IRC Connect

is there some way i could just connect to an IRC server, or get the ping? not connect as a client, just to test connectiability?

thansk for any help

is there a shell command?

If you just want to test raw connectivity, you can use telnet to connect to any port:

telnet host.domain.dom 6667

(or another port number if the server’s not running on the normal 6667)

You’ll either get a ‘Connection Refused’ message if you can’t connect, or 'Connected to host.domain.dom.
Escape character is ‘^]’.

if the connection is successful. To break the connection, hit the escape key (Ctrl-]) and type q

However, you can’t effectively handle this in AppleScript. While you can effect the opening of the connection using ‘do shell script’, you won’t regain control of the session until the telnet session closes, but you can’t send the Ctrl-] to break it