Simple IRC Bouncer using The Lounge

September 11, 2020

I use matrix services to communicate online and to bridge into IRC channels. So the other day, Element was giving some trouble, and I was into a long conversation with someone on IRC. To access IRC, I found “The Lounge” in my Yunohost instance directory. Yunohost is a Debian distribution one can say, which provides a Web GUI to manage and install application with a few clicks doing the heavy work for you with less to non server knowhow.

Coming back to IRC bouncer, this aforementioned steps can help you setup a free IRC bouncer (through AWS EC2 free tier). You can simply login into a web interface to access IRC. There not much to do other than getting YunoHost up and this can be completed in about 30-40 minutes.

Installation

Install and configure Yunohost

Follow steps 1-4 as mentioned in table of content here. It links to my other post about Searx on Yunohost, so just referenced the same steps. Otherwise, follow the official installation guide here.

Install The Lounge

On Yunohost web interface, do Application -> Install -> Communication -> The Lounge -> Install.

Usage

Add default user for Yunohost if not already done from Users menu on interface.
Open “The Lounge” URL from Application section and login with default user created above.
Login with your IRC credentials and start chatting.

PS: The Lounge can be installed on Heroku also I believe but Heroku instances (free tier) go on sleep on 5 minutes of inactivity, so persistence can suffer. Feel free to correct me by firing a mail :) .

PSS: Other ways to install The Lounge can be found here.