IM-account list maintenance account <action> [<arguments>] Available actions: add, del, list, on, off. See help account <action> for more information. account add <protocol> <username> <password> [<server>] Adds an account on the given server with the specified protocol, username and password to the account list. Supported protocols right now are: Jabber, MSN, OSCAR (AIM/ICQ) and Yahoo. For more information about adding an account, see help account add <protocol>. account add jabber <handle> <password> [<servertag>] Note that the servertag argument is optional. You only have to use it if the part after the @ in your handle isn't the hostname of your Jabber server, or if you want to use SSL/connect to a non-standard port number. The format is simple: [<servername>[:<portnumber>][:ssl]]. For example, this is how you can connect to Google Talk: account add jabber example@gmail.com hobbelmeeuw talk.google.com:5223:ssl Account successfully added Note that Google talk is SSL-only, but officially reachable over both port 5222 and 5223. However, for some people only port 5222 works, for some people only 5223. This is something you'll have to try out. account add msn <handle> <password> For MSN connections there are no special arguments. account add oscar <handle> <password> [<servername>] Specifying a server is required for OSCAR, since OSCAR can be used for both ICQ- and AIM-connections. Although these days it's supposed to be possible to connect to ICQ via AIM-servers and vice versa, we like to stick with this separation for now. For ICQ connections, the servername is login.icq.com, for AIM connections it's login.oscar.aol.com. account add oscar 72696705 hobbelmeeuw login.icq.com Account successfully added account add yahoo <handle> <password> For Yahoo! connections there are no special arguments. account del <account id> This commands deletes an account from your account list. You should signoff the account before deleting it. The account ID can be a number (see account list), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection. account on [<account id>] This command will try to log into the specified account. If no account is specified, BitlBee will log into all the accounts. (Including accounts awaiting a reconnection) The account ID can be a number (see account list), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection. account off [<account id>] This command disconnects the connection for the specified account. If no account is specified, BitlBee will deactivate all active accounts. (Including accounts awaiting a reconnection) The account ID can be a number (see account list), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection. account list This command gives you a list of all the accounts known by BitlBee, including the numbers you'll need for most account commands. Add a buddy to your contact list add <connection> <handle> [<nick>] add -tmp <connection> <handle> [<nick>] Adds the given buddy at the specified connection to your buddy list. The account ID can be a number (see account list), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection. If you want, you can also tell BitlBee what nick to give the new contact. Of course you can also use the rename command for that, but sometimes this might be more convenient. Adding -tmp adds the buddy to the internal BitlBee structures only, not to the real contact list (like done by set handle_unknown add). This allows you to talk to people who are not in your contact list. add 3 gryp@jabber.org grijp has joined &bitlbee Request user information info <connection> <handle> info <nick> Requests IM-network-specific information about the specified user. The amount of information you'll get differs per protocol. For some protocols (ATM Yahoo! and MSN) it'll give you an URL which you can visit with a normal web browser to get the information. info 0 72696705 User info - UIN: 72696705 Nick: Lintux First/Last name: Wilmer van der Gaast E-mail: lintux@lintux.cx Remove a buddy from your contact list remove <nick> Removes the specified nick from your buddy list. remove gryp has quit [Leaving...] Block someone block <nick> block <connection> <handle> block <connection> Puts the specified user on your ignore list. Either specify the user's nick when you have him/her in your contact list or a connection number and a user handle. When called with only a connection specification as an argument, the command displays the current block list for that connection. Unblock someone allow <nick> allow <connection> <handle> Reverse of block. Unignores the specified user or user handle on specified connection. When called with only a connection specification as an argument, the command displays the current allow list for that connection. Miscellaneous settings set [<variable> [<value>]] Without any arguments, this command lists all the set variables. You can also specify a single argument, a variable name, to get that variable's value. To change this value, specify the new value as the second argument. To get more help information about a setting, try: help set private BitlBee help system help [subject] This command gives you the help information you're reading right now. If you don't give any arguments, it'll give a short help index. Save your account data save This