Personal:Building Irssi on a Shell Account
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Building Irssi on a Shell Account
Getting Started
In this guide it is assumed you have shell access from you bluehost account, without it you will not be able to follow this guide. Contact technical support by calling 1-888-401-4678 for more information about acquiring shell access also we will be working in the root of your account (ie /home/username) any reference to ~ or $HOME will lead to this directory.
Downloading and Unpacking the Irssi source code
First off you'll need to download the [Irssi Sources].
# wget -c http://irssi.org/files/irssi-x.x.xx.tar.gz
Of course you'll want to replace the x.x.xx with the actual version number, as of this writing it is 0.8.12. Once wget has finished downloading the file you will want to unpack the source code by entering at the shell prompt in you $HOME directory:
# tar -xzvf irssi-x.x.xx.tar.gz
this will take about 3 seconds, to complete after it finishes enter:
# cd ~/irssi-.x.x.xx
Compiling and Installation
Ok, this is where the magic occurs, we are going to build irssi and this will only take a couple more minutes. Note !!! There is an outside chance building Irssi may trigger the CPU Quota Exceeeded Error. It is rare but may still occur, your site will only be unavailable for a minute at the most, so this is safe to ignore. First we need to run the configure script:
# ./configure --prefix=$HOME
Please note the --prefix=$HOME this is **Very Important** without this line, Irssi will attempt to install to /usr/local/ which requires root access, and bluehost doesn't give it's users root or sudo access so you **HAVE** to install it to your $HOME directory. By using the --prefix switch, irssi will install to ~/ meaning the binary will be installed to ~/bin/ and the extra libs to ~/lib and you will need to put your config file as well as scripts directory in ~/.irssi/. Now once Irssi's configure script has finished, be sure to look over the bottom lines to verify configure finshed correctly. The bottom few lines should read:
Building with garbage collector .. : no If there are any problems, read the INSTALL file.
If this is true in your case, proceed on, if not... Look over the error, if a library is missing it may be possible to install said library, but we will not cover that in this guide. Moving on and assuming configure completed without error, simply type:
# make
Irssi, will now compile itself into binary form again look for any errors here, and correct said errors as needed the entire build process will take about 1-2 minutes to complete. Again, if make finishes without error, simply enter:
# make install
Running Irssi
At the bash prompt and Irssi will install to your $HOME directory. once this is done, simply type:
# ~/bin/irssi
and irssi will start and you can connect to the IRC server of your choice. To customize Irssi or set it up to auto connect to a server of your choice, etc etc. Please visit [[1]].
To avoid having to enter in the ~/bin/ all the time simply edit your ~/.bashrc file and add:
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
and you will no longer have to enter in ~/bin/
Using Screen with Irssi and Bash
I personally recommend using //screen// to run your //irssi// sessions in, so that way you can detach your irssi session without having to disconnect the client every time you close out your SSH session. Screen comes installed on your server and simply can be run by typing:
# screen
you will be given a little information and a MOTD from screen then be presented with a boring looking bash prompt at which you then type:
# irssi
The benefit of running //screen// is you can open a new bash prompt by simply Pressing and holding the Control key and pressing A then C. To switch between screens, press and hold Control then press A then 0 for the 1st screen (that will be running irssi) or pressing Control A 1 for the new bash prompt you opened up. When you are all through using your SSH session, and are logging out to go home for instance you may simply press and hold Control then press A then D to detach from your //screen// session, after which you simply exit the SSH session as normal. The next day when you come in SSH into your account and type:
# screen -r
to reattach to your previous irssi screen session.
Caveat
If for some reason screen crashed, or your server was rebooted and screen complains of dead screens, simply type:
# screen -wipe
then recreate your screen and irssi sessions.
Manpage
Of course screen has many many more options for creating sessions and ways to detach and reattach to said sessions. Please check the screen(1) man page for a full list of options screen has available. An online manpage for screen can be found [right here] but may not be up to date with the current version of screen installed on your server.
