What is IRC ?
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat .when an international computer network of Internet servers, using its own protocol through which individual users can hold real-time online conversations.It is a form of instant communication over the Internet .IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication. There are many IRC channels on numerous subjects which are hosted on IRC servers around the world. After joining a channel, your messages are broadcast to everyone listening to that channel. IRC client programs, such as mIRC, provide a graphical interface for all functions, including logging onto popular servers and obtaining a list of their active channels.
IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen his nickname is “WiZ” .In August 1988 replacing a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a BBS called OuluBox in Finland. Jarkko Oikarinen found inspiration in Bitnet Relay Chat which operated on the Bitnet network.
IRC Technical information:
It is an open protocol that uses TCP or Unix-domain sockets and optionally SSL. It’s server can connect to other IRC servers to form an IRC network. Users access IRC networks by connecting a client to a server. There are many client and server implementations. Many IRC servers do not require users to log in, but a user will have to set a nickname before being connected.It is a plaintext protocol, which means that it is fully possible to use IRC via a basic byte-stream client such as netcat or telnet. However, the protocol only uses a slightly modified version of ASCII, and does not provide any support for non-ASCII characters in text, with that result that many different, incompatible character encodings (like ISO 8859-1 and UTF-8) are used.Because most of the IRC implementations use an acyclic graph as their connection model, there is no redundancy, and outage of a server or a link can cause a netsplit.
What are IRC quit messages ?
These quit messages are used in IRC protocol to either describe where the user is going via a custom quit message, or the error which caused the disconnection. This quit messages can be created by the user to show or tell where they are going. They can’t exceed 200 characters, and they are limited to a single line. Error quit messages can be used to describe what happened upon disconnection from the server.This quit message is pretty straightforward. When the user disconnects, a message is displayed in the channel window. A quit message is not shown in a query/chat window when the user quits, so if you do not receive an answer in a private chat, do a /whois to check. In the channel, the usual quit text is “Nick has quit IRC (message).” In the message area, a description is placed. This can either be a custom quit message, or an error quit message as described above.
How to customize quit messages ?
Many users customize their quit message to describe why they left. To customize this, simply enter “/quit (reason).” When this command is entered, the following will be displayed: “*** nick has quit IRC (reason).” For eg:, if my nick is jazz, and I typed “/quit Leaving,” it would display: “*** jazz has quit IRC (Leaving).” Custom quit messages cannot exceed 200 characters in length.
What is read error ?
This error occurs when a server can’t successfully read from a user’s client. Servers gather information from the client by text, setup, and other items. When the server receives an error while reading from a client, it then disconnects the user, resulting in a read error quit message. For eg: *** jazz has quit IRC (Read error to jazz[undernet.org]: EOF from client). This error was caused because the server expected more information from a file and the file responded with an EOF (End Of File) error.
What is write error ?
This error occurs when a server cannot successfully write to a user’s client. When the server receives information, it usually responds with information of its own. When the server receives an error while writing to a client, it then disconnects the user, resulting in a write error quit message similar to the read error format. For eg: *** jazz has quit IRC (Write error to jazz[undernet.org], closing link). This error was caused because the server closed the link when attempting to send data to the client.
Connection reset by peer?
Most of the times when a user disconnects because of an error, a “connection reset by peer” is included in it. This means when the user quit, the connection was reset by the server. This immediately disconnects any ghost that may be present and allows the user to connect to the server once again.
When they occur ?
The servers automatically ping users at a preset time. The reason for this is to ensure the client is still connected to the server. When you see “PING? PONG!” results in your status window, it means the server has pinged your client, and it has responded back with a pong to ensure the server that you are still connected. When this does not happen and you disconnect without the server’s knowledge, the server will automatically disconnect the user when it does not receive a response, resulting in a ping timeout. For example, if the server pinged our friend jazz, and jazz’s client didn’t respond, it would result in: *** jazz has quit IRC (Ping timeout for jazz[undernet.org])
How to Avoid Ping timeouts ?
There is no way to avoid a ping timeout. They are caused oftenly because of overloading of a client, overloading of a server, unreliable ISP connection, etc. Usually they occur when the client has not performed any operation for a considerable amount of time (for eg:, staying on IRC while not doing anything). Ping timeouts occur to everyone.
What is ping ?
It is a tool that users and servers use to measure the amount of time between the sending of the command and the receiving back. When a user pings another user, it sends the command to the server. The server sends it to the user’s server, and then to the user’s client. The client responds, sends it to his/her server and responds to the initial pinger’s server. Then, a ping time is usually displayed. This same action is performed when a line of text is sent. It is helpful to measure how long it takes the person/people you are chatting with to see what you do.
