Shell account tutorial

This page is intended for ECE2524 students and others new to the concept of console-based IRC clients.

The ECE department offers shell ccounts on the CVL for Virginia Tech affiliates. Accounts can be created at this page.

The ECE2524 VM (128.173.88.125) can be accessed via SSH for CVL users, and has tmux, mosh, and weechat installed. Acidburn (acidburn.vtluug.org), the VTLUUG shell server, has a few more IRC clients installed, as well as other software and full IPv6 support.

One advantage of a shell account is that it allows one to leave an IRC client constantly connected, eliminate join/quit spam, and log missed messages to check later. In order to accomplish this, the IRC client must be run inside either tmux or screen so that it will not be killed when you disconnect from SSH.

Here's the procedure for using either the ECE2524 server or acidburn for IRC:

1. Create an account, if you haven't already.
   • For the ECE2524 VM, use this page.
   • For acidburn, come to a meeting and request an account
2. Connect to the remote machine via SSH
   • ssh 128.173.88.125 for the ECE2524 server
   • ssh acidburn.vtluug.org for acidburn
3. Begin a tmux session to allow your console to persist between logins
   • user@ece2524:~$ tmux
4. Launch an IRC client
   • user@ece2524:~$ weechat-curses
5. Now detach from the tmux session to return to a terminal while leaving weechat running
   • ^b-d (that is, press Control-b, then d)
6. To, reattach to the first tmux seesion, just use tmux a
   • user@ece2524:~$ tmux attach

Check out the tmux and screen cheat sheet for a quick reference of some of the other tmux commands. Mosh is another helpful tool you may want to use for high-latency or mobile (e.g. wifi) connections.