1EPIC(1)                   BSD General Commands Manual                  EPIC(1)
2

NAME

4     epic — Internet Relay Chat client for UNIX like systems
5

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

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

OPTIONS

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
22     -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
35     -B    Force the startup file to be loaded immediately rather than waiting
36           until a connection to a server is established.
37
38     -c chan
39           Join the specified channel the first time you successfully connect
40           to a server.
41
42     -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
50     -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
54     -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
58     -h    Display a moderately concise help message and exit immediately.
59
60     -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
76     -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
84     -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
90     -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
96     -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
101     -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
107     -q    Suppress the loading of any file when you first establish a connec‐
108           tion to an irc server.
109
110     -v    Output version identification (VID) information and exit.
111
112     -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
116     -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
127     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
133     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
140                 hostname:port:password:nick
141
142           Any item can be omitted by leaving the field blank, and any trail‐
143           ing colons can also be omitted.
144

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

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
152     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
156   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
164   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

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

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
176     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
180     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
186     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
195     epic nickname irc.efnet.net
196           If you're totally stumped and trying to get on efnet, try this.
197
198     epic nickname irc.undernet.org
199           If you're totally stumped and trying to get on undernet, try this.
200
201     epic nickname irc.dal.net
202           If you're totally stumped and trying to get on dalnet, try this.
203

FILES

205     /usr/local/bin/epic    the default location of the binary
206
207     ~/.ircrc               default initialization file
208
209     ~/.irc/                directory you can put your own epic scripts into,
210                            that can then be loaded with /load
211
212     /usr/local/share/epic  default directory containing message-of-the-day,
213                            master initialization, help files and epic scripts
214

THE HELP FILES

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

USEFUL WEB RESOURCES

228     <http://www.epicsol.org/> The EPIC home page
229
230     <http://help.epicsol.org/> The Online EPIC Help Pages
231
232     <http://www.irchelp.org/> Lots of great help for new irc users.
233

SIGNALS

235     epic handles the following signals gracefully
236
237     SIGUSR1    Closes all DCC connections and EXEC'd processes.
238

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

240     It can be helpful to predefine certain variables in in the ~/.cshrc ,
241     ~/.profile , or ~/.login file:
242
243     IRCNICK    The user's default IRC nickname
244
245     IRCNAME    The user's default IRC realname (otherwise retrieved from
246                /etc/passwd )
247
248     IRCSERVER  The user's default IRC server list (see server option for
249                details)
250
251     HOME       Overrides the default home page in /etc/password
252
253     TERM       The type of terminal emulation to use
254

SEE ALSO

256     ircd(8)
257

BUGS

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

ERRATA

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
271     This manual page only describes the options to epic, but doesn't tell you
272     what to do once you get connected.
273

AUTHORS

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
280     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
283                                April 22, 1999
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