Irssi is a command-line IRC chat program (can be used via SSH!)

Irssi is a linux IRC chat program which can be used via SSH (since its command-line/terminal based).
Here is a nice introduction/tutorial on using Irssi.

I highly recommend reading the guide linked above, but here’s some simple commands I used for installing on Ubuntu (should be able to use yum or whatever on other systems):

1. ssh myserver.com # SSH into your server
   
2. sudo apt-get install -y irssi # Install irssi
   
3. irssi # Test it out
4. echo “alias irc=’irssi'” >> ~/.bashrc # Create an alias for using IRC (optional)
5. source ~/.bashrc # Resource the alias
6. echo “/connect irc.efnet.org” > ~/.irssi/startup # Add any user-specific startup commands to ~/.irssi/startup (optional)

Simple startup notes: To switch between windows/channels use Alt+left and Alt+right. To switch between servers, switch to the server output window and press Ctrl+x.

It’s like using emacs or nano for text editing, because it resides entirely in a command-line/terminal window. So now whenever I feel like using IRC, I just SSH into the server I installed irssi onto and use IRC there. You’ll never need to install IRC on a machine again, just keep it on a server somewhere then SSH in!

Both screenshots were made when I was using Putty within Windows.