Purrito

Using irssi with ssh and screen

Okay, I’m writing this for a friend, but I guess anyone can use it.

So you want to be a cool hardcore IRC-user that’s online 24/7, even when your computer is off. The only way to do this is to run your IRC remotely via a server somewhere. The requirements for this server is:

• An Internet-connection (duh)
• OpenSSH
• screen
• irssi

First, connect to your server. If you’re using Mac OS X or Linux you can run it via your terminal:

ssh username@server.com

If you’re on Windows I recommend PuTTY Tray.

Then you have to make a “screen”, the screen’s job is to make the irc-client run even when you close your SSH-session.

screen -S "SomethingThatsEasyToRemember"

Then you just have to start irssi with the command irssi, and you’re done. If you’re not used to irssi, check out the documentation on their website.

To go back to irssi after you’ve closed your SSH-session, open up a new session and write this to re-attach your screen:

screen -rd "SomethingThatsEasyToRemember"

Note: Usually -r is enough to re-attach the screen, but the ‘d’ deattaches the screen if it’s used in another SSH-session.