Protocol for real-time Internet chat and messaging
For other uses, see IRC (disambiguation).
Internet Relay Chat
Communication protocol
Abbreviation
IRC
Purpose
Instant messaging
Developer(s)
Jarkko Oikarinen
Introduction
August 1988; 35 years ago (1988-08)
Influenced
Not yet superseded IRCv3 (standards process working group)
OSI layer
Application layer
Port(s)
6667, 6697
RFC(s)
RFC 1459
Internet protocol suite
Application layer
BGP
DHCP (v6)
DNS
FTP
HTTP (HTTP/3)
HTTPS
IMAP
IRC
LDAP
MGCP
MQTT
NNTP
NTP
OSPF
POP
PTP
ONC/RPC
RTP
RTSP
RIP
SIP
SMTP
SNMP
SSH
Telnet
TLS/SSL
XMPP
more...
Transport layer
TCP
UDP
DCCP
SCTP
RSVP
QUIC
more...
Internet layer
IP
v4
v6
ICMP (v6)
NDP
ECN
IGMP
IPsec
more...
Link layer
ARP
Tunnels
PPP
MAC
more...
v
t
e
The first IRC server, tolsun.oulu.fi, a Sun-3 server on display near the University of Oulu computer centre
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels,[1] but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages[2] as well as chat and data transfer,[3] including file sharing.[4]
Internet Relay Chat is implemented as an application layer protocol to facilitate communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client–server networking model. Users connect, using a client—which may be a web app, a standalone desktop program, or embedded into part of a larger program—to an IRC server, which may be part of a larger IRC network. Examples of programs used to connect include Mibbit, IRCCloud, KiwiIRC, and mIRC.
IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users.[5] In April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than 200,000 users at a time.[6]
^"One-to-many". Internet Relay Chat Protocol. p. 11. sec. 3.2. doi:10.17487/RFC1459. RFC 1459.
^"One-To-One Communication". Internet Relay Chat: Architecture. p. 5. sec. 5.1. doi:10.17487/RFC2810. RFC 2810.
^Rollo, Troy. "A Description of the DCC Protocol". IRCHelp.org. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
^Wang, Wallace (25 October 2004). "Instant Messaging and Online Chat Rooms: Internet Relay Chat (IRC)". Steal this File Sharing Book (1st ed.). San Francisco, California: No Starch Press. pp. 61–67. ISBN 978-1-59327-050-6.
^Cite error: The named reference pingdom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"IRC Networks – Top 100". irc.netsplit.de. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
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