1EPIC(1) BSD General Commands Manual EPIC(1)
2
4 epic — Internet Relay Chat client for UNIX like systems
5
7 epic [-a] [-b] [-B] [-c chan] [-d] [-f] [-F] [-h] [-H hostname]
8 [-l filename] [-L filename] [-n nickname] [-o] [-O] [-p port] [-q]
9 [-v] [-x] [-z username] [nickname] [server description list]
10
12 The ircII/EPIC program is a unix-based character oriented user agent
13 ('client') to Internet Relay Chat. It is a fully functional ircII client
14 with many useful extensions. This version works with all modern irc
15 server classes as of early 1999.
16
18 -a Append the server description list to the default server list. The
19 default behavior is for the server description list to replace the
20 default server list.
21 -b Operate in so called “bot mode.” This implies the [-d] option.
23 EPIC will fork(2) immediately and the parent process will exit,
24 returning you to your shell. Some system administrators do not
25 look kindly to their users running bots, and they have disabled
26 this option. Even if your administrator has not disabled it, you
27 should not assume this gives you automatic permission to run a bot.
28 If you do run a bot without permission, your administrator may get
29 very angry with you, and possibly revoke your account. In addi‐
30 tion, most IRC operators on public irc networks have very little
31 tolerance for people who run bots. So just a word of caution, make
32 sure that your system administrator and your irc administrator have
33 given you permission before you run a bot.
34 -B Force the startup file to be loaded immediately rather than waiting
36 until a connection to a server is established.
37 -c chan
39 Join the specified channel the first time you successfully connect
40 to a server.
41 -d Operate in “dumb mode.” The client will not put up a full screen
43 display, and will read from standard input and write to standard
44 output. This is useful if the output normally looks awful (because
45 you are using an incorrect TERM setting, or your terminal descrip‐
46 tion is spectacularly broken), or you just don't want to use the
47 pretty interface. This option will be turned on automatically if
48 your current TERM setting is not capable of a full screen display.
49 -f Force use of hardware flow control. With this option, the control-
51 S and control-Q keys are probably not available to be bound to
52 something else.
53 -F Disable use of hardware flow control. With this option, the con‐
55 trol-S and control-Q keys are available to be bound to something
56 else. However, you will not have hardware flow control.
57 -h Display a moderately concise help message and exit immediately.
59 -H hostname
61 Use the IP address of the specified hostname as your default IP
62 address. This can be used if you have multiple IP addresses on the
63 same machine and you want to use an address other than the default
64 address. You might need to use this option when gethostname(3)
65 does not return a hostname (in some poorly configured NIS environ‐
66 ments). The use of multiple IP addresses on a single machine is
67 commonly referred to as "virtual hosting", and each IP address is a
68 "virtual host". Please understand that an irc client may not tell
69 the irc server what your hostname should be: the server alone
70 determines that. Servers typically use the canonical hostname for
71 an IP address as your hostname. Because of this, this option will
72 not permit you to use a CNAME (secondary hostname for an IP
73 address), because the server will use the canonical hostname
74 instead. This option overrides the IRCHOST environment variable.
75 -l filename,[filename]
77 Use the specified filename(s) as the startup file. The startup
78 file is loaded the first time you successfully connect to a server,
79 unless you specify the [-B] option. This overrides the IRCRC envi‐
80 ronment variable. If this option is not specified, and the IRCRC
81 environment variable is not set, then ~/.ircrc is the default
82 startup file.
83 -n nickname
85 Use the specified nickname as the default nickname whenever you
86 connect to an irc server. This option overrides the IRCNICK envi‐
87 ronment variable. This option can be overridden if you specify
88 nickname argument in the command line (see below).
89 -o Force use of IEXTEN termios characters. POSIX systems are allowed
91 to reserve additional control characters to perform special actions
92 when IEXTEN is turned on. On 4.4BSD, the control-V and control-O
93 keys are used by IEXTEN and thus cannot be used in key bindings
94 within EPIC since the terminal never sends them to EPIC.
95 -O Disable use of IEXTEN termios characters. This makes all of the
97 keys reserved by your system's IEXTEN termios option available to
98 be used in key bindings. On 4.4BSD, this flag is necessary if you
99 want to use control-V and control-O in your key bindings.
100 -p port
102 Use the specified port as the default port for new server connec‐
103 tions. The default port is usually 6667. Make sure that the
104 servers you want to connect to are listening on this port before
105 you try to connect there.
106 -q Suppress the loading of any file when you first establish a connec‐
108 tion to an irc server.
109 -v Output version identification (VID) information and exit.
111 -x This undocumented feature turns on all of the XDEBUG flags. Refer
113 to the help files for XDEBUG if you want to know what happens if
114 you use this.
115 -z username
117 Use the specified username when negotiating a connection to a new
118 irc server. This overrides the IRCUSER environment variable. If
119 this option is not specified, then the user name specified in
120 /etc/passwd for your user is used. This feature was formerly
121 undocumented, but with the rise and popularity and use of identd(8)
122 this option is much less useful than it once was. Requests to have
123 this option removed will probably be ignored. If you don't want
124 your users to spoof their usernames, install identd, and do every‐
125 one on IRC a favor.
126 nickname
128 The first bare word found is taken as the default nickname to use.
129 This overrides all other options, including the -n option and the
130 IRCNICK environment variable. If all else fails, then the client
131 uses your login name as the default nickname.
