🛰️ ft_irc – Internet Relay Chat Server

📌 Project Overview

ft_irc is a C++98 implementation of an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server.
The goal of this project was to dive deep into network protocols, socket programming, and non-blocking I/O by building a custom IRC server that communicates with standard IRC clients.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is one of the oldest real-time messaging protocols, supporting channels, private messaging, and operators. This project helped me understand how Internet protocols work at a low level while practicing clean, efficient, and standard-compliant C++ coding.

---

🛠️ Features Implemented

• Handle multiple simultaneous clients with non-blocking I/O.
• Client authentication using nickname and username.
• Join and manage channels with message broadcasting.
• Private messaging between users.
• Support for channel operators with commands:
  • KICK → Remove a user from a channel
  • INVITE → Invite a user to a channel
  • TOPIC → View or update a channel’s topic
  • MODE → Manage channel modes (invite-only, topic restriction, password, operator privileges, user limits).

---

⚙️ Technical Details

• Language: C++98 (mandatory for the project).
• Compilation: c++ -Wall -Wextra -Werror -std=c++98.
• I/O Handling: poll() (or equivalent like select(), kqueue(), epoll()).
• Protocol: TCP/IP (IPv4 or IPv6).
• Restrictions:
  • No forking.
  • No external libraries or Boost.
  • Clean, stable codebase required.

---

🚀 Usage

🔧 Compilation

make

▶️ Run the server

./ircserv <port> <password>

• <port> → The port number the server will listen on.
• <password> → Password required for clients to connect.

Example:

./ircserv 6667 mypass123

---

💻 Testing

Using nc (netcat):

nc -C 127.0.0.1 6667

You can manually send IRC commands like:

NICK user1
USER user1 0 * :Real Name
JOIN #general
PRIVMSG #general :Hello everyone!

Using an IRC client:

Connect your favorite IRC client (e.g., HexChat, irssi) to test the server.

---

🎯 Learning Outcomes

From this project, I gained knowledge in:

• Network protocols (TCP/IP, sockets, polling).
• Real-time server-client communication.
• Non-blocking I/O and multiplexing with poll().
• Writing robust C++ code under strict constraints (C++98, no external libs).
• Implementing standard IRC features and understanding the fundamentals of chat systems.

---

👤 Author

Mohamed Amzil

• 🌍 Portfolio
• 💼 LinkedIn
• 🐦 Twitter (X)