Hi,

I´m looking to set up a local IRC server on the latest Debian for me and some friends. I´d like to somehow restrict access to this server to only local *nix accounts.

I don´t want to make the server only accessible to users who are logged in over SSH. I also want to be able to use clients on our phones etc. I also don´t trust my friends completely, I don´t want them to be able to impersonate each other.

So, what I´m looking for is some basic auth on my IRC server, preferably something that hooks into the standard *nix accounts (via PAM?). I´ve searched around a bit, and the only things I came up with:

  • Make the server localhost only => then I won´t be able to use phone apps anymore.

  • Server password => this doesn´t solve the auth issue, my friends will still be able to impersonate each other.

  • Make the server localhost only and then let users connect via ZNC, which hooks into Cyrus SASL => this was a huge pain in the ass to set up, and still doesn´t work.

  • Do this via services somehow?

What would be the “correct” way to implement this?