Startup HOWTO
To new Irssi users (not to new IRC users ..)
Copyright (c) 2000-2002 by Timo Sirainen
Index with some FAQ questions that are answered in the chapter:
1. For all the lazy people
2. Basic user interface usage
+ Split windows work in weird way
3. Server and channel automation
+ How do I automatically connect to servers at startup?
+ How do I automatically join to channels at startup?
4. Setting up windows and automatically restoring them at startup
5. Status and msgs windows & message levels
+ I want /WHOIS to print reply to current window
+ I want all messages to go to one window, not create new
windows
6. How support for multiple servers works in irssi
+ I connected to some server that doesn't respond and now irssi
keeps trying to reconnect to it again and again, how can I
stop it??
+ I want to have own status and/or msgs window for each servers
7. /LASTLOG and jumping around in scrollback
+ How can I save all texts in a window to file?
8. Logging
9. Changing keyboard bindings
+ How do I make F1 key do something?
10. Proxies and IRC bouncers
11. Irssi's settings
1. For all the lazy people
These settings should give you pretty good defaults (the ones I use):
I don't like automatic query windows, I don't like status window, I do
like msgs window where all messages go:
/SET autocreate_own_query OFF
/SET autocreate_query_level DCCMSGS
/SET use_status_window OFF
/SET use_msgs_window ON
Disable automatic window closing when /PARTing channel or /UNQUERYing
query:
/SET autoclose_windows OFF
/SET reuse_unused_windows ON
And example how to add servers:
(openprojects network, identify with nickserv and wait for 2 seconds
before joining channels)
/IRCNET ADD -autosendcmd "/^msg nickserv ident pass;wait -opn 2000" opn
Then add some servers to different networks (ircnet is already set up
for them), irc.kpnqwest.fi is used by default for IRCNet but if it
fails, irc.funet.fi is tried next:
/SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet irc.kpnqwest.fi 6667
/SERVER ADD -ircnet ircnet irc.funet.fi 6667
/SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet efnet efnet.cs.hut.fi 6667
Automatically join to channels after connected to server, send op
request to bot after joined to efnet/#irssi:
/CHANNEL ADD -auto #irssi ircnet
/CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots *!*bot@host.org -botcmd "/^msg $0 op pass"
#irssi efnet
If you want lines containing your nick to hilight:
/HILIGHT nick
2. Basic user interface usage
Windows can be scrolled up/down with PgUp and PgDown keys. If they
don't work for you, use Meta-p and Meta-n keys. For jumping to
beginning or end of the buffer, use /SB HOME and /SB END commands.
By default, irssi uses "hidden windows" for everything. Hidden window
is created every time you /JOIN a channel or /QUERY someone. There's
several ways you can change between these windows:
Meta-1, Meta-2, .. Meta-0 - Jump directly between windows 1-10
Meta-q .. Meta-o - Jump directly between windows 11-19
/WINDOW <number> - Jump to any window with specified number
Ctrl-P, Ctrl-N - Jump to previous / next window
Clearly the easiest way is to use Meta-number keys. And what is the
Meta key? For some terminals, it's the same as ALT. If you have
Windows keyboard, it's probably the left Windows key. If they don't
work directly, you'll need to set a few X resources (NOTE: these work
with both xterm and rxvt):
XTerm*eightBitInput: false
XTerm*metaSendsEscape: true
With rxvt, you can also specify which key acts as Meta key. So if you
want to use ALT instead of Windows key for it, use:
rxvt*modifier: alt
You could do this by changing the X key mappings:
xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L"
And how exactly do you set these X resources? For Debian, there's
/etc/X11/Xresources/xterm file where you can put them and it's read
automatically when X starts. ~/.Xresources and ~/.Xdefaults files
might also work. If you can't get anything else to work, just
copy&paste those lines to ~/.Xresources and directly call "xrdb -merge
~/.Xresources" in some xterm. The resources affect only the new xterms
you start, not existing ones.
Many windows SSH clients also don't allow usage of ALT. One excellent
client that does allow is putty, you can download it from
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/.
