IRC Protocol Command Enhancements

Exchange 2000 Chat Service provides many enhancements to the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol defined in Request for Comments (RFC) 1459. This section updates the information contained there.

The enhanced commands are listed below:

• Lusers
• Mode
• Names
• Notice
• Privmsg
• Silence

In addition to these enhancements, Chat Service now provides support for IRCX commands, the unicode character set, and a more flexible interpretation of user masks.

Note   IRCX supports the use of unicode characters encoded in UCS (unicode character set) Transformation Format 8 (UTF-8). Because unicode provides an extended character set, users running an IRCX-compatible client can participate in chat sessions in any language. For complete information, see RFC 2044 and the IETF draft IRCX.

All chat users, including system operators (chat sysops), typically issue protocol commands from the command line of a chat client. You can also use an application such as Telnet to issue these commands directly through one of the server's chat ports (6667 and 7000, by default). Although this method is not commonly used, it provides protocol status information that can help you troubleshoot a server or connection.