-Title: Connect
+Title: Connecting to freenode
Slug: chat
---
-To access the <span class="freenode">freenode</span> IRC servers, you'll first
-need an IRC client. Text clients include irssi, WeeChat, and ERC. Graphical
-clients include XChat, Smuxi, and Quassel for Unix and GNU/Linux, and mIRC for
-Windows. There is also the [freenode webchat](//webchat.freenode.net).
-Packages for various IRC clients may be included on your operating system
-install CDs and links to web sites for the client software can be found
-[here](http://www.irc.org/links.html).
-
-Once you have a client, you'll need a server. You can simply use
-`chat.freenode.net` to reach our main rotation of servers; or, you can find a
-more geographically-local server [here](#).
-
-After you've obtained your client and the name of a server, you may still need
-a bit of help in getting connected. Take a look at this
-[tutorial](http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html) or this [IRC
-primer](http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/ircprimer.html) on
-[irchelp.org](http://www.irchelp.org/) which contains a variety of other useful
-information as well.
+The freenode network can be accessed via the [freenode webchat](//webchat.freenode.net) or using an IRC client such as irssi, WeeChat, ERC, HexChat, Smuxi, Quassel or mIRC.
+You can connect to freenode by pointing your IRC client at `chat.freenode.net` on ports 6665-6667 and 8000-8002.
+
+## Accessing freenode Via SSL
+freenode provides SSL client access on all servers, on ports 6697, 7000 and 7070. Users connecting over SSL will be given user mode +Z, and _is using a secure
+connection_ will appear in WHOIS (a 671 numeric). Webchat users will not currently appear with +Z or the 671 numeric, even if they connect to webchat via SSL.
+
+In order to verify the server certificates on connection, some additional work may be required. First, ensure that your system has an up-to-date set of root CA
+certificates. On most linux distributions this will be in a package named something like ca-certificates. Many systems install these by default, but some (such
+as FreeBSD) do not. For FreeBSD, the package is named ca_root_nss, which will install the appropriate root certificates in /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt.
+
+Certificate verification will generally only work when connecting to **`freenode.net`**. If your client thinks the server's certificate is invalid, make sure you are connecting to `chat.freenode.net` rather than any other name that leads to freenode.
+
+ For most clients this should be sufficient. If not, you can download the required intermediate cert from [Gandi](http://crt.gandi.net/GandiStandardSSLCA.crt)
+and the root cert from [Instant SSL](http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-support/cert_installation/UTN-USERFirst-Hardware.crt).
+
+Client SSL certificates are also supported, and may be used for identification to services. See [this kb article](kb/using/nickcerts). If you have connected with a client certificate, _has client certificate fingerprint f1ecf46714198533cda14cccc76e5d7114be4195_ (showing
+your certificate's SHA1 fingerprint in place of _f1ecf46..._) will appear in WHOIS (a 276 numeric).
+
+## Accessing freenode Via Tor
+
+freenode is also reachable via [Tor<i class="fa fa-external-link" aria-hidden="true"></i>](https://www.torproject.org/), bound to some restrictions. You can't directly connect to chat.freenode.net via Tor
+but rather have to use the following hidden service as server address:
+
+ freenodeok2gncmy.onion
+
+The hidden service requires SASL authentication. In addition, due to
+the abuse that led Tor access to be disabled in the past, we have
+unfortunately had to add another couple of restrictions:
+
+- You must log in using SASL's `EXTERNAL` or `ECDSA-NIST256P-CHALLENGE` (more
+ below)
+- If you log out while connected via Tor, you will not be able to log in without
+ reconnecting.
+
+If you haven't set up the requisite SASL authentication, we recommend SASL
+EXTERNAL. You'll need to generate a client certificate and add that to your
+NickServ account. This is documented [in our knowledge base](kb/using/nickcerts).
+Note that due to the SSL certificates not matching the hidden service,
+you might have to disable the verification in your client.
+
+You'll then want to tell your client to try the `EXTERNAL` mechanism. We lack
+comprehensive documentation for this, but it's a feature in most modern
+clients, so please check their docs for instructions for now.
projects / irc / freenode / web-7.0.git / blobdiff