How can I find out what IRC Daemon a certain server is running?

Question

To get an overview on IRC, I wanted to find out what kind of IRC server software/daemon (like unrealircd) runs on a certain server.

Is there a possibility to get this information?

Answer 1

In most clients you can type '/quote version' or just '/version' and it will query the server, which by default on most IRCds will respond with the info, like:

-> Odd server stuff: "351 InspIRCd-1.2 hub.yourdomain.com :FreeBSD hub.yourdomain.com 6
.2-RELEASE (InspIRCd-1.2.1) [FLAGS=0,kqueue,196]" (hub.yourdomain.com)
005 WALLCHOPS WALLVOICES MODES=19 CHANTYPES=# PREFIX=(ohv)@%+ MAP
MAXCHANNELS=20 MAXBANS=60 VBANLIST NICKLEN=31 CASEMAPPING=rfc1459
STATUSMSG=@%+ CHARSET=ascii : are supported by this server
005 TOPICLEN=307 KICKLEN=255 MAXTARGETS=19 AWAYLEN=200 CHANMODES=b,k,l,
BMNRcimnprstz FNC NETWORK=hubns MAXPARA=32 ELIST=MU EXTBAN=,MRNcB SAFELIST
SECURELIST SSL=204.14.231.5:6697 :are supported by this server 
005 STARTTLS USERIP : are supported by this server

Answer 2

this command tells you something about the server.

C:\nmap>nmap -P0 -sV -p6667 irc.undernet.org

Starting Nmap 5.51 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-09-03 18:07 GMT Daylight Time
Nmap scan report for irc.undernet.org (208.83.20.130)
Host is up (0.14s latency).
Other addresses for irc.undernet.org (not scanned): 64.18.128.86 66.198.80.67 66
.252.29.2 70.33.251.254 77.247.181.225 94.125.182.255 95.141.29.22 130.237.188.2
16 194.109.20.90
rDNS record for 208.83.20.130: Tampa.FL.US.Undernet.org
PORT     STATE SERVICE VERSION
6667/tcp open  irc     ircu ircd

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.
org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.55 seconds

C:\nmap>