Preparing your first IRC channel

Overview Quick Reference Registering a Channel - The Full Procedure Prerequisites & Preparation Registering Your Nickname Registering Your Channel Channel Maintenance Further Reading Questions?

Overview
When you want to make an IRC channel of your own, whether it's for the SecondLife Gateway or some other purpose, at first it can be a bit confusing if you haven't been on IRC yet. This document aims to help you set up your first channel and, basically, prepare your IRC side for linking with a SecondLife area, should you choose to do so. The instructions may seem like a lot of work, but in a nutshell, all you will be doing is this: 1. Register your nickname or identify as its owner if you already have one. 2. Enter (on IRC we say "join") the channel you'd like to register. 3. Register the channel.

Before we start, keep in mind that while you can do these procedures from the web-based (CGI:IRC) or Java-based chat client, if you plan to get more involved with Internet Relay Chat, you should really look into getting a more serious IRC client. Clients like mIRC, KVIrc or X-Chat provide a more comfortable set of features that can make your long-term IRC experience easier.

Quick Reference
In this document, we discuss the following IRC commands: /NICK <new_nick> /NickServ REGISTER <password> <email> /IDENTIFY <password> /NickServ IDENTIFY <password> /JOIN #Channel /ChanServ REGISTER #Channel <password> <description> Change nickname to <new_nick> Register current nickname Identify as the owner of the current nickname Join a channel Register a specific channel

Copyright 2010 by QuickFox.org - All rights reserved.

Registering a Channel - The Full Procedure

Prerequisites & Preparation
Before actually registering a channel, several things are necessary: Connectivity to the IRC network - it's all done while you're connected to IRC. A registered nickname - the system has to recognize you somehow. Operator access in a channel which is not yet registered - and you have to actually be in the channel. Doing the three is fairly simple, so assuming that you are connected (or know how to connect already), let's start with registering your nickname. If you want to register a different nickname than the one you have right now, you can change it with the /nick command: /nick NewNickname NOTE: Make sure that the new nickname is not already registered to somebody and you don't see the following message from NickServ asking you to identify: -NickServ- This nickname is registered and protected. If it is your -NickServ- nick, type /msg NickServ IDENTIFY password. Otherwise, -NickServ- please choose a different nick.

Registering Your Nickname

To register your current nickname, use the following command: /nickserv REGISTER Password email_address@example.com Your e-mail address will be used to help you recover a lost password or (on very rare occasions) to contact you if something goes wrong. No newsletters, no special offers, no spam - we don't do this and don't disclose this information to non-QuickFox administrative personnel.

Keep in mind that services will only recognize you as the owner of this nickname for as long as you are connected! Next time you connect to IRC, you will have to identify yourself as the owner with the / identify (or /nickserv identify if the former isn't available to you) command: /identify Password /nickserv identify Password

Copyright 2010 by QuickFox.org - All rights reserved.

Registering Your Channel

Now that you own a nickname, it's time to register your first channel. The procedure is very similar to nickname registration. First, in order to register a channel, you have to actually be in it, so assuming that I want to make a channel called IceRealm, I will first join it with the /join command: /join #IceRealm NOTE: A few things you should know about channel names on IRC in general:

1. 2. 3. 4.

They always start with the # character. They cannot contain spaces within them. Their length is limited to 30 characters. They are case-insensitive (#WildForests and #wildforests is exactly the same channel).

The maximal length may vary from network to network, but otherwise, these rules are valid for almost any IRC network you visit.

When you join a channel, first of all, it has to be empty. If the channel is occupied by somebody else, chances are that you will not be able to register it anyway. If it is empty, then go ahead and try registering it with the following command: /chanserv register #Channel Password Short description For example, if I want to register the #IceRealm channel that I've joined, I would type this: /chanserv register #IceRealm SomePassword IceDragon's laboratory At this point, ChanServ would either confirm a successful registration, suggest you to use a better password (if it's too simple and easy to guess), tell you that the channel is already registered by somebody, or ask that you identify to your nickname first in case you didn't. Example of a successful registration response: -ChanServ- Channel #IceRealm registered under your nickname: IceDragon -ChanServ- Your channel password is SomePassword - remember it for later use.

That's it! You own a nickname and a channel now! You can set the channel topic, you can customize the channel settings and in approximately 15 minutes from registration, you can link the channel with SecondLife through our SecondLife Gateway service.

Copyright 2010 by QuickFox.org - All rights reserved.

Channel Maintenance
As a channel owner, you will probably be expected by your visitors to keep it under control - either by kicking out troublemakers or leaving an announcement of some sort in the channel topic. There are various modes and settings you can set on your channel and the most common ones are described in the Channel Maintenance section on the IRC Help website. You are encouraged to read it to familiarize yourself with them. Along with the channel mode, our Channel Services (ChanServ) provide some additional features like saving your channel modes (MLOCK) when the channel becomes inactive. You can access the extensive help information on both NickServ and ChanServ by typing /ChanServ HELP or /NickServ HELP. You can even narrow the help down to single subjects by specifying what subject would you like to get help for: /ChanServ HELP SET or even further: /ChanServ HELP SET FOUNDER For more information about our IRC services, visit our Services page.

Further Reading
IRC is a very powerful chat medium and the commands we've displayed here are just a tiny fraction of all the commands available to you. If you wish to learn more about IRC, what is it all about and how to use it, consider reading the tutorials (and then the other resources) on the IRC Help website.

Questions?
If you have any further questions about channel registration, you can refer to the #Help channel and ask there. Also, check out our FAQ page just in case your question already has a written answer.

Copyright 2010 by QuickFox.org - All rights reserved.