Quassel IRC

Quassel IRC (also referred to as Quassel; derived from the German verb quasseln, "to chatter" ) is a distributed cross-platform IRC client licensed under the GPL.
Architecture
Quassel IRC is based on the client-server model: The core application can be placed onto a server which is connected to the Internet around-the-clock; one or more clients then connect to the core.
This way, the connection to IRC can be kept up even when all clients have been closed.
The combination of screen and WeeChat as well as served as example for this architecture.
There is also an alternative version available which combines core and client into one binary. This application behaves like a typical IRC client; it doesn't need separate core management for example.
Other project using this model
* Smuxi
Features
Quassel IRC can establish simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers.
Nicknames, away reasons and the likes are managed via identities.
To facilitate use of complex or often-used commands, aliases can be defined.
Advanced features are a "chat monitor" which displays discussions of a (configurable) selection of channels and a website preview for sites linked to in the conversation.
Backlog
Quassel IRC stores the backlog into an SQLite or PostgreSQL database. When scrolling the chat view, older parts of the backlog are loaded into the chat view on-demand. This allows for effortless reading of the past discussion.
The backlog can be exported by an unofficial python script, unfortunately it requires the core to be shutdown and to have been using SQLite. Searching older discussions is not easily possible at the moment.
Security
The connection between client and core can be encrypted using SSL.
Other notes
Quassel IRC is included as the default IRC client in Kubuntu 9.04 and 9.10.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu