IRC Network Structure. reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boristhefish · 2012-11-18 16:17 How is the network structured? Are there a set number of known networks with multiple servers? What are the more well known networks? Also any other good to know irc info if you want to through it in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- arcalion · 2012-11-18 16:51 Multiple, separate networks - there aren't a set number of known networks, because it's fairly easy for anyone to set up their own servers and link them together. netsplit.de has some graphs of the top known networks though - their homepage has the top 10 listed by usercount. Most "networks" will have multiple servers - otherwise they'd be a server, not a network :) The top three used to be Efnet, Undernet, and DALnet - these days QuakeNet and IRCnet are larger than those along with a few other top contenders in the top 10. Each one kind of has its own flavor and politics. Shameless plug for DALnet where I'm on the staff :P ---------------------------------------------------------------------- faghat · 2012-11-18 17:21 For larger IRC networks there are often between 5-20 "links" that normal users can connect to (For example, Rizon has 19 links. In this case, if you connected to irc.rizon.net you would get routed to the best server for you and the network, such as irc.shakeababy.net if you were in the UK and the server had a low load.). There are also sometimes pseudo servers that services are on. This allows for easy management and other funky stuff I'm not really sure on. These servers are then connected together by hubs. There are often several hubs connected together which links together all the servers that the users are on. These hubs are "hidden", as in, you don't know their IP etc (helps prevent DDoS which could wipe out 1/5th of the network, instead of DDoSing one link that would wipe out 1/19th). It's because of these hubs that sometimes you can have massive netsplits - normally when just one link splits you'd have 1/19th of the network gone, but if a hub splits then you could have 1/5th of the network go. For more info you can go [here](http://searchirc.com/) and [here](http://irc.netsplit.de/). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boristhefish · 2012-11-18 18:14 >Shameless plug for DALnet where I'm on the staff :P I was under the impression that IRC networks were largely amateur and voluntarily setup. How would an IRC network make a profit? Also I am assuming that regardless of what server you connect to, as long as it is on the same network you can join the same channels? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boristhefish · 2012-11-18 18:18 Now the different networks are completely different correct? What I mean is that if you are on Rizon and someone else is on DALnet the channels available for those two networks will be completely different and those two users will not be able to communicate. But if both users were connected to DALnet but one was connected via irc.DALnet.net and the other was connected via irc.GenericServer.net they would see the same channels and be able to communicate? As long as both of those servers (irc.GenericServer.net and irc.DALnet.net) are part of the DALnet network. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- faghat · 2012-11-18 18:26 That's entirely correct. There's no way to talk to someone on DALnet if you were on Rizon (unless there was a bot on both networks that relayed messages... but whatever). Using Rizon as an example (it's my main network so I'm gonna use that, sorry), their server list is [here](http://wiki.rizon.net/index.php?title=Servers). Someone connected to irc.x1n.org would be able to talk to someone on irc.exopowered.com or irc6.lolipower.org because they're all linked together with the hubs I talked about in the first post. ----------------- As a side note, I'm sure someone on one network could talk to someone on another network if they linked their hubs together (though there would be compatibility issues with IRCd/services so I assume they'd need to be running the same software for this to work). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boristhefish · 2012-11-18 18:30 Thank you for all your help. As a side note I have an additional question and since you seem to know so much I who better to ask. What do you use IRC for other then chatting and maybe file sharing? I am curious about it and want to use it more but am wondering if there are capabilities that it has that I am simply not familer with. Also is it important to always hide your ip as soon as you join an IRC server? Are there any basic things you always do when you join an IRC server? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- faghat · 2012-11-18 18:34 The servers are run by random people, and the server owners will think "hey, let's be part of an IRC network!", and they'll get in contact with the owner of their desired IRC network. If the server is good enough then the IRC network will first link it as a testlink (say, a userlimit of 1,000 people to make sure it's stable, not letting the opers get the network map (they'd link the new server to one of the links already in existence, instead of linking it straight to a hub)) and if it's good enough it will become a normal link. The servers are always donated and the server owners will become opers on the network. There will be some donations but nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the whole network, or even just one server - one of the opers on Rizon said his server alone costs "about £220 a month, but thats discounted due to years of business with my datacanter". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- faghat · 2012-11-18 18:41 Well you can't really do much else on IRC other than talking to people or sending files. I've seen people link IRC channels to their Battlefield/CoD server (so you can see what people say on IRC while you're in-game and vice versa) but that will require a plugin/making some code from scratch - and often you'd need a modified game client anyway ;) Some channels are just logging channels (Run your own wiki? You can use a bot to monitor recent edits and display them in your channel) but most are indeed for regular talk with other people. Personally I always hide as much as I can (Rizon masks your IP as soon as you log in but I also hide my channel list and such, too) but it depends on the IRCd and what sort of umodes it has (With some, hiding your IP is done with +x, sometimes it's +I etc). It's not really important but I do it out of habit. The worst that can happen is you piss someone off and they decide to DoS you, in which case, just reset your router and get a new IP... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PriceChild · 2012-11-18 18:49 You might be surprised to find out the size of freenode. We're not a "general chat" network and have quite a specific purpose - Free & Open Source Software as well as discussion for Peer Directed Projects. If you're after support for your favourite GNU/Linux distribution for example then you might be pointed to us! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- arcalion · 2012-11-18 19:11 Yeah, I don't think any of them make a profit. They are for the most part voluntarily setup - though I'm not sure I'd use the word amateur, since a lot of the people involved in the running of an IRC network are network engineers or other IT professionals. It's amateur in the sense that it isn't a business venture. Sometimes a company will sponsor a server and name it after their company as a means of advertising, though. And yeah (though answered below), you can join the same channel as long as you're on the same network. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boristhefish · 2012-11-19 01:49 thank you for taking the time to sort me out with all this info. I want to get into IRC more because it is such a good way to meet up with people on the internet who are a bit more savy then an average user. Thanks again mate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-19 03:21 Freenode right now is the most popular IRC network. It is much better than other IRC networks, and its troll count is very low. Along with the recent reforms in its main social channel #defocus, the retirement of the super secretive underground troll network, and the ease of access to spam-killers, *freenode* is better than ever. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boristhefish · 2012-11-20 02:09 >the retirement of the super secretive underground troll network can you elaborate more on this? you make it sound like it was a movement or a cabal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-23 01:24 It was. It was a movement against the ops. It was nasty last year. Spam was everywhere, besides the spam from the bigot chimpout forums bigots and their racist links. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-28 21:28 Some companies have support channels on IRC so they donate servers/money to a network. Most people usually donate to the network. IRC is an icreadbiyl simple protocol, I think XMPP is taking over with people but uses a lot more bandwidth. Some charaties also host IRC networks to co-ordinate disaster relief. You could connect to IRC (and possibly through a bouncer) on the flakiest connections Edit: There also used to be a lot of people selling "shells" which people would buy for IRC. Usually people would have their channels on an IRC network for support. These seem to have died out now that people are stopping using IRC for botnets.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-29 17:05 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-29 17:09 More people are using XMPP based services. Facebook Chat, Google Chat etc Theres no way to query these servers to see who is using it though ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-29 17:16 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2012-11-29 17:26 We use conferencing where I work, I use a IRC to XMPP gateway to make my life easier (because I'm more used to IRC)