Comments on: Lazyweb: Backing up chat / IRC logs http://www.dissociatedpress.net/2008/11/20/backing-up-chat-irc-logs/ Linux, Open Source, and Tech Journalism Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:56:06 +0000 hourly 1 By: Thomas http://www.dissociatedpress.net/2008/11/20/backing-up-chat-irc-logs/comment-page-1/#comment-57642 Thomas Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:10:29 +0000 http://www.dissociatedpress.net/?p=601#comment-57642 This is hardly precisely what you're looking for, but the most obvious and simplistic solution to your problem would be running Irssi (or some other console IRC client) in <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/" rel="nofollow">GNU Screen</a> session on some *nix box, preferably a well backed up server running behind a reliable Internet connection. You'd connect to this machine with <a href="http://www.openssh.com/" rel="nofollow">SSH</a> from anywhere and reattach your screen session with your IRC client (that never needs to be shut down). As you need other chat protocols than IRC, you could run <a href="http://www.bitlbee.org" rel="nofollow">BitlBee</a>, a IM (the most popular protocols) to IRC gateway, and you'd be all set up to run Irssi as your only chat client (as long as you don't need any of those terrible graphical smilies or video conferencing). If you log all your chat logs properly with Irssi (<a href="http://misc.nybergh.net/pub/irssi/config.example" rel="nofollow">link to a somewhat decent configuration</a>) you can search them with the usual Unix command line tools. Irssi and greppable log files are real sanity savers for me at this point. This is hardly precisely what you're looking for, but the most obvious and simplistic solution to your problem would be running Irssi (or some other console IRC client) in GNU Screen session on some *nix box, preferably a well backed up server running behind a reliable Internet connection. You'd connect to this machine with SSH from anywhere and reattach your screen session with your IRC client (that never needs to be shut down).

As you need other chat protocols than IRC, you could run BitlBee, a IM (the most popular protocols) to IRC gateway, and you'd be all set up to run Irssi as your only chat client (as long as you don't need any of those terrible graphical smilies or video conferencing).

If you log all your chat logs properly with Irssi (link to a somewhat decent configuration) you can search them with the usual Unix command line tools. Irssi and greppable log files are real sanity savers for me at this point.

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