Irssi setup guide: the classic terminal client, configured properly

Irssi has run in terminals since 1999 and shows every sign of running in them forever: tiny, stable, Perl-scriptable, and famously at home inside tmux on a server. Its defaults assume 1999, though — here is the modern setup.

1. Install and connect #

apt install irssi (or your distribution's equivalent), then inside:

/network add liberachat
/server add -auto -tls -network liberachat irc.libera.chat 6697

2. SASL #

Irssi supports SASL natively per network — with your registered account:

/network add -sasl_username youraccount -sasl_password yourpassword -sasl_mechanism PLAIN liberachat
/save
/connect liberachat

3. Channels and daily flow #

/channel add -auto #channel liberachat

Navigation is muscle memory after a week: Alt+1..0 (then Alt+q..p for 11–20) switches windows, /win <n> jumps directly, PgUp scrolls, Tab completes nicks, /wc closes a window. Alt+a cycles through windows with activity — the single most used key in a busy setup.

Two settings everyone ends up wanting:

/set activity_hide_level joins parts quits
/set autolog on

The first silences join/part noise in the activity bar; the second writes timestamped logs to ~/irclogs — your history, since plain Irssi has none (bouncers exist for more).

4. Scripts and theme #

Scripts are Perl files in ~/.irssi/scripts (symlink into autorun/ to load at startup). The canonical picks: adv_windowlist.pl (a proper window list bar), trackbar.pl (marks where you stopped reading), usercount.pl. Themes are single files in ~/.irssi; /set theme <name> applies.

5. The tmux pattern #

Irssi's signature deployment: on a VPS,

tmux new -s irc irssi

Detach with Ctrl+b d; from anywhere, ssh vps -t tmux attach -t irc and your client is exactly as you left it — connected the whole time, scrollback intact. This is the original poor-man's bouncer and it has outlived several generations of fancier solutions.

Irssi or WeeChat? #

Both are excellent; the honest difference is philosophy. WeeChat ships more features in-core (relay, script manager, mouse support) and evolves faster; Irssi is smaller, changes rarely, and rewards a config you write once and keep for fifteen years. People switch in both directions and lose nothing — the commands are the same everywhere.