132 server,[server]
134 After the nickname, a list of one or more server specifications can
135 be listed. Unless you specify the -a option, this will replace
136 your default server list! The -a option forces any servers listed
137 here to be appended to the default server list. The format for
138 server specifications is:
139 hostname:port:password:nick
141 Any item can be omitted by leaving the field blank, and any trail‐
143 ing colons can also be omitted.
144
146 The Screen:
147 The screen is split into two parts, separated by an inverse-video status
148 line (if supported). The upper (larger) part of the screen displays
149 responses from the ircd(8) server. The lower part of the screen (a sin‐
150 gle line) accepts keyboard input.
151 Some terminals do not support certain features required by epic , in
153 which case you receive a message stating this. If this occurs, try
154 changing the terminal type or run epic with the -d option.
155 Irc Commands:
157 Any line beginning with the slash character “/” is regarded as an epic
158 command (the command character may be changed). Any line not beginning
159 with this character is treated as a message to be sent to the current
160 channel. The client has a built in help system. Install the help files
161 (they should be available at the same place you got the client) and then
162 type “/help” to open up the help system.
163 The .ircrc File:
165 When epic is executed, it checks the user's home directory for a ~/.ircrc
166 file, executing the commands in the file. Commands in this file do not
167 need to have a leading slash character “/” This allows predefinition of
168 aliases and other features.
169
171 Certainly any description of epic in this man page will be sorely inade‐
172 quate because most of the confusion doesn't even start until after you
173 get the client to connect to a server. But if you really have problems
174 getting the client to connect to a server, try some of these:
175 epic Try this first. This will assume all the defaults. If the person
177 who is maintaining epic at your site has done a halfway decent job,
178 this will put you on a server that is somewhat local to you.
179 epic nickname irc.domain.com
181 or something similar will attempt to connect to the irc server run‐
182 ning on the host "irc.domain.com" (fill in a real irc server here)
183 with the nickname of well, "nickname". This is the most common way
184 to specify an alternate server to use.
185 epic nickname irc.domain.com:6664
187 Sometimes, some servers are really busy, and it can take them a
188 long time to establish a connection with you on the default port
189 (6667). Most major servers on big public networks accept connec‐
190 tions on many different ports, with the most common being most or
191 all of the ports between 6660 and 6675. You can usually connect
192 much faster if you use a port other than 6667, if the server you're
193 connecting to supports an alternate port.
194 epic nickname irc.efnet.net
196 If you're totally stumped and trying to get on efnet, try this.
197 epic nickname irc.undernet.org
199 If you're totally stumped and trying to get on undernet, try this.
200 epic nickname irc.dal.net
202 If you're totally stumped and trying to get on dalnet, try this.
203
205 /usr/local/bin/epic the default location of the binary
206 ~/.ircrc default initialization file
208 ~/.irc/ directory you can put your own epic scripts into,
210 that can then be loaded with /load
211 /usr/local/share/epic default directory containing message-of-the-day,
213 master initialization, help files and epic scripts
214
216 Starting up the client is the easy part. Once you get connected, you'll
217 probably find you have no idea what you're doing. That's where the help
218 files come in. If the person who maintains irc at your site didn't
219 install the help files, pester them until they do. Once the help files
220 are available, use the “/help” command to get started. There are a
221 bazillion commands and a multitude of nuances that will take a few months
222 to get down pat. But once you do, you will be so firmly addicted to irc
223 that your wife will divorce you, your kids will leave you, your dog will
224 run away, and you'll flunk all your classes, and be left to sing the
225 blues.
226
228 <http://www.epicsol.org/> The EPIC home page
229 <http://help.epicsol.org/> The Online EPIC Help Pages
231 <http://www.irchelp.org/> Lots of great help for new irc users.
233
235 epic handles the following signals gracefully
236 SIGUSR1 Closes all DCC connections and EXEC'd processes.
238
240 It can be helpful to predefine certain variables in in the ~/.cshrc ,
241 ~/.profile , or ~/.login file:
242 IRCNICK The user's default IRC nickname
244 IRCNAME The user's default IRC realname (otherwise retrieved from
246 /etc/passwd )
247 IRCSERVER The user's default IRC server list (see server option for
249 details)
250 HOME Overrides the default home page in /etc/password
252 TERM The type of terminal emulation to use
254
256 ircd(8)
257
259 Any non-trivial piece of software has bugs. ircII/EPIC is no exception.
260 You can refer to the KNOWNBUGS file that is distributed with the client
261 source code for a list of problems that are known to exist and may or may
262 not be fixed some day. If you find a bug that is not listed there, you
263 can refer to the BUG_FORM file that is also distributed with the source
264 code. It will give you instructions on how to fill out the report and
265 where to send it.
266
268 The online documentation probably should be in docbook form rather than
269 in the current help format. The entire help system is a hack.
270 This manual page only describes the options to epic, but doesn't tell you
272 what to do once you get connected.
273
275 Program written by Michael Sandrof (ms5n+@andrew.cmu.edu). The copyright
276 holder is Matthew Green (mrg@mame.mu.oz.au). This software is maintained
277 by Jeremy Nelson (jnelson@acronet.net) on behalf of the EPIC project
278 (list@epicsol.org).
279 At one time or another, this man page has been edited by Darren Reed,
281 R.P.C. Rodgers, the lynX, Matthew Green, and Jeremy Nelson.
282 April 22, 1999