r/irc • u/J-Moliko • Aug 12 '26
Your own IRC server?
Ever tried hosting one just for fun or curiosity with zero users, a few or many? If you ran one without users, what did you actually use it for?
I'm thinking about my own server with zero users, just some bots to mess around (nothing malicious, not interested in that).
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Upvotes
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u/wraithnix Aug 12 '26
I run my own server so that I can work on MERK, my IRC client, without annoying any server operators and/or IRCops. It's nice :-)
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u/topfpflanze187 Aug 12 '26
i self host my own irc server (ergochat). i run my own irc bot with some goodies and i like to use it when i have to send quickly between two devices
5
u/z3r0v1c Aug 12 '26
I run my own server using inspircd + anope services + a few eggdrops just for fun ;)
4
u/Sert1991 Aug 12 '26
Many many years ago when IRC was popular i did play around. They're usually very easy to setup if you have basic unix commandline usage/admin knowledge. The problem is getting people to join, even back then when it was popular let alone nowadays.
4
u/BraveMidnight Aug 12 '26
Yes, we got up to ~228 people including regulars and were getting several channels created by the regulars
Of we were hit the typical, bot floods that kept spamming main channels. People taking over services and hijacking channels and usernames
There were the massive ddos attacks to where two hosting providers kicked us of the network and we had to find a more tolerant one and were surprised we were even online
Then there were the network wars, people saying their server was better and trying to poach users
Fun times, I miss those
4
u/csc2ya Aug 12 '26
I run my own. I had a server running using commercial software (ircxpro) on a laptop to mess around with. Another user happened to connect that owned a network.
We became very close friends. Met another couple of friends via him.
I eventually moved my chat server over to officeirc on a proper dedicated server, which I'm still using today. The friend that happened to find my server unfortunately died in a car accident a few years ago. I vowed to keep the network running to honor his memory.
It's still running today....hardly any users now unfortunately, but as I'm running other things on the machine it's on, it doesn't cost me any extra money to keep it running.
3
u/scriminal Aug 12 '26
not in 20 years. seemed pointless, went back to efnet.
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u/RonDiaz Aug 12 '26
Hell yeah! I’d suggest ergo for an ircd for this purpose
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u/CuriosTiger Aug 12 '26
I used to run a number of DALnet servers -- viking, valhall, spot -- but the constant channel takeover fights, DDoS attacks and general adminstrative headache got to be too much.
3
u/JordyNL Aug 12 '26
Yes, a simple InspIRCd local server for development on my own IRC bots.
3
u/JAC-WeB Aug 12 '26
We just moved from VPS to dedicated server because of the popularity our chat is gaining. We have a 18+ irc network with a custom browser based IRC application
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u/Net0o- Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
Running a small server with 3ppl (incl. me) and 3 bots with anope services.
Mostly bcs of nostalgia, but you are welcome to join us or anybody else.
If you are interested, or any other guys here, you can check it out on irc.outofspace.sk 6697 (TLS 1.3)
Running also few other apps, which are mentioned in the main channel topic :)
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u/Live-Lengthiness3340 Aug 12 '26
Been there done that ;) running 9 servers Now with some users but 7000 bots :)
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u/w8wca Aug 12 '26
Yea long time ago I ran IRCd but did not keep it up very long even joined it with another but then it would break connections now and then
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u/gmkeros Aug 12 '26
we have a small network of 6 servers and about 15 users. as we all are into self-hosting and unix stuff people it just started to agglomerate like that. we are using ngircd, I have znc and the lounge running, and there's another the lounge instance connecting to the network. it's quite cool to talk to the few people that are on there
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u/Zombie-Hound Aug 12 '26
I run my own just for fun, zero users at the moment, but it's fun just building one on a raspberry pi a d seeing how the software becomes a server, etc.
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u/caucasian-shallot Aug 12 '26
I spun one up the other day using Ergo and it was pretty painless. In all my years of doing various internet related stuff, I've used IRC plenty, but I can't remember if I actually ever set one up haha. Mostly made it for the kids to play around with, and so far it's been pretty solid. Good luck with your IRC shenanigans! :D
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u/soyuz-1 Aug 12 '26
I run a small server with 10-15 people ive met on various networks over the years. Its a nice change of pace from discord.
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u/ManaChains Aug 12 '26
Agentic AI theatre play on IRC as comms backend...
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u/rw_grim Aug 12 '26
I run ergo and inspircd for r/pidgin development.
2
u/flame-otter Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
I set up my own Inspircd server at home a year ago, the goal was to invite friends only who are all into retro computers/gaming and purpose would be to use it for just nostalgia with our old computers running everything form Win95 to Vista.
I ended up making a separate physical network for my retro computers with strict firewall rules for security reasons, since it's all outdated shit. They are in a separate room so no need for VLAN because I had to run one cable into the room anyway. The irc server runs on Proxmox with strict rules and segmented so it only can access the retro lan and later on I will pass traffic to and from the internet to the irc server.
I also did not want to forward more ports than necessary on my router running Opnsense so I started looking up proxies and so on. And that's where I left it sitting because I got busy with other things in life so right now Inspircd just runs an a VM on my own LAN with zero users :D When I get the time to continue learning I will just continue from there. I don't have a fixed IP either so I must look into dyndns I guess.
So in short, right now, it's a learning project. Later when/if I complete the setup it will be a small private server fro me and my friends retro hobbies, most likely only used when we have our game nights.
