#Using the chat.sr.ht bouncer

For full details, refer to the soju(1) man page. Information about common use-cases is provided here.

#Connecting with a third-party IRC client

Check out the quickstart for experienced IRC users for details on configuring your own IRC client for use with chat.sr.ht.

#Managing your IRC networks

The webchat at chat.sr.ht provides a UI for managing your bouncer networks. On the chat.sr.ht tab, you can add new network using the Add network button on the top-right of the screen.

When a new network is added, a tab is created for it and there you can join a channel using the Join channel button or manage the network settings using the Manage network button.

Third-party clients with soju support may detect the bouncer and offer similar functionality. If not, you can also message BouncerServ to configure soju. Use /msg BouncerServ help for a full list of supported commands.

To add a new IRC network via BouncerServ:

/msg BouncerServ network create -addr <hostname> [options...]

See soju(1) for details on the supported options.

#Authentication

In IRC, communicating with a user requires knowing their "nickname" ("nick" for short). Traditionally, IRC would allow users to pick any nick they like -- even one commonly used by someone else. Today, in order to "register" a nick so that others cannot use it, a system called SASL is used. See Nickname Registration for details on how to register a nickname on Libera Chat.

chat.sr.ht uses SASL to automatically log you in to the networks you use, and prompts you for your login details when you first connect to a new network.

If you didn't provide your SASL credentials when connecting to the network, you can do it afterwards by going into the network tab you want to authenticate and click the authenticate link.

Additionally, SASL can be manually configured for soju(1) using BouncerServ; see the sasl command (try /msg BouncerServ help sasl set-plain).

Note that IRC networks are independent with regards to nickname registration; you must register your nickname manually for every IRC network you use. Beware that your nickname may be registered by someone else on a network already, and that nickname registrations may be inconsistent across the networks you use (a nickname may be registered on one network but available on another).

Unfortunately, not all networks support SASL. There are alternative methods for nickname management, which are not recommended but in such cases necessary. The effectively-universal but now-legacy system is NickServ, an IRC bot which can be messaged to control it (to try using it, send it the message "help"). Note that there is an independent instance of NickServ on every network. To log in using NickServ, you have to message it an "IDENTIFY" command every time you connect to a network. This can be automated using advanced configuration within soju, BouncerServ provides the -connect-command network option for this:

/msg BouncerServ net update <network> -connect-command "PRIVMSG NickServ :IDENTIFY <password>"

CertFP is another commonly-available system, but can be difficult to set up for the first time -- see the libera.chat guide, and then the certfp command within BouncerServ.

The OFTC network is relatively popular, and currently does not provide SASL support. This is why chat.sr.ht does not prompt the user for SASL-based login details when connecting to it.

#Detaching from channels

You can instruct the bouncer to "detach" from a channel. This causes it to be hidden from your channel list, but to leave your connection to the channel active. If you're mentioned by a user in this channel, you will receive notifications for it, and if you re-join later, you will be able to view logs of discussions which took place in your absence.

To detach from a channel, use the /part detach command, or /msg BouncerServ channel update <name> -detached=<true|false>.

#Client-specific configuration

Various configuration recommendations for third-party IRC clients are documented here: contrib/clients.md.

#Chat history logs

chat.sr.ht saves logs for all your discussions. Chat history can be fetched via the IRCv3 chathistory extension. For instance, the following command fetches the latest 100 messages sent to the #sr.ht channel:

/quote CHATHISTORY LATEST #sr.ht * 100

To mirror logs locally, chathistorysync can be used.