IRCHelper.co.uk
Please note: This information is *not* guaranteed 100% correct - please email me any errors.

Oper Help

NOTE: This document is primarily intended for Net Operators. There isn't much use in reading this if you're not an operator, although we won't stop the curious from reading anyway.

A detailed list of commands can be found here

This document tries to explain some facts about how the IRC servers operate, explains handy Net Operator commands (and non-oper commands which are still useful), tries to explain how to use commands like /SQUIT and /CONNECT, and details the workings of services, mostly OperServ.  This document is NOT concerned with the ethical side of being an IRC Operator, ie. when use of channel or user mode overrides is acceptable, when to DROP and GETPASS or SETPASS nicks or channels, when a /KILL or AKILL is justified, or anything else. See the IRCop Guidelines for this

Server operation - a list of commands.  There are quite a few commands. Make sure to understand at least /CONNECT, /SQUIT, /STATS c, /STATS k, /WHOWAS and /WALLOPS, these are the most useful commands (and /KILL :-) ). In time, you'll understand all the other commands, by learning them from others, or learn them by reading this. Just keep this document handy as a reference.  Also, note that many commands listed here are also available to non IRC Operators. But as they still are quite useful, they're listed anyway.

Remember that your irc client may not pass your commands correctly to the server because of standard alias's or they use the command themselves.  If this is the case use /quote <command> or /raw <command>.

/CLOSE
The CLOSE command forces the server to close all unknown connections. Unknown connections are connections on which it is still not known whether the person connecting is an user, or a server. This will not disconnect anyone from IRC who is already connected.  I haven't seen any useful use of this command yet, but you might want to try as a last resort (aside from a /RESTART) if the server seems to act weirdly and refusing to accept connections, or /LUSERS shows an usually high number of unknown connections.  Many clients have reassigned /CLOSE to an internal function, so to send this command to the server, use /QUOTE (or /RAW) CLOSE  This command unfortunately can't be used to close half-open connections caused by a SYNflood

/CONNECT <new server> <port> <start server>
Forces a server to connect to another server. If you use CONNECT with one or two parameters, this will force your server to connect to the other server. If you give a third parameter, this will send the connect command to that server (remote connecting).   See server linking for more information,

/DIE
The /DIE command terminates the server completely. All open connections are closed, everyone is disconnected. A server will NOT come back up by itself after a /DIE (unless the server admin is using a script that checks if the ircd is alive, and reboots it if it isn't). /DIE should only be used in cases where the server is better off not running, like clients being randomly disconnected, or the server going crazy and disrupting the rest of the network. Try to inform everyone on your server, and all IRC operators, that your server will be terminated, before using /DIE Server admins may choose not to enable /DIE.

/GLOBOPS <message>
This will send a message to all online IRC Operators, and former-operators, who set mode -o, but still have +g enabled. (off-duty? :-) ) Normal users can not see messages sent via /GLOBOPS. Some clients might not get this command right, so if words are missing, or other strange things happen, use an alias

ircII:      alias globops globops :$-
mIRC:   alias globops globops : $+ *1

/HELP
Lists all the commands that the server accepts.  Many clients reassign /help so its best to use /raw help or /quote help.

/KILL <nick> <mode>
Sends a KILL message to a user, which will cause the user to be disconnected from IRC. At times, you will see a message like KILL changed from ... to ..., this means that the user has changed nicks, and the servers have changed the nick to kill accordingly. (This makes sure users can't escape kills by changing nicks quickly)

/KLINE <mask> <reason>
Sets a temporary K-line, on your server only. A K-line will make it impossible for the user to connect to your server - when he tries so, it will see the message K-Lined, and the reason.  You can't kline by nick!user@host, only by user@host. Don't try to use !s in /KLINE masks.  Please note that most clients don't handle this command correctly - reasons longer than one word are cut off. Unless you have an alias to correct for this, use KLINE like this:
/QUOTE KLINE <mask> :<reason>.   Don't forget the `:', otherwise the kline comment will still be cut off.  Suggested aliases for popular irc clients are:

ircII:<\B>      alias kline quote kline $1 :$2-
mIRC:<\B>   alias kline quote kline $$1 : $+ *2

