dircproxy IRC Proxy

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Yesterday, I wrote about my need to be always connected to an IRC channel in order to keep a log of the chat even when I don’t follow the conversation in real-time. Under the given circumstances and not taking into account the possibility to keep my desktop machine always on, so XChat can log everything, the only way to accomplish this task seemed to be the use of an IRC bot. But…

I was told that I might need to get some kind of special permission in order to use a bot on IRC Networks. I can very well understand why there might be rules about the usage of bots and, taking into account my basic knowledge of the IRC world, I started looking for a bot alternative, before even using a bot…

…and I run across dircproxy, which seems to be exactly what I need. dircproxy is an IRC Proxy Server. When the IRC client, eg XChat, connects to the actual IRC server through dircproxy for the first time, dircproxy creates a connection class for the proxied connection. Even if the user disconnects its IRC client, dircproxy will continue to log channel and private messages and other events. Whenever the IRC client reconnects through dircproxy and provides a pre-defined password, the previous session is resumed and the client may get all the logged messages. So, to sum it up, the advantages of using dircproxy are:

  1. Even if you disconnect the IRC client, no private or channel messages are lost.
  2. You can connect through your IRC proxy with any client and from any workstation and see all the messages you have missed.

Besides, being always connected to an IRC network involves some risks, so one might wonder if dircproxy works with anonymous networks like tor. As it is stated in the FAQ, it works.

Definitely, very interesting software!

So, the task I need this for (message logging) does not make dircproxy much different than an IRC bot. However, I hope that the use of dircproxy is completely transparent, so I will not have to ask for any special permissions in order to connect to the IRC network through it.

I have only read the information that is available on the dircproxy website. I have not actually tested the software yet. I’ll report back when I do.

dircproxy IRC Proxy by George Notaras is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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About George Notaras

George Notaras is the editor of the G-Loaded Journal, a technical blog about Free and Open-Source Software. George, among other things, is an enthusiast self-taught GNU/Linux system administrator. He has created this web site to share the IT knowledge and experience he has gained over the years with other people. George primarily uses CentOS and Fedora. He has also developed some open-source software projects in his spare time.

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2 responses on “dircproxy IRC Proxy”

  1. Aggelos Orfanakos Permalink →

    When I want to log everything while being away, I use irssi (my IRC client of choice) with screen. But, indeed, dircproxy is a nice solution I’ve used in the past.