command saves all your nicks and accounts immediately. Handy if you have the autosave functionality disabled, or if you don't trust the program's stability... ;-) iso8859-1 you can get a list of all possible values by doing 'iconv -l' in a shell The charset setting enables you to use different character sets in BitlBee. These get converted to UTF-8 before sending and from UTF-8 when receiving. If you don't know what's the best value for this, at least iso8859-1 is the best choice for most Western countries. You can try to find what works best for you on http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html True If value is true, messages from users will appear in separate query windows. If false, messages from users will appear in the control channel. This setting is remembered (during one session) per-user, this setting only changes the default state. This option takes effect as soon as you reconnect. True If enabled causes BitlBee to save all current settings and account details when user disconnects. This is enabled by default, and these days there's not really a reason to have it disabled anymore. True Determines what BitlBee should do with HTML in messages. Normally this is turned on and HTML will be stripped from messages, if BitlBee thinks there is HTML. If BitlBee fails to detect this sometimes (most likely in AIM messages over an ICQ connection), you can set this setting to always, but this might sometimes accidentally strip non-HTML things too. False Some debugging messages can be sent to the control channel if you wish. They're probably not really useful for you, unless you're doing some development on BitlBee. ": " It's customary that messages meant for one specific person on an IRC channel are prepended by his/her alias followed by a colon ':'. BitlBee does this by default. If you prefer a different character, you can set it using set to_char. Please note that this setting is only used for incoming messages. For outgoing messages you can use ':' (colon) or ',' to separate the destination nick from the message, and this is not configurable. False Sends you a /notice when a user starts typing a message (if the protocol supports it, MSN for example). This is a bug, not a feature. (But please don't report it.. ;-) You don't want to use it. Really. In fact the typing-notification is just one of the least useful 'innovations' ever. It's just there because some guy will probably ask me about it anyway. ;-) both both, root, user, none Some people prefer themself and root to have operator status in &bitlbee, other people don't. You can change these states using this setting. The value "both" means both user and root get ops. "root" means, well, just root. "user" means just the user. "none" means nobody will get operator status. True With this option enabled, the root user devoices people when they go away (just away, not offline) and gives the voice back when they come back. You might dislike the voice-floods you'll get if your contact list is huge, so this option can be disabled. root root, add, add_private, add_channel, ignore Messages from unknown users are echoed like this by default: Unknown message from handle 3137137: j0000! 1 4m l33t h4x0r! kill me! If you want this lame user to be added automatically, you can set this setting to "add". If you prefer to ignore messages from people you don't know, you can set this one to "ignore". "add_private" and "add_channel" are like add, but you can use them to make messages from unknown buddies appear in the channel instead of a query window. Auto-added users aren't added to your real contact list. This is because you don't want the user to get authorization requests. So when you restart BitlBee, the auto-added user will be gone. If you want to keep the person in your buddy-list, you have to fixate the add using the add command. True With this option enabled, when you identify BitlBee will automatically connect to your accounts, with this disabled it will not do this. False If an IM-connections breaks, you're supposed to bring it back up yourself. Having BitlBee do this automatically might not always be a good idea, for several reasons. If you want the connections to be restored automatically, you can enable this setting. See also the auto_reconnect_delay setting. 300 Tell BitlBee after how many seconds it should attempt to bring an IM-connection back up after a crash. It's not a good idea to set this value very low, it will cause too much useless traffic when an IM-server is down for a few hours. See also the auto_reconnect setting. False By default, when you send a message to someone, BitlBee forwards this message to the user immediately. When you paste a large number of lines, the lines will be sent in separate messages, which might not be very nice to read. If you enable this setting, BitlBee will buffer your messages and wait for more data. Using the buddy_sendbuffer_delay setting you can specify the number of seconds BitlBee should wait for more data before the complete message is sent. Please note that if you remove a buddy from your list (or if the connection to that user drops) and there's still data in the buffer, this data will be lost. BitlBee will not try to send the message to the user in those cases. 