SWIRC(1) General Commands Manual SWIRC(1)

swirc — curses icb and irc client

swirc [-46?CPRSdipv] [-W password] [-c server[:port]] [-j join] [-n nickname] [-r rl name] [-u username] [-x config]

swirc is a BSD licensed, console based and lightweight ICB and IRC client written in C/C++, whose goals are to be portable and secure.

Use IPv4 addresses only
Use IPv6 addresses only
-?
Output help
Do not change color definitions. If the terminal used to run swirc supports >= 256 colors and can_change_color(3) is true swirc uses init_color(3) to initialize the extended IRC color palette. Which may or may not already be set correctly by the terminal. This option is useful in case the terminal look strange after exit, which is possible to fix by simply restarting it.
Permanently disable SASL authentication. If specified, the effect is final (i.e. it overrides any config file value.)
Disable TLS/SSL peer verification
Force TLS (Transport Layer Security)
password
Equal effect as flag -p but operates in a non-interactive manner. Be careful if you are using this option on a public computer with multiple other users because the password will then be visible to them in the output of ps(1).
server[:port]
Connect to given server. If the port is omitted port 6667 will be chosen. And if the port is 7326 ICB mode is turned on automatically. Further, if the port is 6697 swirc attempts to initiate a TLS/SSL connection.
Debug logging
Turn on Internet Citizen's Band mode
join
A comma-separated list of channels to join. For example: 
-j libera,linux,c,c++
nickname
Online nickname
Server password (for private servers). However: InspIRCd has a module called password forward, which means that if a server password is specified by this flag, it will be used to identify to . If so: connect with a TLS/SSL connection, i.e. an encrypted connection, to prevent your password from being disclosed in clear text. swirc also supports IRCv3 SASL authentication which is probably a better alternative.
rl name
Your real name
username
Your username
Output swirc version
config
Config file

Move to beginning of line
Move to end of line
Move cursor backward
Move cursor forward
Delete
Clear readline input. Also useful to trigger terminal resize signal.
Per window basis toggle logging on/off and works while IRC connected
Next window
Previous window
Scroll up
Scroll down
History previous
History next
Spell word
Scroll nicklist up
Scroll nicklist down
Close window
Close all private conversations

Blink
Bold
Color
Normal
Reverse
Underline

On OpenBSD pledge(2) is used per default in order to force swirc into a restricted-service operating mode. This since version 1.1. Further, as of 2.3, pledge(2) is used in combination with unveil(2).

~/.swirc/swirc.conf
swirc configuration file
~/.swirc/default.thm
swirc default theme
~/.swirc/log/error.log
swirc error log

swirc.conf(5), swirc.theme(5)

The first version of swirc was released in mid 2016. Starting from Debian 12 (Bookworm) swirc is available for multiple architectures via Debian's official APT repository. And on OpenBSD version 6.7 and greater swirc can be installed by using pkg_add(1).

swirc was written by Markus Uhlin <markus.uhlin@bredband.net>

https://github.com/uhlin/swirc/issues

If many errors regarding "In perform_convert_buffer: characters lost: Illegal byte sequence" are present in the error log, then additional encodings for your locale should be installed. See locale(1) for supported character encodings. swirc can handle and are looking for:

Unfortunately some operating systems have decided to only support the UTF-8 character encoding.

October 22, 2023 Debian