WeeChat IRC Client¶

WeeChat is a modern, terminal-based IRC client.

Installation¶

apt install weechat weechat-plugins

Configuration¶

Commands to join a chat channel:

/server add somename irc.example.com/6697
/connect somename
/join #somechannel
/nick somenick

Below you find some lines that can be useful to customize your ~/.weechat/irc.conf.

buffer_switch_autojoin = on
buffer_switch_join = on
highlight_channel = "$nick"
highlight_pv = "$nick"
nick_mode = prefix
server_buffer = merge_with_core
smart_filter_mode = "+"
nick_prefixes = "y:lightred;q:lightred;a:lightcyan;o:lightgreen;h:lightmagenta;v:yellow;*:lightblue"
autoreconnect_delay_max = 600
ban_mask_default = "*!$ident@$host"
whois_double_nick = off
nicks = "<nick>,<nick>_,<nick>__,<your_username>"
ssl_priorities = "NORMAL:-VERS-SSL3.0"
username = "<your_username>"
somename.addresses = "irc.example.com/6697"
somename.ssl = on
somename.autoconnect = on
somename.autojoin = "#somechannel"

Plugins¶

There are plenty of useful plugins to customize weechat, for instance

• buffer.pl: show sidebar with list of buffers
• notify.py: notifications for highlights and private messages

that can be loaded as follows

/script load <scriptname>

If you encounter any errors, you may need to install some dependencies first:

apt install weechat-scripts
apt install python-notify python-notify2

Usage¶

It's best to start weechat in a dedicated GNU screen session:

screen -S weechat
weechat

which you can then detach with Ctrl+A -> Ctrl+D, and re-attach later screen -d -r weechat.

Relay / Proxy¶

Weechat can act as small irc server to which other clients can connect. This allows to connect GUI and mobile clients to the same weechat backend to access all irc channels under the same username. When using this you should ensure that the relay is encrypted with an SSL certificate to avoid plaintext traffic over the internet. As this is an advanced topic we only sketch the important steps for the power users.

The following weechat commands activate the IRC proxy

/relay add ssl.irc.example 8001                 # activate ssl-encrypted irc relay for the server on port 8001
/set relay.network.passwort <randompassword>    # define a password for relay connections
/relay sslcertkey                               # (re-)load the
/save                                           # save configuration changes

Example snippet to execute when renewing Let's Encrypt certificates to update and reload the file in weechat:

cat /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem \
    /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem > \
    /home/johndoe/.weechat/ssl/relay.pem
chown johndoe:johndoe /home/johndoe/.weechat/ssl/relay.pem
printf '%b' '*/relay sslcertkey\n' > /home/johndoe/.weechat/weechat_fifo_*

Notifications¶

This example shows how to configure separate notification rules per channel. It will set the follwoing notification settings:

• notify about messages in all channes (global server setting)
• always notify in #important-channel
• never notify in #crowded-channel

/set weechat.notify.irc.example message
/set weechat.notify.irc.example.#important-channel all
/set weechat.notify.irc.example.#crowded-channel none

Possible options:

Highlights¶

To enable highlights, when a user sends a message important for all users like *: important msg for all... set the following parameter:

/set weechat.look.highlight_regex ".*\*:.*"

Set extra highlights on buffer¶

You can force highlight using a regular expression with the buffer property highlight_regex. For example to force the highlight on all messages in the current buffer:

/buffer set highlight_regex .*

The buffer property highlight_regex is not saved in configuration. You can easily save it with the script buffer_autoset.py:

/script install buffer_autoset.py
/help buffer_autoset
# highlight all messages in channel
/buffer_autoset add irc.example.#somechannel highlight_regex .*
# no hilights in channel `monitoring` by nick `xymon`
/buffer_autoset add irc.example.#monitoring hotlist_max_level_nicks_add xymon:0

Save all options:

/save

Filter¶

Enable smart filter for join/part/quit messages on a specific channel (example: #openldap):

/filter add irc_smart_openldap irc.freenode.#openldap irc_smart_filter *

You can hide only join or part/quit with following options:

/set irc.look.smart_filter_join on
/set irc.look.smart_filter_quit on

You can setup delay (in minutes), only filter if a nick did not speak during last 5 minutes:

/set irc.look.smart_filter_delay 5

You can use regex to filter any message. For example to filter all server messages for connecting/exiting clients:

/filter add irc_filter_connect_disconnect * * \*\*\* Client (connect|exit)ing: 

Get help:

/help filter