GeekShed IRC Network
What is Identd?
When you use the /whois command or /ns info on yourself, you may notice the tilde before your connection information. Here’s an example:
~ilovestig@somewhere.com
That leading tilde (~) indicates that you are not running identd on your machine. As Phil explains it, identd is an age-old service that runs on port 113 and was designed for shared shells. It’s essentially a process that confirms that you are who your ident says you are. For the full, geeky details on identd, see RFC 1413.
Basically, your client sends your required ident as part of the initiation commands when you connect to GeekShed. The server then checks to see whether you have an identd running and uses the ident reported by that in your hostmask. If the server does not find identd running on your machine, it adds the tilde (~) to your ident.
Note: don’t confuse any of this with the tilde (~) you may see in your nick list as an indication of a channel’s admins. Those are nick prefixes.
How do you enable Identd on your machine?
Many clients either have Identd built in or include the option to turn it on. Check the documentation for your particular client. Note however that there are clients that will not provide support.
| Chatzilla | See How do I enable ‘ident’? |
| Colloquy | See Enabling Identd. |
| LightIRC | No longer available for use on this network. |
| Mibbit | See ident. |
| mIRC | See Why am I unidentified and what does it matter? |
| Snak | See “The server keeps saying something about ‘Ident’ problems” on the Troubleshooting page. |
| TFlash (GeekShed’s web client) | No longer in use. |
| X-Chat | See How do I enable identd in X-Chat? |
Additional Troubleshooting Information
You can connect to GeekShed even if you cannot get identd running on your machine. You’ll just have the tilde (~) show up before your connection information. If you cannot get it to work, relax because there’s no penalty.
That said, if you investigate things further, you may find that you need to open up port 113 on your firewall or enable identd on your router. For more information, check out Section 4.3. “No identd” of IRC Connection Problems or Setting Up Identd on the IRCPolitics site.
—tengrrl
June 9, 2011 - 1:25 pm
So what benefits does identd offer? I mean, why bother setting it up at all if there are no benefits for having it and no penalties for not?
June 11, 2011 - 9:24 pm
Andrew,
It’s a security feature. Some IRC networks require identd to make sure that you are who you say you are. While we don’t use it to confirm your logins, it’s one of the built-in features so we have it enabled in case it’s ever needed.
The benefit, otherwise, is that you could assume that someone who is running identd and whose nick shows up without that ~ in front of it is more genuine. I won’t jump to the conclusion that someone without the ~ is a faker though. Firewalls and routers can make that little ~ sign hard to get rid of.
~tengrrl :)
June 17, 2011 - 5:20 pm
Quoting:
> As Phil explains it, identd is an age-old service that runs on port 13
Port 13 is not ident but daytime is. Ident uses port 113 though.
June 19, 2011 - 11:54 pm
Thanks. I fixed the typo.