IRC

From Linuxhelp Wiki

**The TCP/IP Stack**
Application layer	HTTP, SMTP, FTP, SSH, IRC, etc.
Transport layer	TCP, UDP, SCTP, RTP, DCCP, etc.
Network layer	IPv4, IPv6, ARP, ICMP, etc.
Data Link Layer	Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g WiFi, Token ring, FDDI, etc.

[edit]

Introduction

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a protocol for a real-time chat system for the Internet. It has been around a long time, but became really popular in the early 1990's during the Gulf War when users would join channels to get real-time updates on the war effort. IRC is broken into hundreds of different "networks" each inter-connected with their own "servers". A user joins a particular network through one of it's servers and can join "channels", which are virtual chat rooms.

There are many applications and servers for Linux that allow you to host your own IRC server or join a currently existing one. Some of the more popular ones are as follows:

[edit]