Irssi also supports split windows, they've had some problems in past
but I think they should work pretty well now :) Here's some commands
related to them:
/WINDOW NEW - Create new split window
/WINDOW NEW HIDE - Create new hidden window
/WINDOW CLOSE - Close split or hidden window
/WINDOW HIDE [<number>|<name>] - Make the split window hidden window
/WINDOW SHOW <number>|<name> - Make the hidden window a split window
/WINDOW SHRINK [<lines>] - Shrink the split window
/WINDOW GROW [<lines>] - Grow the split window
/WINDOW BALANCE - Balance the sizes of all split windows
By default, irssi uses "sticky windowing" for split windows. This
means that windows created inside one split window cannot be moved to
another split window without some effort. For example you could have
following window layout:
Split window 1: win#1 - Status window, win#2 - Messages window
Split window 2: win#3 - ircnet/#channel1, win#4 - ircnet/#channel2
Split window 3: win#5 - efnet/#channel1, win#6 - efnet/#channel2
When you are in win#1 and press ALT-6, irssi jumps to split window #3
and moves the efnet/#channel2 the active window.
With non-sticky windowing the windows don't have any relationship with
split windows, pressing ALT-6 in win#1 moves win#6 to split window 1
and sets it active, except if win#6 was already visible in some other
split window irssi just changes to that split window. This it the way
windows work with ircii, if you prefer it you can set it with
/SET autostick_split_windows OFF
Each window can have multiple channels, queries and other "window
items" inside them. If you don't like windows at all, you disable
automatic creating of them with
/SET autocreate_windows OFF
If you want to group only some channels or queries in one window, use
/JOIN -window #channel
/QUERY -window nick
3. Server and channel automation
Irssi's multiple IRC network support is IMHO very good - at least
compared to other clients :) Even if you're only in one IRC network
you should group all your servers to be in the same IRC network as
this helps with reconnecting if your primary server breaks and is
probably useful in some other ways too :) For information how to
actually use irssi correctly with multiple servers see the chapter 6.
First you need to have your IRC network set, use /IRCNET command to
see if it's already there. If it isn't, use /IRCNET ADD yourircnet. To
make Irssi work properly with different IRC networks, you might need
to give some special settings to /IRCNET ADD, see manual.txt for more
information about them. Irssi defaults to IRCNet's behaviour.
After that you need to add your servers. For example:
/SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet irc.kpnqwest.fi 6667
/SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet worknet irc.mycompany.com 6667 password
The -auto option specifies that this server is automatically connected
at startup. You don't need to make more than one server with -auto
option to one IRC network, other servers are automatically connected
in same network if the -auto server fails.
And finally channels:
/CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots *!*bot@host.org -botcmd "/^msg $0 op pass"
#irssi efnet
/CHANNEL ADD -auto #secret ircnet password
-bots and -botcmd should be the only ones needing a bit of explaining.
They're used to send commands automatically to bot when channel is
joined, usually to get ops automatically. You can specify multiple bot
masks with -bots option separated with spaces (and remember to quote
the string then). The $0 in -botcmd specifies the first found bot in
the list. If you don't need the bot masks (ie. the bot is always with
the same nick, like chanserv) you can give only the -botcmd option and
the command is always sent.
4. Setting up windows and automatically restoring them at startup
First connect to all the servers, join the channels and create the
queries you want. If you want to move the windows or channels around
use commands:
/WINDOW MOVE LEFT/RIGHT/number - move window elsewhere
/WINDOW ITEM MOVE <number>|<name> - move channel/query to another window
When everything looks the way you like, use /LAYOUT SAVE command (and
/SAVE, if you don't have autosaving enabled) and when you start irssi
next time, irssi remembers the positions of the channels, queries and
everything. This "remembering" doesn't mean that simply using /LAYOUT
SAVE would automatically make irssi reconnect to all servers and join
all channels, you'll need the /SERVER ADD -auto and /CHANNEL ADD -auto
commands to do that.
If you want to change the layout, you just rearrange the layout like
you want it and use /LAYOUT SAVE again. If you want to remove the
layout for some reason, use /LAYOUT RESET.
5. Status and msgs windows & message levels
By default, all the "extra messages" go to status window. This means
pretty much all messages that don't clearly belong to some channel or
query. Some people like it, some don't. If you want to remove it, use
/SET use_status_window OFF
This doesn't have any effect until you restart irssi. If you want to
remove it immediately, just /WINDOW CLOSE it.
Another common window is "messages window", where all private messages
go. By default it's disabled and query windows are created instead. To
make all private messages go to msgs window, say:
/SET use_msgs_window ON
/SET autocreate_query_level DCCMSGS (or if you don't want queries to
dcc chats either, say NONE)
use_msgs_window either doesn't have any effect until restarting irssi.
