefull for a number of things, and could improve protection-routines of scripts and ops. You can have "auto-ban on flood" turned on in your script without beeing afraid of kicking a friend that's playing some ascii-art to the chan. Another idea is to implement it as a "last warning" before getting kicked, or a nice way of stopping peoples annoying /timer messages when they'r away from the keyboard, but still letting them stay.

And if you have some annoying person in your channel, you have the ability to shut his/her mouth, letting people get on with their chatting, or talking back if they feel like it, and the person, his right of babbel taken away and now ignored by everyone, leaves the channel himself. :-) In some way, it's better than to give them the attention of a kick.

NB: Any ban is overridden by a +v (see 3.6) and the /quit comment is censored for all channels (3.5.1)
A ban will not stop a person from sending external messages to the channel, use a +n mode for that.
Atleast up to ircu2.10.10.pl14, if you set a ban on a nick (bannednick*!*@*) then if somebody entered and changed their nick into bannednick, they would slip past the ban. If bannednick were an op however, the ban would kick in immediately if he were deopped. I suppose this is a bug.

3.8 kick

Removes a person from your channel. (need to be op in chan to do it) You can put a reason along if you like
Syntax: /kick #channel person [reason] The maximun lenght of the reason is 160 characters on Undernet. See KICKLEN in chapter 7 for the lenght at your net


3.9 names. Listing the inhabitants

Displays a list of nicks in a given channel.
Syntax: /names #channel1,#channel2, ...

Examples:
/names #soap.opera,#talkshow.
Displays everyone in #soap.opera and #talkshow, and all visible nicks (2.7.4) if you'r not in the channels.

In ircu, it is processed as two /names queries, and will show a person twice if in both channels.
/who #soap.opera,#talkshow (2.14) however, lists the person only once.
The list of names will be sorted according to when they joined the channel, with the newest member at the beginning.

Notes:
Wildcards dosn’t work. Sending the query to a remote server, (/names #chan server) is prohibited on Undernet, but is mentioned in RFC1459, so others might allow it. (Practical use related to “local channels” (3.2) )
“/names 0” floods you off trying to list every channel on the net. prior to ircu2.10.11, typing /names were enough to do this.


3.10 Cnotice/Cprivmsg. A "too many targets" exception

New in ircu2.10.02, +v ability added in 2.10.05
Syntax:
/CNOTICE <nick> <channel> <message text>
/CPRIVMSG <nick> <channel> <message text>

What and Why:
Undernet implemented an anti-flood measure in ircu2.10, so that you can’t message more than so and so many people in a short interval. (20 per 2 minutes on Undernet but 10 immediately when you logon). This caused problems for those that NEED to do this, for instance bots in gaming channels. Because of this, CNOTICE/CPRIVMSG were implemented. If you’r a channel operator or has voice (+v) you can mass-message people in your channel using CNOTICE and CPRIVMSG without getting the “too many targets” error.
The restrictions on number of targets should not be confused with the restriction on how much data that is allowed to pass to and from the client in a given time before it starts lagging or the client-server connection is dropped altogether. To avoid this, your bot should somehow pace the information it sends out, not pushing a hundred lines of text at once.

Note: Regardless of your status in a channel you can always /msg +k services without worrying about running out of targets (2.5.1)
Also see /wallchops (3.11) and the logon procedure (7)

3.11 Wallchops

From version 2.10 of ircu, this early attempt at an ad-hoc solution to a special case of the problem mentioned in 3.10 were added.
This sends a mass message to every channeloperator in a channel. It is supposed to replace any “message the ops” script you might have.

Syntax:
/raw wallchops #chan or /notice @#chan Sending a NOTICE in both cases.

These are two ways to send the same command. Restrictions apply as for any /notice. But if you'r using mIRC and type /wallchops directly, you are in fact using mIRCs own wallchops. mIRC will demand that you'r an op in the channel for you to use it.
Thanks to Daniel Corkill for pointing out this to me.

4 The net

4.1 Network structure and overview

4.1.1 lusers

/lusers lists basic global and local info.
Example:
There are 9450 users and 8163 invisible on 44 servers
37 operator(s) online
2 unknown connection(s)
10025 channels formed
I have 692 clients and 2 servers

The first line should be read as 9450 visible and 8163 invisible, making a total of 17613 users online.
The number of operators includes local ops that won't show up in /who 0 o and invisible ops.
You may filter /lusers by servername:

Examples:
/lusers sandiego.ca.us.undernet.org (when beeing on sandiego) could return:
There are 301 users and 391 invisible on 2 servers
[...] I have 692 clients and 2 servers
/lusers *.no.eu.Undernet.org when beeing on sandiego could return:
There are 355 users and 237 invisible on 1 servers
[...] I have 0 clients and 0 servers
Meaning 355+237 users on the 1 *.no.eu.undernet.org server currently online. Ofcourse none of those users is then on the sandiego server, hence "I have 0 clients".
/lusers *.eu.undernet.org or just *.eu.* shows the total number of european users.



