Panix Help System: IRC and identd

Identifying yourself to IRC

Many remote servers rely on identd to let people in. Some systems run it as a default. Because we at Panix feel that it is not in the interests of our customers' privacy to automatically give out such information, our version sends encoded information unless you set it to send clear text. The default behavior is to NOT give out your identity.

Some IRC servers want the clear text value.

If you wish to have your identity (Panix login name) made available to remote servers, you can create ~/.oidentd.conf and tell the ident server you wish to allow sending of your actual username.

For example, to set up your account so that you can access ident-requiring IRC servers, create the file ~/.oidentd.conf with the following contents:

  global {
    reply YOURUSERNAME
  }

Replace the "YOURUSERNAME" with your actual username.

After editing the file, the permissions need to be set so the ident server can read it. This includes permissions on your home directory so files can be accessed.

  chmod +r ~/.oidentd.conf
  chmod o+x ~

For more details on ~/.oidentd.conf, see "man oidentd.conf".