/MAP
Shows a map of the network, the number of users per server, and the percentage each server has of the global. (I know the percentages don't add up to 100%, no need to keep mentioning that to me :) )

/MODE <Channel><mode>        (Channel modes)

Changing channel modes
Usage: /MODE channel parameters

The following table contains a subset of channel modes - Click for a complete list

/MODE <nick> <mode>     (User modes)

See here for user modes

/MSG mask message
The /msg (and /notice) command have some extra options, which allow you to send notices to a large group of users. Use a destination starting with a # if you want to send the message to all people with a certain hostmask, and start with $ if you want to send the message to people on a certain server, or servers.   Examples:

/OPER <name> <password>
Gives operator privileges, and enables a lot of modes.

/REHASH
This forces the server to reload the configuration files. This is useful if you have made changes to ircd.conf (if you have access to it) or when you need the internal AKILL list cleared (it happens at times that an expired AKILL isn't removed from your server, so you can /REHASH to also clear your servers memory). Note that /REHASH removes AKILLs from the memory of your server, but if they're still in OperServ's memory, OperServ will readd the akill if a user matching it comes online.

/RESTART
This restarts the server. The server will close all open connections, disconnect everyone (all servers and clients, including you!), and try to restart. Inform all online operators before issuing this command, as rerouting might be necessary, especially if you're a hub. /RESTART should only be used as a last resort, if all else fails. Do not use a /RESTART lightly.  Note that servers may disable /RESTART completely, and that it can happen (memory errors, or CPATH incorrectly set up by the server admin at compilation) that the server will NOT come back to live. (and someone has to restart the server manually, by using the "ircd" command on the machine the server is running on).  Most likely, you will never have to use /RESTART.

/UPING <server>
This sends a series of pings directly to the server (not via the IRC network routing).  This is useful for determining the best/fastest network topology.  The results of the pings are displayed.

/UNKLINE <mask>
Removes a temporary K-line which was originally set /KLINE.  /UNKLINE does not remove AKILLs, or permanent K-lines set by the server admin (in ircd.conf).   Suggested aliases for popular irc clients are:

ircII & mIRC:   alias unkline quote unkline $1

/STATS <stats> <server>

/SQUIT <server> <reason>
Breaks a link between server. This will break the link between two servers, and send out a WALLOPS with the reason you've specified. Wildcards are accepted, so /SQUIT ult* would disconnect ultratech.mo.us.dreamwave.org. But make sure that the wildcards you use only matches one possible server.  See server linking for more information.

/TRACE <nick/server> <start server>

The TRACE command is used to trace the path from your current server to the specified server or user.

When the destination is a server, TRACE will also return information about current server and operator connections, incoming connections (with negative class numbers), and the number of users in each class. The oper connections contain the connection class, the nickname, and user@hostmask for the oper. For server connections, it shows the connection class, the number of servers behind it (followed by "S"), the number of clients on and behind it (followed by "C"), the server name, and what was responsible for connecting it.

When the destination is a user, TRACE shows the connection class, nickname and user@hostmask for that user.

/WALLOPS <message>
This sends a message to all people with mode +w enabled. Keep in mind that non-operators can read these messages too!

/WHO <parameters>
This displays a list of on-line users who meet certain search criteria.  Remember that people normally invisible to you wont show up in these searches.

The <parameters> are as follows:

You can also type /who ? for this list of options

Examples:

/WHOWAS <nick>
Whowas is similair to /WHOIS, but is used to look in the nickname history. If someone changes nicks, or leaves irc, the old nick is stored in the database.   This makes /WHOWAS very effective to track down people who try to hide by changing nicks. First do a /WHOWAS on the old nick. This will give you the hostname of the user, and you can then use this hostname in a /WHO request.  (eg, if /WHOWAS told you the user was unilynx@grngn1-p15.worldonline.nl, you could use /WHO #grngn1-p15* to find the new nickname of the user)

/VERSION <server>
This command requests version information from a server, or your current server if you don't specify information. You can use /VERSION if you think servers are behaving weirdly, and think it might be caused by incompatible versions, or if you want to know the compilation options of the server.  Behind the version response, you'll see a string like AcDefFghIj. Every character corresponds to a server compile-time option, and you can use this information to gather a bit more information about server compilation.  