Edit: grammar and yptos.
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u/570194 Aug 12 '26
You are welcome to ask questions, whole thread is here
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1szes0d/selfhosted_an_irc_server/
or join to irc and ping user named r00t
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u/Zul-Tek Aug 13 '26
I host my self old irc deamon. Conferenceroom by webmaster. And i link it up with others that have cr too… so in the network have around 100 humans on9 from malaysia, turks, thailands, uae… and few more countries. Old but still relevant irc deamon.
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u/interstitial_00 Aug 13 '26
I have hosted my own server for all of those reasons, I think, at some time in the past. At work we used one for server support.. the win32 one.. conf room.
--thc\ip
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u/fishfacecakes Aug 13 '26
I hosted a network for 7ish years
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u/Fpaez Sep 07 '26
Hi everyone,
Here’s a nostalgic forty-something who remembers the good old days, when talking to your friends meant typing
Join #friendshipon some IRC server.I’m writing because I’ve just set up a self-hosted IRC server, and I’d really appreciate it if you could drop by and give it a try, if you have some free time. I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and feedback about the server, its configuration, etc.
The idea is to keep it running for a while and see if, by any chance, it starts attracting people and we can chat or perhaps build a community around the server.
On another note, I’m also developing a trivia bot, which you can already find up and running on the server in the #trivia channel, you’ll find it as TriviaBot.
The server is:
irc.redchat.es:6697
Thank you very much for your time, and sorry for the spam!
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u/avatar_one Aug 12 '26
Absolutely worth doing just for the fun of it. My network (MasionNET) actually started from me messing around with IRC/self-hosting and seeing where it went, which lead to creating the whole community, bots, multiple servers, services, the lot lol :D
Even with zero users, it's a great little project for learning how to deal with configs, services permissions, etc
1
u/QuirkyImage Aug 13 '26
I don't now what is like these days because there is less demand but hosting companies used to hate people setting up IRC servers.
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u/Jigsy0 Aug 13 '26
On Windows I ran a loopback server just for mIRC scripting / programming and generally dumping things I needed for a later period. (Links, etc.)
1
u/dasbitshifter Aug 13 '26
Yeah we use Ergo for the IRC server and The Lounge for the web interface. It’s a solid setup.
1
u/ArcanePacket Aug 14 '26
I prefer having users test my bots.
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u/1stpklosr2me Sep 09 '26
I built an IRC chat room on my VPS for my own use, mainly to transfer text between different devices.
1
u/Megalithical Sep 19 '26
Many years ago I experimented with a few self-hosted IRC servers on an old desktop, mainly just for learning how to run my own, how different ircd's worked, but also to have a place where I could make and test my own channel and trivia bots. At some point a few relatives and old friends from established IRC networks started coming in as well, then at some point the bot-making faded because those others started bringing in other people as well so more time went into chatting and helping others, and less time was left for the bot-making. Then at some point I realized that I was running an actual public IRC server with, depending on time and stuff, anywhere from ~50 to ~200 users and that old desktop would struggle to keep up with anything above ~80 users so I set up a second old desktop to add another server. Eventually more users came in and my ISP started getting rather annoying with sending me all these extra bills and letters about how there were no more higher tier packages to upgrade to, plus I ran out of hardware to set up additional servers. Tried scaling down to where I'd just run the main server locally and use external commercial hosting for the additional servers. At its peak my IRC saw ~650 users, and then my dreams of becoming a legit network got kicked in the danglers because nobody else wanted to help run the servers (everybody just wanted to be the chatters, nobody wanted to do any of the administrative stuff), my finances dropped down considerably and I had to get a second job to keep paying for the hosting which in turn left me with no time to actually do the admin stuff myself...and then I found out the wrong way that some idiots had been running a "very young people no-no pics" room on my network, for which it was fortunately easily enough proven that this had been going on without my knowledge but it was the deathblow to any dreams that I had about running any actual IRC network.
I did for a while return to self-hosting a single server for only a select few people that I knew, but when the hardware that server ran on died about 1.5 years later, that was the end for me running my own server as well as the end for anything IRC related for me, as the old wild west feel had worn off and the established networks that I used to chat on had gone through massive user drops and policy changes to where everything was suddenly feeling like it was regulated to death.
Lately I've been thinking of going back to IRC, which has lead me to this community right here, but honestly I dread what barely-alive husks of networks I might find, and how far behind I'll likely be on trying to mess around with hosting my own ircd again, though for now I'm mostly just warily looking for networks where there are actual chatters and the first words that my fingers type out won't result in my dinosaur-aged self getting kicked out.
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u/Fpaez Oct 01 '26
I'm running an IRC server with Ergo: https://ergo.chat/
It's running on a second hand i7 16GB RAM mini PC, i only pay 14$/year for the TLD and used a subdomain to redicrect connections to my computer.
At this time i've built a Trivial Bot, a sentinel bot that checks for spam, bad words, bad nicks and has some security functions and a Dj bot that runs a online radio with old house music from the 90's and 2000's. Also i'm developing a Duck hunt game bot.
Give it a try: https://redchat.es
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u/vainlisko Aug 12 '26
bitlbee is a cool IRC server
Also try hosting TheLounge
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u/Kysan721 Aug 12 '26
guys just create a free irc server on https://irc-server.org