To create it immediately say:
/WINDOW NEW HIDE - create the window
/WINDOW NAME (msgs) - name it to "(msgs)"
/WINDOW LEVEL MSGS - make all private messages go to this window
/WINDOW MOVE 1 - move it to first window
Note that neither use_msgs_window nor use_status_window have any
effect at all if /LAYOUT SAVE has been used.
This brings us to message levels.. What are they? All messages that
irssi prints have one or more "message levels". Most common are PUBLIC
for public messages in channels, MSGS for private messages and CRAP
for all sorts of messages with no real classification. You can get a
whole list of levels with
/HELP levels
Status window has message level "ALL -MSGS", meaning that all
messages, except private messages, without more specific place go to
status window. The -MSGS is there so it doesn't conflict with messages
window.
6. How support for multiple servers works in irssi
ircii and several other clients support multiple servers by placing
the connection into some window. IRSSI DOES NOT. There is no required
relationship between window and server. You can connect to 10 servers
and manage them all in just one window, or join channel in each one of
them to one sigle window if you really want to. That being said,
here's how you do connect to new server without closing the old
connection:
/CONNECT irc.server.org
Instead of the /SERVER which disconnects the existing connection. To
see list of all active connections, use /SERVER without any
parameters. You should see a list of something like:
-!- IRCNet: irc.song.fi:6667 (IRCNet)
-!- OPN: tolkien.openprojects.net:6667 (OPN)
-!- RECON-1: 192.168.0.1:6667 () (02:59 left before reconnecting)
Here you see that we're connected to IRCNet and OPN networks. The the
IRCNet at the beginning is called the "server tag" while the (IRCnet)
at the end shows the IRC network. Server tag specifies unique tag to
refer to the server, usually it's the same as the IRC network. When
the IRC network isn't known it's some part of the server name. When
there's multiple connections to same IRC network or server, irssi adds
a number after the tag so there could be ircnet, ircnet2, ircnet3 etc.
Server tags beginning with RECON- mean server reconnections. Above we
see that connection to server at 192.168.0.1 wasn't successful and
irssi will try to connect it again in 3 minutes.
To disconnect one of the servers, or to stop irssi from reconnecting,
use
/DISCONNECT ircnet - disconnect server with tag "ircnet"
/DISCONNECT recon-1 - stop trying to reconnect to RECON-1 server
/RMRECONNS - stop all server reconnections
/RECONNECT recon-1 - immediately try reconnecting back to RECON-1
/RECONNECT ALL - immediately try reconnecting back to all
servers in reconnection queue
Now that you're connected to all your servers, you'll have to know how
to specify which one of them you want to use. One way is to have an
empty window, like status or msgs window. In it, you can specify which
server to set active with
/WINDOW SERVER tag - set server "tag" active
Ctrl-X - set the next server in list active
When the server is active, you can use it normally. When there's
multiple connected servers, irssi adds [servertag] prefix to all
messages in non-channel/query messages so you'll know where it came
from.
Several commands also accept -servertag option to specify which server
it should use:
/MSG -tag nick message
/JOIN -tag #channel
/QUERY -tag nick
/MSG tab completion also automatically adds the -tag option when nick
isn't in active server.
Window's server can be made sticky. When sticky, it will never
automatically change to anything else, and if server gets
disconnected, the window won't have any active server. When the server
gets connected again, it is automatically set active in the window. To
set the window's server sticky use
/WINDOW SERVER -sticky tag
This is useful if you wish to have multiple status or msgs windows,
one for each server. Here's how to do them (repeat for each server)
/WINDOW NEW HIDE
/WINDOW NAME (status)
/WINDOW LEVEL ALL -MSGS
/WINDOW SERVER -sticky ircnet
/WINDOW NEW HIDE
/WINDOW NAME (msgs)
/WINDOW LEVEL MSGS
/WINDOW SERVER -sticky ircnet
7. /LASTLOG and jumping around in scrollback
/LASTLOG command can be used for searching texts in scrollback buffer.
Simplest usages are
/LASTLOG word - print all lines with "word" in them
/LASTLOG word 10 - print last 10 occurances of "word"
/LASTLOG -topics - print all topic changes
If there's more than 1000 lines to be printed, irssi thinks that you
probably made some mistake and won't print them without -force option.
If you want to save the full lastlog to file, use
/LASTLOG -file ~/irc.log
With -file option you don't need -force even if there's more than 1000
lines. /LASTLOG has a lot of other options too, see /HELP lastlog for
details.
Once you've found the lines you were interested in, you might want to
check the discussion around them. Irssi has /SCROLLBACK (or alias /SB)
command for jumping around in scrollback buffer. Since /LASTLOG prints
the timestamp when the message was originally printed, you can use /SB
GOTO hh:mm to jump directly there. To get back to the bottom of
scrollback, use /SB END command.