4.1.2 map

An ircu-only command that gives a nice view of how the servers is connected to each other. Blocked on Undernet
Syntax: /map

Example:
Part of the net as seen from Oslo-R:
P:Oslo-R.NO.EU.Undernet.org (0s) [2050 clients]
|-Y:Oslo1.NO.EU.Undernet.org (5s) [875 clients]
`-F:Gothenburg.Se.Eu.Undernet.org (0s) [4 clients]
|-Q:Amsterdam-R.NL.EU.Undernet.org (57962s) [1 clients]
|-7:Graz.AT.EU.Undernet.org (1s) [2535 clients]
|-D:Caen.FR.EU.Undernet.org (3s) [921 clients]
`-O:Flanders.BE.EU.Undernet.org (0s) [1710 clients]
`-AN:Brussels.Be.Eu.Undernet.org (4s) [40 clients]

Same part of the net as seen from Caen:
D:Caen.Fr.Eu.UnderNet.org (0s) [924 clients]
`-F:Gothenburg.Se.Eu.Undernet.org (0s) [4 clients]
|-Q:Amsterdam-R.NL.EU.Undernet.org (57959s) [1 clients]
|-7:Graz.AT.EU.Undernet.org (12s) [2764 clients]
|-O:Flanders.BE.EU.Undernet.org (0s) [1704 clients]
| `-AN:Brussels.Be.Eu.Undernet.org (1s) [39 clients]
`-P:Oslo-R.NO.EU.Undernet.org (0s) [2051 clients]
`-Y:Oslo1.NO.EU.Undernet.org (0s) [873 clients]

Oslo1 is connected to Oslo-R, lulea is connected to Oslo-R and Amsterdam. e.t.c
It is possible for a server to be configured so that it won’t show up on /map.
The letters before the servername correspond to numeric nicks in the server-server protocol, and dosn’t tell us anything worthwile. That however does the ping-time and the number of clients following the servername!

Notice the tree structure. There is only one path between two given servers and no loops. Those with more than one connection to other servers are called hubs, the others leafs. The tree is a fundamental property of irc networks as we know them. It makes them less robust then the internet it's on top of but is advantageous for propagating messages. other structures may be more robust and but we risk loosing the common "world" in which all users and channels reside, and then we may as well sit around in our own private microsoft network-chatrooms. (http://www.msn.com/) For a discussion of the disadvantages of the tree or star topology, see http://www.newnet.net/nnmeshed.html.

4.1.3 links

LINKS displays the same information as map, but in another format, and with extra sauce.. uhm extra data! LINKS is a common IRC-command. The server mask option can sort out hosts like *.eu.undernet.org (all european hosts) Blocked on Undernet
Syntax:
/LINKS [[<remote server>] <server mask>]

Example:
/LINKS *.nl.eu.undernet.org displays every server in Netherland.

An output of /LINKS in mIRC might look like this:
SanDiego.CA.US.Undernet.org (0) P10 CONNECTnet UUnet/MCI server
Dallas-R.Tx.US.Undernet.org (1) P10 Dallas Undernet Hub
Dallas.Tx.US.Undernet.org (2) P10 [127.0.0.1] Dallas Metroplex IRC Client Server
Los-Angeles-R.CA.US.Undernet.Org (2) P10 [198.245.27.2] Internet Chat Systems IRC Server
los-angeles.ca.us.undernet.org (3) P10 [198.245.24.80] Decade Communications IRC Server
Uworld.undernet.org (3) P9 [198.245.24.240] Cordinator
auckland.nz.undernet.org (3) P10 [202.14.100.6] Internet Company of New Zealand
protocol.undernet.org (3) P10 [198.245.24.190] [protocol.undernet.org] Software
Chicago-R.IL.US.Undernet.org (2) P10 [206.54.224.160] Nap Net Chicago IRC Hub
ann-arbor.mi.us.undernet.org (3) P10 [irc.cic.net] "Use the source, luke"

The number in parenthesis is the hopcount, P10 is the current server-server protocol and Sandiego was the server that replied to LINKS. The tree-structure is depicted by preceding spaces, probably making links output easier to handle for a script than maps’ output. (4.1.2)

4.1.4 list, with extensions

Syntax: /LIST gives you a list of the channels on the net and let your client to the filtering
Ircu has implemented an extended list-command that let you filter in ways the built-in lister in mIRC and other clients won’t let you. Help for this command is brought up with "/raw list help" and I quote:

Usage: /QUOTE LIST parameters
Where parameters is a space or comma seperated list of one or more of:
<max_users ; Show all channels with less than max_users.
>min_users ; Show all channels with more than min_users.
C<max_minutes ; Channels that exist less than max_minutes.
C>min_minutes ; Channels that exist more than min_minutes.
T<max_minutes ; Channels with a topic last set less than max_minutes ago.
T>min_minutes ; Channels with a topic last set more than min_minutes ago.
Example: LIST <3,>1,C<10,T>0 ; 2 users, younger than 10 min., topic set.

