Introduction to IRC Services

Services are an essential interface for any IRC network. In addition to the IRCD (the main program on a server that runs the IRC network), the service program acts as an interface between users and the server itself. In addition, it has several bots that provide key functions for the network. These bots fill a variety of tasks--handling user names, channel management, and a private memo system among many other things. BadnikNET uses the Anope IRC Services package in conjunction with custom modules for its IRCD to provide a wide variety of features. The six main bots used on BadnikNET are:

• BotServ
• ChanServ
• HostServ
• MemoServ
• NickServ
• OperServ

Basic Information

Service bots interact with you through the server window, unless you have configured your IRC client to do so otherwise. There, you will see messages relating to your service commands when entered. There are three different ways to use service commands on BadnikNET--sending a full query, using the name of the service as a command, or using the two-letter abbreviation of a service as a command. For instance, if you want to send a command to NickServ to regiser a nickname, all of the following work:

• /msg NickServ register ...
• /NickServ register ...
• /ns register

In this guide, the proper "/msg NickServ" format will be used, but bear in mind that the command can be shortened. You can also get a list of full comands that each service provides by using the help command (i.e., /msg NickServ help). Additional help on specific commands can be retrieved by adding the command's name to the help command (i.e., /msg NickServ help register).