How do IRC clients, shells and bouncers work?

Question

let's say I take free shell and start irssi with the nick: nick_test and of course nick stays online 24/7, right?

But if I connect with my IRC client, like mIRC or xchat and set my nick to nick_test I'm not be able connect because the nick will be taken, right? I need a bit infomation.

Answer 1

you misunderstand IRSSI to some extent - IRSSI is merely a CLI irc client, you access over a remote terminal app. What you're asking for is called a bouncer - effectively a persisitant 'proxy' type programme that remains connected to the network, and relays to another irc client when connected. pybnc is a common one.

I'd note not all irc networks or shells support pybnc, and your milage may vary in terms of performance

Answer 2

Following on from @Journetman Geek 's answer, what you are talking about is indeed a bouncer. But even in a free shell that does not provide a bouncer, you can still stay online with your nick even if you are not actually logged into the shell. The trick is to use screen.

Start up a screen session and start irssi from within it. Then, when you want to log out, don't /quit from irssi but deattach from screen (use C-a d) and then logout of the shell. When you login back into the shell again, just start screen to reattach to the running session (use screen -raAd). Thus your nick stays online even though you are off the shell.