A simple Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client implemented in C++98. The goal of this project is to provide a basic yet functional IRC client that allows users to connect to IRC servers, join channels, send and receive messages, and interact with other users in real-time.

# run the executable before running the tester
./ircserv <PORT> > <yourpassword>

./irc_test.sh <PORT> > <yourpassword>

• No crashes or unexpected quits.
• Must include a Makefile with rules: $(NAME), all, clean, fclean, re.
• Must compile with: c++ -Wall -Wextra -Werror -std=c++98.
• Use C++ equivalents of C functions where possible.
• No external libraries (including Boost).
• No forking. All I/O must be non-blocking.
• Must use exactly one poll() (or equivalent) to handle all I/O.
• Communication must happen over TCP/IP (IPv4 or IPv6).

• Executable name: ircserv

• Run as:

  ./ircserv <port> <password>

• Acceptable source files:

  • .cpp, .h, .hpp, .tpp, .ipp, optional config file

You can use: Everything in C++ 98. socket, close, setsockopt, getaddrinfo, freeaddrinfo, bind, connect, listen, accept, htons, ntohs, send, recv, signal, fcntl, getsockname, getprotobyname, gethostbyname, htonl, ntohl, sigaction, lseek, fstat, poll (or equivalent).

Your server must:

• Support multiple clients simultaneously.

• Allow clients to:

  • Authenticate (with password)
  • Set nickname and username
  • Join channels
  • Send/receive private and channel messages

• Forward all messages sent in a channel to all other participants.

• Distinguish between operators and regular users.

• User commands:
  • NICK, USER, JOIN, PRIVMSG, etc.
• Channel operator commands:
  • KICK: Eject user from channel
  • INVITE: Invite a user to a channel
  • TOPIC: View or change channel topic
  • MODE (with sub-modes):
    • i: Invite-only channel
    • t: Topic can only be changed by ops
    • k: Channel key (password)
    • o: Give/take operator status
    • l: User limit for the channel

• Handle partial reads/writes (e.g. messages arriving in segments).
• Parse and rebuild full commands before processing.
• The reference client should connect and work without errors, just like with a real IRC server.

Optional features:

• File transfers
• IRC bot

Using netcat:

nc -C 127.0.0.1 6667

Type input like:

com
man
d

(using Ctrl+D to simulate broken-up message delivery).

• Beej's Guide to Network Programming (Simple Stream Server)
• IRCDocs – Servers
• IRCDocs – ERR_NOMOTD (422)
• RFC 1459 – Internet Relay Chat Protocol (RFC Editor)
• IRCDocs – USER Message
• University of Chicago CHIRC – IRC Examples
• IRCDocs – CAP Message
• Irssi GitHub Repository