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A file-based IRC client inspired byii(1).

I originally only intended to write a frontend for ii instead ofcompletely rewriting it from scratch. However, while working on thefrontend I noticed that I couldn't implement certain features in thefrontend without changes to the backend (ii). I briefly consideredpatching ii but ultimately decided for a rewrite. During the rewrite,various features have been implemented that are not supported by ii(e.g. various IRCv3 features, builtin TLS and IPv6 support, et cetera).

I currently consider hii feature complete and use it myself daily incombination withinsomnia and a per-serverrunituser service for automaticallystarting and supervising hii processes.

New features (compared to ii):

• Memory safety
• A proper IRC protocol implementation throughgirc
• Support for automatically joining channels on startup
• Support forIRCv3.2 monitoring
• Support for a per-channel nick list using a UNIX domain socket
• Support for recording messages mentioning the users
• Support for authentication using TLS client certificates (CertFP)
  • MostIRCnetworks support CertFP
  • This can be used in conjunction with theSASL EXTERNAL mechanism
• Built-in TLS support
• Built-in IPv6 support

Features intentionally not implemented:

• Automatic authorization using thePASS command isnot implemented (ii-k flag).
• Shortcut commands, e.g./j. If you need them write yourself a shellscript for mapping shortcut commands to real commands.

While hii has more features than ii it is still supposed to have a limitfeature set and shouldn't"expand until it can read mail".

Backwards compatibility with ii wasn't a goal. While the directorystructure is mostly backwards compatible everything else is pretty muchdifferent. This is the case because proper backwards compatibility wouldhave been a lot of work and I personally didn't need it.

The program can be installed either usinggo install ormake.

To install to the program usinggo install run the following command:

$ go install github.com/nmeum/hii@latest

Note that this will not install additional documentation files, e.g. man pages.

To install to the program usingmake run the following commands:

$ git clone https://github.com/nmeum/hii.git$ cd hii$ make && make install

This will also install documentation files to the correct location andmay thus be preferable when packaging this software for a distribution.

Q: Sockets cannot be used with standard utilities such asgrep(1).Why are nick names served using a unix domain socket anyhow?

A: Several ways of implementing a nick list have been considered.Using a regular file has various obvious disadvantages. For instance,the file would need to be truncated every time the nick list changes,which causes a lot of file system operation. Using a FUSE for servingthe nick list was also briefly considered, however, while this wouldallow interaction with standard utilities it would require linkingagainst FUSE and would complicate things quite a bit. Serving nicksusing a unix domain socket seemed to be a reasonable compromise.

Q: Why are mentions recorded in a separate file? Can't this beimplemented using inotify, kqueue, … in the frontend?

A: While this might certainly be possible it would complicate thefrontend code quite a bit. Implementing this in the backend was fairlyeasy and only required a few changes. Additionally, neither kqueue norinotify are mandated by POSIX.

Q: Can feature X/Y/Z be added to hii?

A: No.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify itunder the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by theFree Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at youroption) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, butWITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty ofMERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU GeneralPublic License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License alongwith this program. If not, seehttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/.