In this guide I will be explaining to you how to set up both public and private properly protected irc channels. By learning how to do this, you'll be able to keep your channel safe from spammers, attacks, and anything else you can think of.

Now at this point I'm going to assume that you know how to register a channel, and if you don't check this out first.

With that out out of the way it's time to begin customizing your channel. Let's take this step by step.

The first thing you want to do after you register your channel is decide whether or not you are creating a public or private channel.

PUBLIC CHANNELS

SECURE

If you're making a public channel, the next thing you are going to want to do is set the channel to secure, which limits the abilities of users who do not have registered nicks. It is generally a good practice to encourage people to register their nicks.

In order to set your channel to secure simply type

SUCCESSOR

At this point you may want to consider setting somebody as successor. In doing so, should your nick become unregistered the channel will not be lost. Instead, your founder status will be transferred to the successor. However, make sure you choose your successor wisely, as your nick is no longer on the access list and it is up to your successor to set you as founder again. It is also important to make sure that the successor has not used up all of his channel ownership slots. Every user is allowed to own 30 channels. If your successor has 30 channels, and you lose your founder status, the channel will be lost as if you had not set a successor. You can set a channel's successor by typing

/cs set #channel SUCCESSOR Nickname

SECUREOPS

An option you may want to consider to prevent abuse is setting SECUREOPS on, which prevents the adding of new ops without them being on the AOP list first. This is done by typing
/cs set #channel SECUREOPS ON

KEEPTOPIC

It's generally a good practice to have KEEPTOPIC on, and you can do this by typing
/cs set #channel KEEPTOPIC ON

CHANNEL MODES

Now it's time to familiarize yourself with the Channel Modes. Now we're going to set the channel's modes. This is generally the trickiest part of setting up a channel.

MLOCK

The command that we are going to be using here is MLOCK. We set mlock by typing

/cs set #channel MLOCK +modes

However, don't type that in just yet, because now we're going to see which modes are best.

The first one that we are going to look at is mode R.
Mode R disallows users with a non registered nickname from joining the channel.

The mode that I find most important is mode f.
Mode f is the flood protection. Seems pretty simple right? Wrong! Flood protection's dynamic settings allow you to customize exactly what you want to happen.

Note that they need to be separated by commas with no spaces.

PRIVATE CHANNELS

Now we're going to take a look at what your channel needs if you are trying to make a private channel.

Generally, it is a good idea to hide your private channel using secret mode, which is +s. You could also use +p, which is private mode, but does not exclude the channel from /list, only when a person is whois'd. Mode s hides your channel from lists and whois. If you're not in the channel, then there is no indication that the channel is on the server, and you won't be able to find it with the /list command.

The next mode we're going to look at is invite only mode, which is +i on the modes list. By setting +i a user can only join the channel if they are invited by a user inside of the channel with high enough status. If you are on the access list of the channel, you can invite yourself by typing /cs invite #channel and if you are not on the access list, but wish to join the channel, you would type /knock #channel.

If you want to disable knocks, +K is the command you want. Note the difference between +K and +k

+k is the next mode, which is password protection. In order to set a password required entry on a channel, you'll need to make sure you have k as the last mode listed, and the parameter would go after any other parameters (See +f for examples). Generally, a password would be used for a channel that you don't have anything vital in.

Setting it would look something like this

+ntsfk [10j#i7,7c#C15,20m#m9,4k#K15,10n#N8]:5 password

when you set the mode.

Now that we've covered modes, here's how I set up my channel.

Do what works best for you.

ACCESS LISTS, RESTRICTED, BUILDING YOUR LIST, AND HIDING IT

Now let's take a look at ACCESS lists. An access list allows you to avoid the hassles of an invite only or password protected channel. By setting what users can join, you don't have to worry about remembering to invite the person in, or having to invite yourself in. You can enable the access restriction of a channel (which only allows people in the channel who are on the list) by typing

/cs set #channel RESTRICTED ON

Now, in order to add a user to the access list of a channel you would type

/cs ACCESS #channel ADD nickname

Now if you want to add somebody to the autovoice (VOP) list what you'll need to type is

/cs VOP #channel ADD nickname

If you want to put somebody on the autohalfOp (HOP) list you would type

/cs HOP #channel ADD nickname

If you want to put somebody on the autoOp (AOP) list you will have to type

/cs AOP #channel ADD nickname

And finally, if you want to add somebody to the autosuperOp (SOP) list you would type

/cs SOP #channel ADD nickname

We're almost done with the access list now, just one last thing. The problem with access lists are that anybody can see them. All anybody has to do is type /cs access #channel LIST and they can see who you have on your list. There's a way to fix that. What you'll need to do is type

/cs Levels #channel DIS ACC-LIST

ENTRYMSG

One last tidbit. If you don't have +i on, even on an access restricted channel people can join and see the topic in their logs. Instead of a topic, use an ENTRYMSG. You can set this up by typing

/cs set #channel ENTRYMSG message

SUMMING IT UP