8. Logging
Irssi can automatically log important messages when you're set away
(/AWAY reason). When you set yourself unaway (/AWAY), the new messages
in away log are printed to screen. You can configure it with:
/SET awaylog_level MSGS HILIGHT - Specifies what messages to log
/SET awaylog_file ~/.irssi/away.log - Specifies the file to use
Easiest way to start logging with Irssi is to use autologging. With it
Irssi logs all channels and private messages to specified directory.
You can turn it on with
/SET autolog ON
By default it logs pretty much everything execept CTCPS or CRAP
(/WHOIS requests, etc). You can specify the logging level yourself
with
/SET autolog_level ALL -CRAP -CLIENTCRAP -CTCPS (this is the default)
By default irssi logs to ~/irclogs/<servertag>/<target>.log. You can
change this with
/SET autolog_path ~/irclogs/$tag/$0.log (this is the default)
The path is automatically created if it doesn't exist. $0 specifies
the target (channel/nick). You can make irssi automatically rotate the
logs by adding date/time formats to the file name. The formats are in
"man strftime" format. For example
/SET autolog_path ~/irclogs/%Y/$tag/$0.%m-%d.log
For logging only some specific channels or nicks, see /HELP log
9. Changing keyboard bindings
You can change any keyboard binding that terminal lets irssi know
about. It doesn't let irssi know everything, so for example
shift-backspace can't be bound unless you modify xterm resources
somehow.
/HELP bind tells pretty much everything there is to know about
keyboard bindings. However, there's the problem of how to bind some
non-standard keys. They might differ a bit with each terminal, so
you'll need to find out what exactly the keypress produces. Easiest
way to check that would be to see what it prints in "cat". Here's an
example for pressing F1 key:
[cras@hurina] ~% cat
^[OP
So in irssi you would use /BIND ^[OP /ECHO F1 pressed. If you use
multiple terminals which have different bindings for the key, it would
be better to use eg.:
/BIND ^[OP key F1
/BIND ^[11~ key F1
/BIND F1 /ECHO F1 pressed.
10. Proxies and IRC bouncers
Irssi supports connecting to IRC servers via a proxy. All proxies have
these settings in common:
/SET use_proxy ON
/SET proxy_address <Proxy host address>
/SET proxy_port <Proxy port>
HTTP proxy
Use these settings with HTTP proxies:
/SET -clear proxy_password
/EVAL SET proxy_string CONNECT %s:%d\n\n
BNC
/SET proxy_password your_pass
/SET -clear proxy_string
/SET proxy_string conn %s %d
dircproxy
dircproxy separates the server connections by passwords. So, if you
for example have ircnet connection with password ircpass and
openprojects connection with opnpass, you would do something like
this:
/SET -clear proxy_password
/SET -clear proxy_string
/SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet fake.ircnet 6667 ircpass
/SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet opn fake.opn 6667 opnpass
The server name and port you give isn't used anywhere, so you can put
anything you want in there.
Irssi proxy
Irssi contains it's own proxy which you can build giving --with-proxy
option to configure. You'll still need to run irssi in a screen to use
it though.
Irssi proxy is a bit different than most proxies, normally proxies
create a new connection to IRC server when you connect to it, but with
irssi proxy all the clients use the same IRC server connection (a bit
like how screen -x works).
Irssi proxy supports sharing multiple server connections in different
ports, like you can share ircnet in port 2777 and efnet in port 2778.
Usage in proxy side:
/LOAD proxy
/SET irssiproxy_password <password>
/SET irssiproxy_ports <ircnet>=<port> ... (eg. ircnet=2777 efnet=2778)
NOTE: you MUST add all the servers you are using to server and ircnet
lists with /SERVER ADD and /IRCNET ADD. ..Except if you really don't
want to for some reason, and you only use one server connection, you
may simply set:
/SET irssiproxy_ports *=2777
Usage in client side:
Just connect to the irssi proxy like it is a normal server with
password specified in /SET irssiproxy_password. For example:
/SERVER ADD -ircnet ircnet my.irssi-proxy.org 2777 secret
/SERVER ADD -ircnet efnet my.irssi-proxy.org 2778 secret
Irssi proxy works fine with other IRC clients as well.
SOCKS
Irssi can be compiled with socks support (--with-socks option to
configure), but I don't really know how it works, if at all. /SET
proxy settings don't have anything to do with socks however.