Example:
/raw list >20,C>120 will bring up channels that have existed more than 2 hours and has more than 20 users. When it's finished, you would in mIRC rightclick in "channels", apply match and hide parameters, and press "apply". We see that ircu does not support filtering on channelnames or topics, that is a purely client-side feature.

u2.10.11.rc.1 and above supports "/list stop". This aborts a listing in progress. "/raw /list" while listing will have the same effect.

4.1.5 trace


With parameter:
/TRACE nick is used to look at the path between you and another nick.

Example: Beeing on the Oslo-server, typing "/trace Concord":
Link u2.10.00.bans3 Concord lulea-r.se.eu.undernet.org
Link u2.10.00.bans3 Concord Amsterdam.NL.EU.undernet.org
Link u2.10.00 Concord Regensburg.DE.EU.undernet.org
Link u2.10.00 Concord Baltimore-R.MD.US.Undernet.Org
Link u2.10.00 Concord Chicago-R.IL.US.Undernet.org
Link u2.10.00 Concord ann-arbor.mi.us.undernet.org
User 5 Concord[quail-2.slip.uinb.edu] 18

What it shows is that a message from me to Concord has to go through 6 server-server connections, before getting to his server. (giving hopcount=6) The last line tells he's in class 5 on his server, and beeing idle 18 seconds. (u2.10.00 is the servers’ ircu-version)
Compare with the "/who Concord" reply: "Concord H conc@quail-3.slip.uinb.edu :6 Cristopher Watson" :6 means he have a hopcount of 6, relative to you.

Note that each line is sent from its respective server and this is a great way to hunt down where the lag in a connection between you and your friend is. Say if the Regensburg line is shown, and it takes a long time before the Baltimore line is printed, it means the connection between Regensburg and Baltimore is lagged. Then you consult /map (4.1.2) to find a server away from the Regensburg-Baltimore link. If this dosn’t turn up the lag, it could be sitting between him and his server, in case the difference between a “/whois nick nick” (2.6) and a ping would give you his lag.


Without parameter:

Typing /trace with no parameter will give you something on the form:
Serv <class> <nS> <nC> <name> <ConnBy> <last> <age>
Possibly displayed on more than one line.

Where:
class
 Class the server is in
nS
 Number of servers reached via this link
nC
 Number of clients reached via this link
name
 Name of the server linked
ConnBy
 Who established this link
last
 Seconds since we got something from this link
age
 Seconds this link has been alive

Example:
Beeing on sandiego, the start of the /trace reply look like this:
Serv 10 41S 20227C Dallas-R.Tx.US.Undernet.org[208.145.192.1] *!*@SanDiego.CA.US.Undernet.org 1 250589

The connection is in connection class 10 (See Y-lines 5.1.5) 41 servers are reachable via this link, resulting in 20227 reachable clients.
The link is to Dallas and was established by Sandiego itself. It’s 1 second since we heard from the server and the link has been active for 250589 seconds. (About 3 days)

The rest of the output will be likewise lines for other server-server connections (if any) possibly followed by
lines identifying operators. (Oper 1001 TNTgal[some.address.here] 6, would mean operator TNTgal in class 1001 idle 6 secs)
Buggy as it may be, people in the action of logging in on the server shows up too.
The latter part of the /trace output may seem awkward, but it helps to know that an operator typing /trace would list all people on his server, we’re just watching the censored edition.



4.2 Specific server

4.2.1 motd

Brings up your servers' "Message Of The Day". (The text you get each time you log in) As of ircu2.10.05, the server could be configured not to send the MOTD by startup, but who wouldn’t want to?
"/motd fullservername" brings you the MOTD of a remote server. On Undernet, there is supposed to be a small MOTD
on every server that is sent when it receives a remote MOTD-query. This is done to preserve bandwidth.
It’s easy to show different MOTD to different people according to their address. For instance one in the native language. In ircu2.10 you may also do this according to their connection class (5.1.5)

4.2.2 time

Shows the time, according to the servers' clock, and hours away from GMT
Syntax: /time [servername if remote]
Example: Thursday July 27 2000 -- 17:57 -06:00
This server is located 6 hours behind GMT. If you debug, you’ll find that the server also sends a line with a number in the unixtime format. as mentioned in stats-g (5.1.2) This isn’t displayed in mIRC. If your machines’ timezone setting is correct, your script could use that line to calibrate your systemclock.

4.2.3 admin

Returns administrative info.
Syntax:
/admin <servername> or just /admin for your own irc-se