/UPING <server> <port> <start server> <pings>
This command sends out a serie of PINGs to a server (using methods similair to the unix "ping" command). If you only specify a server name (wildcards ok), it will send out 5 pings to that server, and report the number of successful pings, and ping times, to you.  If you want to ping from a remote server, you have to specify a server, a port (always use port 7007), and a server to start the pinging from. You can, as a fourth parameter, specify the number of pings, although you can never have the server send out more than 20 pings with a single UPING.  UPING should be used if a server link seems to be slow, and you want to see if there's a better link available - you would UPING all possible links for that server, and see if any link is faster.  Note that servers will only UPING servers to which they can actually connect. If you try to have a server UPING another server to which it can't connect, you'll receive an error message complaining about the server not listed in the configuration file.  See server linking for more information.

/LIST <Parameter>

Usage

on ircII: /QUOTE LIST parameters
on mIRC : /RAW LIST parameters

Where parameters is a space or comma separated list of one or more of:

Example: LIST <3,>1,C<10,T>0 ; 2 users, younger then 10 min., topic set.

Security considerations
Keep your password secure.  Although obvious, this can not be emphasized enough. Many people don't realize that things like running scripts can expose them to risks. Even a simple, and a regularly used mIRC event like 1:ON TEXT:!nick:*:/dcc send C:\mirc\wavs\ $+ $1  is known to make all files on your C: drive accessible - including your mirc.ini files, which usually contains your /oper and nick password!  It is very wise to not run any script, but if you really have to, be very, very careful. In mIRC, usually /dcc send events, and events that allow users to execute any command remotely, are dangerous. All other clients have similar risks - running no script is usually the safest of all.   On a multiuser UNIX system, keep your .ircrc secure, if that is where you store your password. The command chmod 600 .ircrc  should keep this file safe, but there's still the problem of  running an insecure copy of ircii itself, a root which can't be trusted, hackers, etc...  And of course, packet sniffers that read all data, can pick up passwords. You can't protect against every possible password steal attempt, but do whatever you can.

Restrict the O-line
Your server admin has the option to limit the hosts at which /OPER can be used. Have the admin limit it to as few hosts as possible. If you're on a static IP, only add that single host.

Don't use the same password twice
Never, ever, use an important password at multiple places. O-lines have been hacked before, by ignorant users using the same password they used for /oper, as an access password on a bot run by someone else...  Also, if you have a backup O-line on a second server, then be sure to use a different password on that server.

Use different NickServ and /OPER passwords.
Most services commands also require NickServ authentication, so making the NickServ password different is a bit more secure. Also, be sure to /msg NickServ SET OPER ON, which will protect your nick from expiring, so it can't be re-registered (or used by someone impersonating you)

Other nickserv options
Unless you are on a static IP, enable secure. (If you are on a static IP, then do update the access list - usually NickServ chooses a mask like user@*.isp.com, change that to user@slip12.isp.com - the exact hostname used. It's probably best to enable SECURE even if you are on a static IP)

Vacation
If you won't be on IRC for a while, notify other operators, so they know you're gone, and will get suspicious if someone will try to impersonate you while you are gone. Even better is asking your server admin to disable your O-line while you are gone.

Many of the recommendations and risks outlined here may seem to be a bit far-fetched, but please, take any security measures possible. One single oper password hack can cause enormous amount of damage to the network.

Produced by Capt, Summer  2000, based on many documents and a study of the actual code:

Last changed 1998 Feb 23 09:43:09 by Arnold Hendriks.
Regenerated 1998 Jun 19 18:33:41. Copyright © 1998 Xnet IRC Network.