Ubuntu Tutorials

I’ve previously posted a number of tutorials concerning the coolest chat clients in the universe, irssi + bitlbee. Bitlbee has seen some recent improvements, including a rewrite of the jabber codeset and addition of chat-room support for the IM clients. This mean you can now join jabber conference rooms within bitlbee.

I initially wrote most of these details the other day while the blog was having some downtime, and my initial notes are available on the Ubuntu Community Wiki – Bitlbee. I wanted to post some of the steps here as well. If you have any additions please add them to the wiki.

Preparations

The latest jabber improvements and chat room support are included in the latest development build of bitlbee. This means we’ll have to compile the latest code from source. If you’re afraid of compiling you can stop here. I’ve tried to make the steps as painless as possible, but this does required some compilation so you’ve been warned.

Also, if you currently have Bitlbee installed you may want to remove it. A package build and a custom build can cause some problems.

We’ll need some build dependencies first:

sudo aptitude install build-essential libgnutls-dev libglib2.0-dev xinetd

Next we’ll need to get a copy of the 1.1.1dev code set. This should be available here:

wget -c http://get.bitlbee.org/src/bitlbee-1.1.1dev.tar.gz

We’ll then unpack it and start the building:

tar xf bitlbee-1.1.1dev.tar.gz
cd bitlbee-1.1.1dev
./configure
make
sudo make install

(Details on custom building is available on the wiki).

Tweaks

Now, since this isn’t a nicely built package there are still a couple of things we have to configure before we can really get going. For one we have to configure the xinetd service, which will handle the service, and we need to set proper ownership on a few files. Let’s dive in.

The Bitlbee service uses the folder /var/lib/bitlbee for storing its data. On a custom installation like this we need to create that by hand and set ownership on it:

sudo mkdir /var/lib/bitlbee
sudo chown nobody. /var/lib/bitlbee

note: if you previously had bitlbee installed this folder will exist, but there may be an ownership conflict. Make sure the owner of this folder matches that of our xinetd service in the next step.

At this point we can configure the xinetd service. We do this by creating a file:

sudo vim /etc/xinetd.d/ircd

and then adding the following content:

service ircd
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = nobody
server = /usr/local/sbin/bitlbee
port = 6667
disable = no
}

As noted above, the “user” definition needs to exist and match the ownership of the folder we setup above. Once you’ve saved this file you need to restart the xinetd service and you should be ready to go:

sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd restart

Now, in your client you can connect to localhost and configure Bitlbee as normal. To join a jabber chatroom use this as an example:

join_chat [account] [protocol] [chat room] [&room alias] [nick]
join_chat 0 jabber jabber@conference.jabber.org &jabber zelut

I’ve been hearing about the Irssi IRC client for some time and I finally took some time over the weekend to seriously look into it. After the initial learning curve that often comes with a new application (and a terminal based application at that!) I’m hooked on Irssi. I’m using it as my main IRC client and I also use it to access my other IM networks (ie; Jabber) that you read about in my previous post.

Before I get into some steps that I used to cut down my learning curve I wanted to link into the Irssi writeup on the community documentation page. Props go to my good friend Aaron for putting that writeup together and for telling me about Irssi.

First of all you’ll want to install the irssi client.

sudo aptitude install irssi

Second you’ll simply start up the program using the command

irssi

Now you’ll be presented with a very basic, terminal-looking interface. You’ll want to connect to your favorite IRC network using a command similar to that below.

/connect irc.freenode.net

Irssi will then connect to that freenode network. Of course you can replace that command with any network of your choice and you can connect to multiple networks by repeating that command for each. note: there is also a /server command that acts in a similar fashion however it limits you to a single server connection.

A few quick tips on setting up Irssi for auto-login, auto-connect and auto-identify.

To set your IRC nick use

/nick MyIRCNick

To auto-connect to freenode or another network and identify yourself.

/SERVER ADD -auto -network freenode irc.freenode.net 6667 password

Another method of auto-identifying is seen below. The above is generally preferred.

/NETWORK ADD -autosendcmd "/^msg NickServ IDENTIFY password;wait 2000" freenode

Lastly, to auto-join a channel at connection use

/CHANNEL ADD -auto #ubuntu freenode

There are many other commands you can use and Irssi is *very* flexible. I’m a big fan now as it offers me a lot of control and flexibility. If you haven’t yet I do suggest you go back and read the community writeup at the docs irssi page.

If you enjoy irssi you can stop by to say thanks in the #irssi channel or give a quick hello to me and my team in #ubuntu-utah. Enjoy!