About

An explantion about what this system does and how it works.

What is irssiusers?

Have you ever had the problem that you miss messages on IRC because your IRC client shuts down when your PC shuts down? One solution for that is to have a machine that runs 24/7 to host your irssi client in a screen instance, but what if you don't have access to such a machine?

This is where irssiusers comes in. This system allows a machine to be dedicated to hosting irssi clients and only that will it do. What this means is that when you login to your user via SSH, you will enter a closed environment where the only thing you can access is your irssi client. So no shell access. It also provides a web interface for you to manage your public keys.

How it works

On the new user page you can make a request for a client. This means that you need to provide some information. The information needed is minimal and consists of:

Your user name: Will also be your nick on IRC, but it can be changed in irssi after registration.
Your e-mail address: Where you will receive a notification when your client is ready.
A password: You need a password to log in to the web interface.
An SSH public key: The public key will be used to authenticate you and encrypt your traffic when you log in to SSH.
A description of that public key: To make it easy for you to identify your public keys when you use multiple.

...

Add a user

You can add a user on the New user page. There you can provide a username, an SSH public key and a description of that key. When you click on the add user submit button your client will be set up and started.

Learn how to create an SSH key pair on Linux or with PuTTY.

Connect to your client

You can connect to your client using SSH:

ssh <username>@irssi.frack.nl -p 2200

(Where <username> is your own username.)

Add a host to your SSH config file

To avoid having to type the entire command every time you want to connect, it is recommended to add a host to your SSH config file. The file you need is ~/.ssh/config. If the file does not exist you can create it yourself. For the purpose of connecting to your client you can add the following to your config file:

Host irssi
    User <username>
    Port 2200
    HostName irssi.frack.nl

Now you can connect to your client by using the command ssh irssi.

Disconnect from your client

You can disconnect from your client by pressing CTRL + A, D or by simply closing your terminal.

Contact

If you encounter any problems/bugs on the website or if you have issues with your Irssi client, you can contact me on IRC, my nickname is nixhoofd, or by e-mail.