200 Tell BitlBee after how many (mili)seconds a buffered message should be sent. Values greater than 5 will be interpreted as miliseconds, 5 and lower as seconds. See also the buddy_sendbuffer setting. root root, last With this value set to root, lines written in the control channel without any nickname in front of them will be interpreted as commands. If you want BitlBee to send those lines to the last person you addressed in the control channel, set this to last. False With this option enabled, root will inform you when someone in your buddy list changes his/her "friendly name". Use this setting to change your "NickServ" password. lifo lifo, fifo This changes the order in which the questions from root (usually authorization requests from buddies) should be answered. When set to lifo, BitlBee immediately displays all new questions and they should be answered in reverse order. When this is set to fifo, BitlBee displays the first question which comes in and caches all the others until you answer the first one. Although the fifo setting might sound more logical (and used to be the default behaviour in older BitlBee versions), it turned out not to be very convenient for many users when they missed the first question (and never received the next ones). True Hereby you can change whether you want all lower case nick names or leave the case as it intended by your peer. Rename (renick) a buddy rename <oldnick> <newnick> Renick a user in your buddy list. Very useful, in fact just very important, if you got a lot of people with stupid account names (or hard ICQ numbers). rename itsme_ you is now known as you Accept a request yes [<number>] Sometimes an IM-module might want to ask you a question. (Accept this user as your buddy or not?) To accept a question, use the yes command. By default, this answers the first unanswered question. You can also specify a different question as an argument. You can use the qlist command for a list of questions. Deny a request no [<number>] Sometimes an IM-module might want to ask you a question. (Accept this user as your buddy or not?) To reject a question, use the no command. By default, this answers the first unanswered question. You can also specify a different question as an argument. You can use the qlist command for a list of questions. List all the unanswered questions root asked qlist This gives you a list of all the unanswered questions from root. Register yourself register <password> BitlBee can save your settings so you won't have to enter all your IM passwords every time you log in. If you want the Bee to save your settings, use the register command. Please do pick a secure password, don't just use your nick as your password. Please note that IRC is not an encrypted protocol, so the passwords still go over the network in plaintext. Evil people with evil sniffers will read it all. (So don't use your root password.. ;-) To identify yourself in later sessions, you can use the identify command. To change your password later, you can use the set password command. identify <password> Identify yourself with your password BitlBee saves all your settings (contacts, accounts, passwords) on-server. To prevent other users from just logging in as you and getting this information, you'll have to identify yourself with your password. You can register this password using the register command. Once you're registered, you can change your password using set password <password>. drop <password> Drop your account Drop your BitlBee registration. Your account files will be removed and your password will be forgotten. For obvious security reasons, you have to specify your NickServ password to make this command work. blist [all|online|offline|away] List all the buddies in your contact list You can get a better readable buddy list using the blist command. If you want a complete list (including the offline users) you can use the all argument. Change friendly name, nick nick <connection> [<new nick>] nick This command allows to set the friendly name of an im account. If no new name is specified the command will report the current name. When the name contains spaces, don't forget to quote the whole nick in double quotes. Currently this command is only supported by the MSN protocol. nick 1 "Wouter Paesen" Setting your name on connection 1 to `Wouter Paesen' Copy local buddy list to server (normally only needed when upgrading) import_buddies <connection> [clear] This command copies the locally stored buddy list to the server. This command exists for upgrading purposes. Previous versions of BitlBee didn't support server-side buddy lists for ICQ, so the list was stored locally. Since version 0.91 however, server-side contact lists are supported for all protocols, so the local list is now ignored. When upgrading from an older BitlBee to version 0.91, you might need this command to get your buddy list back. The only argument this command needs is your ICQ account identification. If your serverside buddy list contains some old buddies you don't want anymore, you can pass clear as a second argument. After giving this command, you have to wait for a while before all the adds are handled, because of ICQ's rate limiting. If your buddy list is very large and the ICQ server starts complaining, you might have to reconnect and enter this command again.