.TH II 1 ii\-VERSION
.SH NAME
ii \- irc it or irc improved
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B ii
is a minimalistic FIFO and filesystem based IRC client.
It creates an irc directory tree with server, channel and
nick name directories.
In every directory a FIFO file (in) and normal file (out)
is placed. This will be for example ~/irc/irc.freenode.net/.
The in file is used to communicate with the servers and the out
files includes the server messages. For every channel and every nick
name there will be new in and out files.
The basic idea of this is to be able to communicate with an IRC
server with basic command line tools.
For example if you will join a channel just do echo "/j #channel" > in
and ii creates a new channel directory with in and out file.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ii
.RB < \-s
.IR host >
.RB [ \-p
.IR port ]
|
.RB < \-u
.IR sockname >

.RB [ \-i
.IR ircdir ]
.RB [ \-n
.IR nickname ]
.RB [ \-f
.IR realname ]
.RB [ \-k
.IR "environment variable" ]
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BI \-s " servername"
server/host to connect to, for example: irc.freenode.net
.TP
.BI \-p " port"
lets you override the default port (6667)
.TP
.BI \-u " sockname"
connect to a UNIX domain socket instead of directly to a server.
.TP
.BI \-i " ircdir"
lets you override the default irc path (~/irc)
.TP
.BI \-n " nickname"
lets you override the default nick ($USER)
.TP
.BI \-f " realname"
lets you specify your real name associated with your nick
.TP
.BI \-k " environment variable"
lets you specify an environment variable that contains your IRC password, e.g. IIPASS="foobar" ii -k IIPASS.
This is done in order to prevent other users from eavesdropping the server
password via the process list.
.SH DIRECTORIES
.TP
.B ~/irc
In this directory the irc tree will be created. In this directory you
will find a directory for your server (default: irc.freenode.net) in
which the FIFO and the output file will be stored.
If you join a channel a new directory with the name of the channel
will be created in the ~/irc/$servername/ directory.
.SH COMMANDS
.TP
.BI /a " [<message>]"
mark yourself as away
.TP
.BI /j " #channel/nickname [<message>]"
join a channel or open private conversation with user
.TP
.BI /l " [reason]"
leave a channel or query
.TP
.BI /n " nick"
change the nick name
.TP
.BI /q " [reason]"
quit ii
.TP
.BI /t " topic"
set the topic of a channel
.SH RAW COMMANDS
.LP
Everything which is not a command will be posted into the channel or to the server.
So if you need /who just write /WHO as described in RFC#1459 to the server in FIFO.
.SH SSL/TLS PROTOCOL SUPPORT
.LP
For SSL/TLS protocol support you can connect to a local tunnel, for example
with stunnel or socat.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR echo (1),
.BR tail (1)