How do i program a simple IRC bot in python?

python sockets irc connect bots
Jake picture Jake · Jun 3, 2010 · Viewed 62.6k times · Source

I need help writing a basic IRC bot that just connects to a channel.. is anyone able to explain me this? I have managed to get it to connect to the IRC server but i am unable to join a channel and log on. The code i have thus far is:

import sockethost = 'irc.freenode.org'
port = 6667
join_sock = socket.socket()
join_sock.connect((host, port))
<code here>

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

TheMagician picture TheMagician · Jun 3, 2010

To connect to an IRC channel, you must send certain IRC protocol specific commands to the IRC server before you can do it.

When you connect to the server you must wait until the server has sent all data (MOTD and whatnot), then you must send the PASS command.

PASS <some_secret_password>

What follows is the NICK command.

NICK <username>

Then you must send the USER command.

USER <username> <hostname> <servername> :<realname>

Both are mandatory.

Then you're likely to see the PING message from server, you must reply to the server with PONG command every time the server sends PING message to you. The server might ask for PONG between NICK and USER commands too.

PING :12345678

Reply with the exact same text after "PING" with PONG command:

PONG :12345678

What's after PING is unique to every server I believe so make sure you reply with the value that the server sent you.

Now you can join a channel with JOIN command:

JOIN <#channel>

Now you can send messages to channels and users with PRIVMSG command:

PRIVMSG <#channel>|<nick> :<message>

Quit with

QUIT :<optional_quit_msg>

Experiment with Telnet! Start with

telnet irc.example.com 6667

See the IRC RFC for more commands and options.

Hope this helps!

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