How To Set Up Quassel Core On Ubuntu server
One of the best graphical IRC clients on Linux is Quassel. The main reason everyone seems to think it’s a great program is the Quassel “core” feature. With “core” users can install a persistent application on a remote server that will keep connections with all of their IRC rooms. From there, the user can connect to this client and never miss a message, notification, etc. Core also allows users to read-back logs, and connect multiple times with various clients, and not just Quassel. To set up Quassel core, you’ll need a Linux server that has access to the internet. If you don’t have access to a Linux server, consider getting a VPS, or at the very least install core on a PC that is always on.
Keep in mind that even though this tutorial heavily focuses on Ubuntu server, Quassel Core is available for use on other Linux server distributions. The instructions for other server distributions are similar to those for an Ubuntu user. To install the server software, open up the package manager and search for “quassel-core”.
Install Quassel Core
The remote connection tool for Quassel IRC (Quassel Core) is packaged within the Ubuntu software repositories. As a result, users should have no problem installing and setting it up. There’s no need to fiddle with anything, or manually enable modules like “LAMP” (Linux, Apache MySQL, and PHP).
To install the latest version of Quassel Core on Ubuntu server, log in over an SSH connection and enter the following command.
sudo apt install quassel-core
Running the “apt install” command should tell Ubuntu to go out and download and install the absolute latest QC packages from the software repositories. Additionally, running this command will automatically set up SSL (Secure Socket Layer), and configure Quassel with Systemd.
IP address
Core is running and is ready to go, but local Quassel IRC clients won’t be able to use the connection yet. First, you’ll need to find out the IP address of the server. To find the IP, be sure you’re logged into Ubuntu server with an SSH connection, and use the following command.
A fool-proof way to isolate the local IP address of any Linux machine is to run ip addr show, and combine it using grep to filter out 192.168.
ip addr show | grep "inet 192.168"
Copy the output of the above command, as it’s your local IP address.
Find IP With Multiple Network Adapters
Some servers on Linux use more than one LAN connection to balance out the workload. If this is the case, it’s probably best to avoid the above command, as it might return multiple addresses without any context. Instead, use “ip link” to reveal every network adapter on the machine. Then, from there, copy the local IP
ip link show
Find External IP
Using Quassel Core for IRC on a machine outside of your local area network? You’ll need the external IP address, rather than the local one. To reveal the IP address of a server, consider using the Ping tool. For example, to reveal the IP of my website, I’d run:
ping mylinuxfun.com -c1
The public IP address for this server is 159.89.34.24.
I’ll take the 159.89.34.24 and use it to connect.
Connect To Quassel Core
Connecting to the Quassel Core server requires a special version of the IRC client. If you’ve got Quassel installed, uninstall it as it will not work with Core. Instead, you’ll need to install the client app.
Ubuntu
sudo apt remove quassel sudo apt install quassel-client
Debian
sudo apt remove quassel sudo apt install quassel-client
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -R quassel-monolithic sudo pacman -S quassel-client
Fedora
sudo dnf remove quassel sudo dnf install quassel-client
OpenSUSE
sudo zypper remove quassel-mono sudo zypper install quassel-client
Open up Quassel Client. As it opens, a wizard will appear. The wizard says that it will “guide you through the setup of your Quassel Core”. Click on the message to get started. On the first page, the setup tool requires that you create a new user. Fill out the information, and use a secure password.
After the user is setup, you’ll need to configure the “Storage Backend”. Select “SQlite”, then click “commit” to set it up.
Connecting To IRC With Quassel Core
Now that a connection to the Quassel Core server is working correctly, a new wizard will appear. This time, Quassel will walk you through connecting to IRC networks. To get started, click “next” in the pop-up message.
Click through and add your “Nick”, and “Identities”. When you’re done, move on to “Setup Network Connection”. In this window, use the tool to add the IRC servers you’d like to access. Be sure to also add any chat channels you’d like Quassel to auto-connect to.
Click the “Save & Connect” button to connect Core to IRC.