Others
IRC bouncers usually work like IRC servers, and want a password. You
can give it with:
/SET proxy_password <password>
Irssi's defaults for connect strings are
/SET proxy_string CONNECT %s %d
/SET proxy_string_after
The proxy_string is sent before NICK/USER commands, the
proxy_string_after is sent after them. %s and %d can be used with both
of them.
11. Irssi's settings
You probably don't like Irssi's default settings. I don't like them.
But I'm still convinced that they're pretty good defaults. Here's some
of them you might want to change (the default value is shown):
Queries
/SET autocreate_own_query ON
Should new query window be created when you send message to
someone (with /msg).
/SET autocreate_query_level MSGS
New query window should be created when receiving messages with
this level. MSGS, DCCMSGS and NOTICES levels work currently.
You can disable this with /SET -clear autocrate_query_level.
/SET autoclose_query 0
Query windows can be automatically closed after certain time of
inactivity. Queries with unread messages aren't closed and
active window is neither never closed. The value is given in
seconds.
Windows
/SET use_msgs_window OFF
Create messages window at startup. All private messages go to
this window. This only makes sense if you've disabled automatic
query windows. Message window can also be created manually with
/WINDOW LEVEL MSGS, /WINDOW NAME (msgs).
/SET use_status_window ON
Create status window at startup. All messages that don't really
have better place go here, like all /WHOIS replies etc. Status
window can also be created manually with /WINDOW LEVEL ALL
-MSGS, /WINDOW NAME (status).
/SET autocreate_windows ON
Should we create new windows for new window items or just place
everything in one window
/SET autoclose_windows ON
Should window be automatically closed when the last item in
them is removed (ie. /PART, /UNQUERY).
/SET reuse_unused_windows OFF
When finding where to place new window item (channel, query)
Irssi first tries to use already existing empty windows. If
this is set ON, new window will always be created for all
window items. This setting is ignored if autoclose_windows is
set ON.
/SET window_auto_change OFF
Should Irssi automatically change to automatically created
windows - usually queries when someone sends you a message. To
prevent accidentally sending text meant to some other
channel/nick, Irssi clears the input buffer when changing the
window. The text is still in scrollback buffer, you can get it
back with pressing arrow up key.
/SET print_active_channel OFF
When you keep more than one channel in same window, Irssi
prints the messages coming to active channel as "<nick> text"
and other channels as "<nick:channel> text". If this setting is
set ON, the messages to active channels are also printed in the
latter way.
/SET window_history OFF
Should command history be kept separate for each window.
User information
/SET nick
Your nick name
/SET alternate_nick
Your alternate nick.
/SET user_name
Your username, if you have ident enabled this doesn't affect
anything
/SET real_name
Your real name.
Server information
/SET skip_motd OFF
Should we hide server's MOTD (Message Of The Day).
/SET server_reconnect_time 300
Seconds to wait before connecting to same server again. Don't
set this too low since it usually doesn't help at all - if the
host is down, the few extra minutes of waiting won't hurt much.
/SET lag_max_before_disconnect 300
Maximum server lag in seconds before disconnecting and trying
to reconnect. This happens mostly only when network breaks
between you and IRC server.
Appearance
/SET timestamps ON
Show timestamps before each message.
/SET hide_text_style OFF
Hide all bolds, underlines, MIRC colors, etc.
/SET show_nickmode ON
Show the nick's mode before nick in channels, ie. ops have
<@nick>, voices <+nick> and others < nick>
/SET show_nickmode_empty ON
If the nick doesn't have a mode, use one space. ie. ON:
< nick>, OFF: <nick>
/SET show_quit_once OFF
Show quit message only once in some of the channel windows the
nick was in instead of in all windows.
/SET lag_min_show 100
Show the server lag in status bar if it's bigger than this, the
unit is 1/100 of seconds (ie. the default value of 100 = 1
second).
/SET indent 10
When lines are longer than screen width they have to be split
to multiple lines. This specifies how much space to put at the
beginning of the line before the text begins. This can be
overridden in text formats with %| format.
/SET activity_hide_targets
If you don't want to see window activity in some certain
channels or queries, list them here. For example
"#boringchannel =bot1 =bot2". If any highlighted text or
message for you appears in that window, this setting is ignored
and the activity is shown.
Nick completion
/SET completion_auto OFF
Automatically complete the nick if line begins with start
of nick and the completion character. Learn to use the
tab-completion instead, it's a lot better ;)
/SET completion_char :
Completion character to use.
